Severing Sanguine: A Companion Book to The Fallocaust Series Book 2 (49 page)

Then Elish turned around.

And I realized, he hadn’t been crying – he had been laughing.

“You delusional fool…” Elish whispered through a smile. “You weak, insane creature… he’s going to destroy you. He will utterly, unrequitedly, destroy you.”

Without another word, Elish left, closing the door behind him. I glared at the door before, even though Elish couldn’t see me, I drew Silas closer to me and turned my head so my forehead was against his.

Several minutes later a remote phone in the living room rang.

Like a spring Silas woke up, which I found odd because though Elish and I were trying to keep our voices down I had assumed if anything that would have woken him up. But then again back with Jasper I would sleep through Jasper talking to me, yet if I heard one of my crows outside I woke right up.

“Get the phone, lovely,” Silas murmured. “Kinny’s not home.”

“E-Elish is in the living room…” I stammered, realizing that Elish could very well be up to something right now. “Do you want me to still…”

“Elish?” Silas opened his eyes and glanced at the living room door. “He must want to speak about what happened. You may sleep more or join me.” The king rose and stretched, before walking to the door and opening it.

Silas disappeared into the living room and I heard their exchanged greetings. Suspicious of this I followed King Silas.

Elish handed the phone to Silas and gave me a look of disinterest, like he didn’t just verbally thrash me in the bedroom. I walked to the couch and grabbed my red blanket before curling up on the soft fabric.

I glared at Elish as Silas started talking on the phone.

But this polished, radiant-looking chimera didn’t meet my glare. There was not a single expression out of place that would suggest we had just exchanged scathing words. It frustrated me, if I was going to have a new enemy I would rather he show the same hostility back to me.

“Really?” Silas’s voice made my gaze turn. “This moment?” He pulled the phone away from his ear and looked at Elish. “Perish had a breakthrough?”

Elish nodded but my eyes narrowed.

“I just spoke with him,” Elish said. “He has a baby that is in its second trimester. The laboratory in Kreig suffered a greyout and the steel mother was offline for five minutes but the baby still lives.”

The phone slipped out of Silas’s hands and landed on the floor with a thud. When he turned to Elish I saw a look of shock on his face. It filled his eyes to the point where I could see the emotion radiating off of them.

“He… he might have a… a born immortal?” Silas whispered. “Which one?”

“I believe it was the baby you decided to name Adler,” Elish responded. “Reaver was the child that died last year at four months, and another Adler and a Linnix died at two months. We already have several embryos of each of your chosen names ready for our next round of tries.”

Silas put a hand to his mouth and nodded with eyes fixed forward. “I wanted my love to be named Reaver but I will take any of the names I assigned the born immortal embryos at this moment. Elish… I need to go to Kreig.”

A tremor of terror ripped up my spine. I looked over at Elish but I might as well of been invisible to him.

What was he planning? I wasn’t an idiot, I had learned the games of men years ago and I knew, as sure as I could see Crow staring at me from the open bedroom door, that Elish was up to something.

“I’ll take on duties as king, Master Silas,” Elish said with a confident nod. “I’ll talk to Kessler and see about you getting a ride to Kreig now.”

“Good, do it,” Silas responded. “I want to make sure Perish isn’t going to do anything to jeopardize that baby…” Then I saw a smile break his lips. “My life would be complete again if I could… if I could get my Sky back.”

Elish smiled thinly.

Then, before Elish turned and left the apartment, I saw the mask slip from his face. For a brief moment the chimera’s eyes met mine, and in them I could see the smug look of satisfaction.

I glared at him, before speaking out loud. “Master Silas?”

“Yes,
crucio
?” Silas said in a haste. He had picked up the phone but I assumed the man named Perish wasn’t on the other end anymore because he put it into his pocket.

“Can I come too?” I asked.

To my surprise Silas’s lips pulled. “No, not this time. I won’t be gone for long. If this baby is what I’m looking for I’ll be bringing the steel mother to the apartment so I can watch over him. I will only be gone for two days, perhaps three.”

I couldn’t come? Elish’s eyes broke from mine as if he knew this would happen. He left without a word, leaving me on the couch feeling exactly what I am sure he wanted me to feel.

“You’ll be bringing the baby here?” I asked, leaning my head against the back of the couch as he started running around packing things. I remembered what a steel mother was from my first and only counselling session with Mantis. I had come from one myself.

Silas nodded. I glanced to my side and saw Kinny coming in with a laundry basket, the kitten bouncing behind him trying to swipe at what looked like the belt of a robe.

“Kinny, pack me,” Silas said hastily. “I’m leaving for several days, help pack and get to the plane.”

“Kinny gets to go but I don’t?” I said. I was trying not to whine but Elish’s sinister motives were forefront in my mind. “Why?”

“Kinny is staying to look after you.”

“Why can’t I come though?”

Silas pursed his lips and to my surprise the smile that he had seemed forced. “Because I need… to not have to worry about you doing something. I won’t be long.”

“Do something?” I asked with a frown. “Like what?”

Silas gave me a sharp look. “I have other things on my mind and I don’t have the time to sit you down and point out the destruction you have caused while being here. Or have the fun conversation about what could possibly go wrong with not only you but that delusion you converse with inside of your head. Now enough of this, and I will tolerate no more whining.”

I felt like he had just hit me with a sledgehammer. I stared in shock as his hurtful words stabbed me and the affection I had held for the king. Each painful octave skinning me alive, with no care whatsoever to how they made me feel.

Silas turned from me and started ordering around Kinny. Leaving me on the couch, stunned and offended… and wondering if Elish was right, that my novelty had just worn off.

