The Destroyer Book 4 by Michael-Scott Earle Read Free Book Online

million questions flooded my brain, and for a few seconds I could not make sense of anything except terror.
    Absolute terror.
    “Our friends did not think to inform me of your capture,” she sneered as she looked over her shoulder at the four other generals. I was high enough off the ground now to see their expressions. They looked almost as scared as I was.
    “Shlara, we — ” Malek began.
    “Shut the fuck up!” she cut him off. “I’ll deal with your failures later.”
    Her helmet had been modified to cover the lower half of her face. Her green eyes were still visible, but the skin surrounding them was burned and scarred like my left hand. Her irises seemed to glow with insanity.
    “You thought I was dead. You thought that our business was finished, didn’t you Kaiyer?” Her grip tightened around my throat and the scent of my blood mixed with the rotting stench of her flesh.
    I tried to answer but she was crushing my windpipe and I could only gasp. I thought she might relax her hold to allow me to speak, but instead she tightened her grip and my vision swam.
    “Answer me, you fucking asshole!” She had always been strong, but I would have never believed she would have the strength to pick me up one-handed and pull me against the chains like this.
    “You are choking him,” Alexia muttered from behind Shlara.
    “So what if I am?” Shlara let me go and the chair fell back onto the stone floor with a jarring smash. I breathed deeply and fought against a gasp of pain.
    “If you want him to answer you then — ”
    “Shut up!” Shlara screamed and Air punched through the room. My chair flew over backward and I had to pull my neck forward to prevent my skull from being crushed on the floor. Malek, Thayer, Alexia, and Gorbanni hung flattened against the far wall as if invisible hands held them up. Panic was plain on their faces.
    “Why do you think you can question me?” Shlara pressed her face to Alexia’s. She must have leapt over the table in the half-second I was falling back in the chair.
    “I’m sorry,” Alexia whispered. She had always been fair, but she looked almost white now.
    “Sorry for?”
    “Questioning you,” the blonde woman stammered and turned her head away from Shlara as much as she could. Alexia was not afraid of anything. Man, woman, Elven, I doubted she had even blinked as the dragons descended in the final battle. I had counted on her thousands of times to be the unemotional tester of my strategies.
    I felt the Air leave the room and the four warriors slid down from the wall. Shlara then turned her insane eyes on me and slithered over to my chair. Her armored hand stroked my cheek tenderly and her breath came out in painful spurts.
    “Do you know what this feels like? Being roasted alive like a pig? The itching, the burning, the stench of my own body? Can you guess, Kaiyer?” I closed my eyes and fought back tears. I had heard her scream and watched her die.
    “I would like you to imagine the pain of this Fire. It burned straight through my flesh, to my bones, so hot they turned to ash. I tried to heal through it, but my mind was too focused on the pain of your betrayal. That pain was much worse. Everything you have ever told me was a lie. I believed in you, in your promises, in the future you sold to me. I planned my life around the deception you worked so hard to make me believe. I gave up every other chance I had for happiness for the hope that you would finally do what you promised.” Her claws continued to stroke my face. They were like alligator talons that could shred my skin to tatters with a quick flick of her wrist.
    “You told me that we would be together after the war. You promised me children and a life. You promised to love me forever.” Her hand lifted my chin and I opened my eyes to meet her stare. She didn’t blink. She screamed so loud that I felt my ear drums seize and sputter. My hair was long enough for her to grab and she yanked my head back. “Why