A Battle of Blood and Stone (Chronicles of the Stone Veil 4)

What mattered was where he was not, and that was with Finley.

Carrick raged with fury every time he thought about the look on Finley’s face when she finally realized the truth about herself, then the horror when Rune snatched him away. In an overly dramatic fashion, Rune had actually thrown their bodies off the side of the building, knowing it would freak Finley out.

And it did.

Whenever he thought about the fear in her eyes as they disappeared over the edge, it made him grind his teeth so bad that they were in danger of wearing down to nothing. Of course, Rune merely bent distance as soon as they were in a free-fall and Carrick had ended up here.

Because demi-gods are servants of the gods, they must do as they are bid. As easily as a demi-god had been created, he or she could be uncreated.

Meaning, Carrick had no means to fight against Rune’s imprisonment or protest the hard labor Rune had him doing. For days, he’d been forced to move rocks and boulders from one part of the cavern to another for no apparent reason other than Rune wanted him to work continually.

Carrick was up to the task, having incredible strength and power, but it was the futility of it that started to wear on him. He could take the backbreaking work, the burns from the fires, and the slices of the whip. He could handle any torture Rune thought to bestow upon him, and he could handle them for an eternity if he had to.

What he was having a hard time handling was the maddening unknown of what was going on in the Earth realm with Finley. She was trying to stop a prophecy from fulfilling, and he had pledged to help her do it.

Fuck, he had pledged to love her for eternity, then that asshole Rune took him away before she could even process it. Carrick knew how that beautiful mind worked, and he was sure she was pissed he was gone and feeling a bit lost at the same time.

Another spray of fire shot out between a crack in the stone he walked over, this time catching his bare foot and causing him to hiss. Upon his arrival, Rune had divested Carrick of his clothing and only given him a loincloth to wear.

Which was fine by him because it was an inferno in this place.

Carrick readjusted the boulder slightly as he continued the slog uphill. When he reached the top, he squatted and let it fall from his shoulder to the ground. He took care with unburdening his load because he also got lashes if he broke a boulder.

There was no clock by which to mark the passage of time. Carrick merely worked until he was told to stop. An ordinary day would have some hulking beast that looked like a man with fur all over him and a black executioner’s mask covering his face driving Carrick off the plateau where he had unloaded the boulders. He was pushed down into a small valley—no more than a large crevice among rock formations that was maybe a hundred feet wide, and then to a small cell carved into the cavern wall.

Before being allowed to rest in his cell, Carrick had to receive whatever lashes he’d earned. Rune always made sure to appear so he could watch, usually lounging on a ridiculous-looking chaise with a table of food laden with all kinds of delicacies. If he thought that would torture Carrick, he was wrong. Food and luxuries were irrelevant in a place like this. Carrick had endured hardships far worse, and Rune knew it. All of his little displays of power were nothing more than a vain attempt to humiliate Carrick, which frankly, could not be done.

The man-beast gave Carrick a hard shove between his shoulder blades toward a wooden St. Andrew’s cross where he’d eventually shackle Carrick to receive his lashes. Not that Carrick needed to be chained. He’d take his lashes only because he knew this was nothing more than a game to Rune. If he reacted or showed emotion, Rune would win.

Carrick’s jailer shoved him again, harder this time. He wasn’t expecting it and stumbled slightly. When he righted himself, he was shoved again.

For days upon days, Carrick had taken these little aggressions without so much as a backward glance. But the last shove broke something in him that he didn’t know was fragile. A rush of rage swept through him, and, without thought, he half-turned and backhanded the man-beast in the center of his chest.

It was done with such force and full demi-god strength that the creature went flying twenty feet through the air where he landed with a thud on the hard-packed dirt. Carrick knew the creature was a Dark Fae and wasn’t hurt. This was evidenced by the fact it scrambled to its feet with a growl, but Carrick could see its eyes were wide with astonishment behind that mask. While Carrick knew it was fae, it had no clue what Carrick was.