43. VANYA: HIS TRUE COLOURS

What I didn’t expect was for the tunnel to split into two. I had no clue which tunnel Ezra had taken so I was at a cross roads. Left or right? I swallowed and took the right tunnel. I was about halfway through when I heard it—a scream.
An anguishing cry.
Panic hit because I thought that it Ezra might have gotten hurt. So, I took off running.
A short distance later I spotted the bright lights ahead. My footsteps slowed and my face scrunched up in disgust when the smell hit me.
Urine, sweat, blood, human faeces.
With a hand covering my nose and mouth, I hesitantly stepped out of the tunnel. The colour drained from my face when my eyes fell on the man hanging from the ceiling by chains wrapped around his wrist.
Blood and what looked like pieces of skin and some bones covered the floor underneath him. The man was naked and dirty. It took me only a few seconds to notice that his skin wasn’t only covered in dried blood but vomit, bruises, cuts and faeces too.
I hadn’t walked down a tunnel, I realized. It was a hallway of a building I had never been inside. A hallway that led straight into a torture chamber.
Behind the man stood a medium-sized table against the filthy wall, and arranged neatly on the tabletop were different tools used as torture devices. Some of them were covered in blood and the others were still unused.
I was frozen in shock. My feet were glues to the floor which meant that it was impossible to move even when I spotted Obsidian.
He was slowly making his way up to the man, stopping only a few inches in front of him.
I swallowed.
Obsidian wore his usual attire—black leather pants—but he was shirtless and barefoot. Blood splatters clung to his bare chest. He was holding something small in his right hand that was dripping with blood.
For a moment he just stared at the man, and then he tilted his head to the side.
“You look like hell,” he rasped. “It’s about to get a whole lot worse. Tell me what I want to know, and you’re free to go.”
The man made a sound—something that was probably supposed to be a laugh. “Lies,” he spat. “You’ll kill me.”
“True,” Obsidian rasped. “I am going to kill you, but I’m not done playing just yet. You still have the answer to the questions I need.”
“You’re a fucking monster!”
His words had no affect on Obsidian at all.
“Who paid you to dump the body?”
The man remained silent. Obsidian stared at him for a few minutes and then he slowly smiled. A smile that showed his sharp blood stained teeth which made the man urinate.
He looked so fucking scary. It was a side of him I’ve never seen before, and it made me scared. So fucking scared.
As Obsidian walked closer to the man, he raised his bloody hand to his face and licked the blood from whatever instrument he held. He stop right in front of the man and made a show of licking the. . .knife clean. When it was done, he dropped his hand and took a step back.
“Last chance, human.”
“Fuck you.”
“I found something the other day that I’ve been dying to try,” Obsidian said as he stepped around the man and walked over to the table. “It’s called the Blood Eagle.”
Obsidian leaned over and grabbed something from the table but he turned away before I could see what it was. Instead of walking around the front to face the man, he stopped behind him.
The man screamed as Obsidian started cutting open his back. He stepped back and walked over to the table to drop the tool onto it and grab something else. Obsidian had cut the man’s skin on his back off in layers and exposed the man’s spine and ribs, before he then walked back over to the table again. For a few seconds he stared down at the instruments before he finally picked something up.
I wished I had the ability to move.
I wished I could’ve blocked out ever snap of the bone.
I wished I could’ve blocked out the man’s painful screams.
I wished I’d listened to Ezra.
I wished I’d never witnessed how Obsidian tortured the man.
I was sick to my stomach and it intensified when I realized how much Obsidian was enjoying himself.
Finally he stepped back and studied his handy work. My eyes followed one of his hands as he reached down and adjusted himself in his pants.
There was no way to stop the bile from rising when I realized how much he was turned on by the things he had just done to the man.
I turned and threw up all over the floor and my shoes.
“Vanya.”
I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand as I straightened. The acidy-taste in my mouth combined with the smell of the room, made me feel even sicker.
There was no way I could look him in the eye after what I’d seen.
“Vanya.”
I took a step back but my legs suddenly gave way beneath me and the darkness swallowed me whole.

***

Something cold was pressed against my forehead.
A delicious smell was filling my nostrils along with a foreign sound surrounding me.
Frowning, I opened my eyes and blinked at the rocky ceiling above me. My eyes instantly fell on Obsidian when I turned my head.
He was crouched next to the fire and leaning forward to stir something in a small pot placed in the middle of the small fire pit.
To my relief he was clean of blood and fully dressed.
Licking my lips, I reached up and removed the cloth from my forehead. I dropped it and slowly sat up. My head spun for a few seconds and then cleared.
“You’re awake.” Obsidian looked at me. “How do you feel?”
Weak, shaky, confused, scared, sad, but I said nothing.
I took in the big grey t-shirt I wore and frowned. Who changed me? How had I gotten here?
“Food’s almost ready.”
I ignored him and slowly got to my feet. The strange sound I had heard was the waterfall, I discovered. We were inside a cave behind the waterfall. So this is where he’s been staying.
I walked around the cave and took everything in as he finished cooking. It wasn’t long before he announced that the food was ready.
“I know you don’t feel like eating,” he rasped as if reading my mind. “But you need to eat Vanya. You need some kind of nutrition in your body.”
Obsidian watched me with hawk eyes as he sat down across from me after handing me the bowl of food. His eyes were void of any emotion—like usual.
I hated it. I hated his inability to show emotions. I hated that I loved him despite it all.
“Eat.”
My eyes dropped to the bowl in my hands. It was a stew without the vegetables—small chunky pieces of meat and a thick sauce. Somehow without tasting it, I knew I was going to like it.
“Rabbit,” Obsidian muttered. “It’s rabbit meat.”
The mention of a rabbit made me my mind trial back to that day when one of the shifters caught the rabbit. Had it been him?
I stared at the fire as I ate. After the first bite my hunger returned full force. Obsidian was a great cook, but I wasn’t going to compliment him.
“You saw it.” I it wasn’t a question.
“You enjoyed it,” I whispered.
“Yes,” he answered without hesitation. “I can’t change who I am, Vanya.”
“When we fucked, did you think of doing that to me to stay hard? Did you have to think about—?”
“You make me hard, sweets,” he interrupted. “Kissing you and touching you. It’s all you. I don’t need to think about anything to make me react to you. I—”
My eyes shot up to his when he broke off. Obsidian was staring at the waterfall, and a few seconds later I knew exactly why he had stopped. Devrim paused, dripping wet at the entrance. His eyes darted over Obsidian and then locked with mine.
I had a feeling that whatever he was here for was not something I was going to like.