“Then you will suffer,” Trik responded smoothly.

Trik once again picked up the pliers.

“Where is Cassie being held?”

No answer.

Two more questions and two more silence responses later, Trik, just as emotionless as before, ripped three more nails from Alok’s hands. Alok’s screams reverberated off the walls.

Vashti sat in stunned silence as she continued to struggle against the invisible hold from Trik’s power. She was sweating and though nothing had been done to her yet, she felt Alok ’s pain and dreaded what was to come.

Trik waited for Alok to compose himself. “I’m going to ask you some questions.”

“It’s not going to work, Trik, can’t you see that,” Alok blurted out interrupting the assassin. “I will scream but I will not become a traitor to my people.”

“You have one chance to answer.” Trik continued as if Alok hadn’t spoken at all.

Trik didn’t notice the look Syndra gave Tamsin, or the slight shake of his head that Tamsin responded to his Chosen. Syndra let out a deep breath but didn’t say anything.

It was much later when he broke. After all of his nails had been removed from his body, each finger broken individually by a hammer that Trik had found in the tool box, each toe broken individually by the same hammer, it was the screws that finally got him. Trik had found a Philips-head screwdriver and a handful of screws. Alok began begging him to stop after the first one had been screwed into his foot.

“Talk,” Trik told him.

“Lorsan has her. She’s staying in the castle. He, he has her on Rapture.” He stumbled over his words as the pain from his inflictions began to catch up with his mind.

Trik showed the first sign of emotion since he had begun to torture his former comrade. His lips tightened and his eyes narrowed.

“He is testing it on her, to observe the long-term effects on humans.”

“How long has she been on it?” Trik asked.

“A week.”

“Have there been any side effects so far?” Trik’s anger and fear began to increase as he watched Alok blanch at his question.

“Lorsan didn’t know what would happen,” he stammered. “He had only tried it on a few humans before and only in small doses.”

Trik took a step towards the man who he had worked with for so long. “He didn’t know what would happen?”

“It’s addictive; to some more than others. She’s addicted to it.” Alok watched as Trik’s face morphed from anger to rage. His speech increased as he tried to get out everything before Trik began to torture him again. “It took one time, one drink, and as soon as it began to wear off she was begging for more. If you haven’t noticed Lorsan has managed to block all the entry points into Sanctuary except for the one that comes directly from his throneroom. He has her dancing at Sanctuary.”

Trik lunged for the dark elf but Tamsin was there in an instant. “Wait!”

Alok let out a sardonic laugh. “You needn’t bother rescuing her, Trik. She is not the girl you knew. She would not leave with you, not unless you promised her Rapture. The girl you knew was good and pure and innocent. You knew Cassie. But it’s like the drug draws out a side of the humans that is buried deep. They lose inhibitions, but that’s not all, they begin to give into that part of them that they keep buried, the part of them that wants all the pleasures life can bring and damn the consequences. Your Chosen is sultry, sexy, and more than one elf has petitioned Lorsan to have her.”

Trik roared and Tamsin lost his grip on him. Power pulsed through the room driving the other elves to their knees. Alok and Vashti cowered in their chairs as Triktapic, King of the Elves lost his cool façade. He grabbed Alok from the chair and threw him across the room. The dark elf hit the brick wall with such force that shards of debris broke off the wall and scattered across the floor. Trik moved towards Vashti and had her by the throat in a matter of seconds.

“You are the reason she is gone. You are responsible for what is being done to her and I, Triktapic, King of the Elven race, chosen by the Forest Lords, sentence you to death.

Vashti’s face morphed into a look of contempt as she looked down at Trik.

“You sentence me to death? You have killed thousands, you have tortured thousands upon thousands and you think you have the right to sentence me to death because your little human is addicted to a plant?”

“Careful she-elf, I hold your fate in my hands. I can kill you quickly and it will be over, or I can drag it out for decades and the pain will be so atrocious that you will beg for me to break your pathetic neck,” Trik snarled. He used his power to put pressure on her mind and her organs. She would feel like she was being crushed from the inside. He watched as she struggled to breathe and panic began to settle in.

“I have killed, I have tortured, and I will suffer the consequences of my choices. That life is over for me. I am your King; you will not speak to me with such insolence.” Trik eased up on his power and Vashti took in a deep ragged breath.

“Lorsan will kill her and you,” Vashti told him. “No matter what you do to me she is already dead, and that is no more than you deserve. You should suffer as those you made suffer.” And before he could stop her Vashti produced a knife out of thin air and stabbed herself in the heart.

Trik dropped her body to the floor and it hit with a sickening thud. He looked down in disgust at the one responsible for his Chosen’s capture and knew that her words were true. He deserved to suffer. He deserved to die, but Cassie did not and he would not leave her in the hands of the Dark Elf King.