The breath was driven from his lungs for what had to have been the third or fourth time in the past hour. He coughed hard, and blood splattered his lips, a clear sign that there had been internal damage done. His lips were cut in multiple places from being hit in the mouth, and it wouldn't have been surprising if teeth had been knocked loose. His otherwise handsome face was covered in bruises, his left eye swollen so much that he could no longer open it, and the bruises remarkably resembling knuckles. His head was spinning, any attempt at thought made him want to vomit.
He could hear her screaming, begging him to stop, to let them go. He was no fool, though. No matter how much she begged and pleaded, her husband was not the kind of man to take double-crossing lightly. Adraejen had worked long enough for Duke Greer and had participated in enough of his deals and exchanges to know that his former employer would not be letting them leave alive.
That's why they had tried to leave. They had kept their relationship a secret, and a very guarded secret at that. Adraejen could only think of one or two individuals who may have known about it at all. But somehow Greer had gotten wind of their affair. Drae had gotten wind that he knew, but far too late. Now, he found himself in the very position that he had seen others who had betrayed the Duke in.
The chains that held him up bit deep into his wrists, and his shoulders ached something fierce. Constantly being hit by Greer’s hired muscle didn’t help either. Through his blurred vision, he could see that Greer was focusing his attention on his wife now, belittling her, telling her all about how good he had been to her all through the years, demanding to know why she would betray him. All the while, he was drawing a knife across the Duchess’s once lovely face, and she was whimpering and crying out for her husband to stop.
He did indeed stop for a moment, only to toss his blade onto a nearby fire to get white hot. She begged him to stop the torture, begging him to spare the life of the child they had so desperately tried to have for so long.
“Shut up, you traitorous bitch,” the duke snarled. “Do you think I will allow the bastard child of the man who betrayed my confidence to live?” he demanded of her as he backhanded her. He snapped his fingers and a searing pain shot through Adraejen’s stomach as the hired muscle pushed a knife into his belly, once then twice more, each time in places that would cause pain but not kill him. Screams ripped from Drae’s throat before the blade was removed and he whimpered in both pain and relief.
“Get him down from there now…” Greer growled. The bodyguard did as he was told and unchained Drae before dropping him unceremoniously on the floor.
“You betrayed me, Adraejen. I trusted you. You were promising, and smart, and you got me a lot of money. Why did you have to betray me?” Greer asked, trying to pretend to be disappointed. “So, to return the favor, I am going to take something of yours…” he said as he picked up the knife he had left in the fire. As he turned to his wife, Drae dragged himself slowly to his feet, in his hand a rusty iron bar that had been left carelessly on the floor. He swung hard, with what little strength he had left and clocked the bodyguard across the head, and he crumpled to the floor. Drae roared as he rushed at Greer, iron bar raised high.
There was a flash in the firelight and Drae staggered, the bar falling from his grasp as he hands clutched at his throat, trying to stop the bleeding from the gash that had just been cut across his esophagus. He fell to the floor, gasping as blood spilled from his wound.
“With all your intelligence, Drae, I’d have thought you a bit smarter than that,” Greer gloated as the world faded from Drae’s eyes. The last things the half-elf were the dying screams of the Duchess as the Duke cut into her belly.
Thunder crashed and lightning split the sky as the wagon rolled along the coastal cliff road outside of Wyllmochvar. For a brief moment, the wagon came to a halt, and the two figures driving the wagon jumped out to drop the two large bundles in the back down into the ocean below before they rolled off again.
Drae didn’t feel the chill of the rain. In fact, he didn’t feel much of anything. Everything was dark, and cold, and he felt that he was floating.
Is this… is this death? he wondered as he hung suspended in the abyss. Anger flashed through him, unbearable enough to tear his soul apart. He didn’t want to die, not like this. He wanted revenge. He wanted to destroy the man who had taken everything from him. But he couldn’t move. He couldn’t do anything.
I don't want to die like this… I will not die like this!