The Immortal Chronicles | | b o o k 2

14. hellish affliction

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IMMORTAL CHRONICLES : BOOK ONE : beck dedrick

. . .

Beck Dedrick had gone through his fare share of torture—physically and emotionally destructive torture, as well as the sort that played out in the bedchamber—but Vene Aminoff was a different sort of sadist. Roslyn rarely ever gloated over the success of her latest poison dosages, but she sure did love talking about the art of producing the greatest batch of lethal substances. Her greatest accomplishment was the kiss of death—sealing her lips in a single layer of protection, before coating a limited supply of poison on the plump, round curve of her bottom lip. No more than ten seconds would pass after the kiss before Ros found herself underneath a corpse.

He loved her stories when he wasn't on the other end of them.

At the moment in time where he recalled Ros' kiss of death, he was in a peculiar state of clarity that was the lull in Miss Aminoff's hellish affliction. Neither Ros nor Miss Aminoff seemed to have prepared themselves for the worst—reaching the end of the poison box. He was under the impression that was all Miss Aminoff knew and recognized, and anything in Ros' chamber could kill rather than torture.

At least I'm wanted alive—for now, Beck muttered to himself, his eyes turned up to the tapestry draped in the sitting room. One thing was certain—he'd lost most of his interest in pursuing Miss Aminoff.

"I must ask you something." If he could have jumped, he would have.

He felt as though she'd stabbed a metal pole down the length of his spine, and it caused his entire mouth to taste disgustingly like blood. Ros' bloody cloth was a completely different story in comparison to the gelatin feel of coagulated blood on his tongue.

It took him a moment to gain control over his salivation before talking again. "What—What did you give me?"

"That's none of your concern," she said in a sharp tone. He couldn't see her until she stepped around to his line of vision, just on the edge of it. She watched him, and for a moment he wondered if she was even blinking. "How much do you know about me."

He cleared his throat, nearly losing his breath over it. "What?"

"What do you know about me. Your employer didn't send you to me blind—you clearly know a thing or two about me and what I am capable of," she explained. She knelt down next to him, and picked up his limp arm to check his pulse. He was foggy, as if he couldn't gain control of his own eyesight anymore. Staring at the pattern of the tapestry seemed to have done a number on his reaction time.

No harm in telling her what she already knows, Beck sighed. "Th-They gave me documents on you. You went to Cape Iticus Academy and you graduated almost top of your class—not quite, because despite Ros' help, you still lack in the chemistry department. After that you dropped off the face of the planet, except for a series of killings you haven't been pegged down for yet, I assume. You were eighteen when you enrolled in Cape Iticus, and you had all records of your existence beforehand erased. Your surname, Aminoff, suggests you were married, or raised in Damunt, but that's just my guess. You look Damunian to me, but your skin is darker which suggests one of your parents came from Procella or-"

"That's enough." She was out of his vision in one, slow, tedious blink of his sluggish eyes. His head lolled unwillingly to the side, so he couldn't quite tell what, exactly, was her reaction to the information. The story of her roots was a touchy subject, that much was certain, but he couldn't tell whether or not he was correct in his assumptions when he couldn't see a damn thing.