Chapter 26: sit tight and let wait for death
Alaric’s POV Dungeon
The scent of rot and rust filled my lungs as I stepped into the dungeon, where silence hung heavy and cold. The walls wept moisture, every drip echoing like a clock ticking toward his end. He was exactly where I told them to keep him chained like an animal, hunched over, the iron biting into his wrists.
His eyes snapped to me the second the door groaned open. Panic bloomed instantly.
"Sire," Philip croaked, voice trembling. "I don’t know what came over me. I thought I was doing the right thing, I swear. I thought I was saving people... saving you from yourself. But I was wrong. I see that now. You’re not weak. You’re powerful, and you always have been. Please... please let me go. Don’t kill me."
Pitiful.
I walked in slowly, letting each step ring out on the stone floor. I wanted the echo to haunt him. I didn’t answer him right away. I just stared. Let him feel the full weight of my silence. Then, in a calm, unyielding voice, I said, "I’m not a forgiving person, Philip. Don’t expect forgiveness from me. That’s not something I offer not in this life, and certainly not in the next."
I rolled up my sleeve methodically. Beside me, a worn table stood against the wall its surface laid out like an altar to vengeance. On it sat a blood bag straight from the blood bank, several filled syringes of holy water gleaming with condensation, and a heavy pair of stainless-steel pliers. Waiting for me to use, my hands itch to touch one and use in him.
"You went to him," I murmured, eyes pinned to Philip’s, "hoping to scare him. Hoping to make him run from me. You acted as though you were righteous. A hero. A savior of our kind. But what are you really, Philip?"
I stepped closer, and closer still, until only inches separated us. The air between us thickened. I could hear the uneven, stuttering rhythm of his dead heart a pathetic attempt at bravery, failing fast.
"You’re just a coward," I said, softly. "A coward hiding behind fangs."
He flinched the moment I reached for the table. I didn’t touch the holy water. Not yet. Instead, I let my hand hover over the pliers, just long enough for dread to coil in his gut.