The humiliation set in not soon after. I rose to my feet feeling flushed and embarrassed over his scathing dismissal of me, and crawled into my den in the far corner of the living room. I curled up with my blanket and stared at the wire fencing of my cage. I knew then that I wasn’t going to come out for anything. I was too hurt and much too embarrassed.

After an hour went by I saw King Silas kneel in front of my den. “Are you going to come out and say goodbye to me?”

“No,” I said flatly.

Silas sighed before rising to his feet. “Well, when I come back perhaps you’ll be done pouting. I suppose that is better than you destroying the apartment or killing Kinny. Behave yourself and while I’m gone: Elish is king and in charge.”

I stared at his feet, feeling a nervous churn inside of my gut.
Elish was king?

“Can’t Nero be king?” I asked from inside my den.

Silas chuckled like this was the most absurd thing to be asked in the history of the world. “Of course not. If Elish mistreats you, you may stay with Nero but you are forbidden from running away, understand? You will not run away like you did before. That is a direct order.”

I just wanted him to leave me alone and stop treating me like a damn child. His patronizing tone rivalled Elish’s – or perhaps Elish’s rivalled his.

“Okay,” I responded, and after a brief goodbye, King Silas was gone.

I sighed and since Silas was gone and only Kinny and Jett remained I laid down on the couch and distracted myself with school work.

“Master Sanguine…” Kinny’s voice trailed as I reached for another cream-filled donut. I gave him a look that dared him to tell me I had had enough donuts because I knew that’s where his voice was leading.

“You’ve had eight,” Kinny said cautiously. “You already threw up twice from eating too much, you don’t need more…”

“Since I threw up, my stomach is empty,” I said to him acerbically. “So that means I have room for more.”

Kinny kneaded his hands, and his thin bottom lip turned a shade of white as his tooth pressed down on it. “That’s not healthy…”

“Do I look like someone who cares about being healthy?” I snapped, making the sengil shrink down. I let out a breath of air through my nose, and started eating my ninth donut. Kinny left me alone after that.

These donuts had been brought by an elite who I didn’t care about, probably wanting to curry the king’s favour while he was safely away in the greywastes. All of the elites that had come to visit Silas over the last several months usually came in pale and looking like they had been stricken with some sort of sickness. They were stressed out and shaky at having to have a personal summons by the king, so obviously they had fucked up one way or another. Either way it wasn’t my concern, they brought food and the more I lingered in this apartment… the more I ate.

And at that mental admission I reached and grabbed a square of fudge and shoved it into my mouth. Glaring at Kinny the entire time, daring him with my eyes to say something about it.

Kinny sighed and grabbed a square of fudge for himself. “King Silas will be home tonight, at least you listen to him.”

I grunted and went back to watching the television. I hadn’t touched my school work since the hours after Silas had left me and felt little desire to do it.

“I wonder if there has been a fat chimera?” Crow mused. The entire time I had been eating he had been sitting at the opposite end of the table, watching me with his chin cradled in his hands. “Sanguine the fat chimera. Look how stealthy he is as he wheezes from the exhaustion of climbing a set of stairs!” Crow chuckled.

I threw my piece of fudge at him which he ducked. “No one asked you,” I said, though I put my half-eaten donut down. My clothing was getting tight but that was supposed to happen. I had only weighed ninety-seven pounds when I had come here, and I was at one hundred and fifteen now. Silas says I had to be at least a hundred and fifty to be healthy according to my height (I was six foot two apparently), but I didn’t think I wanted to weigh that much, even though Silas said it would be muscle.

“What was that?” Kinny asked from the kitchen.

“I was talking to Crow,” I called back picked up the donut again even though I had just decided I wouldn’t eat it. I brought it to the window and started looking out at the cityscape.

Four days had passed since King Silas had gone into the greywastes. In that time I had done nothing but eat, watch television, and argue with Crow. For the most part Kinny stayed out of my hair, it was only when I really started screaming and fighting with Crow that he got nervous and called in a thien to sit with him. I didn’t know what the thien was supposed to do if I did attack Kinny and I don’t think he did either, but whatever made him feel better.

I had been in a foul mood and eating had helped distract me from my own thoughts. My mind kept turning over Elish’s dark omens and with every turn they contaminated my brain with their acidic words. I found myself more and more worried that Elish had planned to get King Silas away from me and that was building on a rather thick foundation of paranoia.

Everything about that blond chimera set me on edge. And it wasn’t only that I believed he was trying to get Silas away from me so he could do something to me, but also the stern warning that the king would get bored of me once my novelty wore off. I had so many things to worry about now it was hard to focus on just one.

Though it looked like I didn’t have to worry about Elish planning something. King Silas was going to be home in several hours, and I hadn’t seen Elish since Silas had made him temporary king. Maybe the phone call was just a coincidence and I was looking into it too much.

I winced and looked down, realizing I was clawing my arm again. Inside of my head Crow whispered at me to dig my nails in deeper and get a good chunk out. I did it, only because if I didn’t he would bug me until I did. Though sometimes I could fight off his pushed words, like when he was egging me on to hurt Kinny. If it was just self-masochism though I gave him what he wanted, at least I was only hurting myself that way.

“Though it would be interesting to find out just how Kinny’s blood tastes,” Crow said with a vile lick of his lips. “Chimeras have a different flavour to them. I wonder if sengils do too?”

I shrugged and brought the rest of my donut to the living room couch. It was five o’clock and that meant Three’s Company was on the Vintage Channel.

I was just starting to get settled in for a couple hours of television with Jett on my lap, when there was a sudden banging on the door. Before Kinny could even get two steps towards the door to answer it, it opened.

Garrett, Elish, Nero, and Ellis all walked through.

I blinked, confused as to why they were all here, and made a jolt towards running towards my den.