Villains Read Online Free Page B

sneered. His body twisted constantly, the tentacles looking for somewhere to settle.
    Tor shook his head. “I am no king.”
    Darkesh growled and the ground shook. “You are the twelfth!” he roared. “You will join us or you will pay the price.”
    Cassareece looked stricken, as though the consequences Darkesh could unleash were something even she was afraid of. “Agree to our tenet, Toraque. I will make it worth your while.” A sweet smile spread across her face, which was both beautiful and dark at the same time. Her blue lightning eyes crackled. “Do it before it’s too late.”
    “No.” Tor made eye contact with her, making sure his words struck her. It was more than a no to join them, for Cassareece it was no to being with her, no to being one of them, no to everything she was that he was. It was the utter denial of everything he had come to know.
    A shadow crossed her face, a faint redness tickling her cheeks. She lifted her chin and Tor laughed on the inside, watching her hold back tears. “You will be sorry for this Tor, mark my words. I will make sure nobody on this land eats for an entire year.”
    Tor’s eyes widened. “That will kill them!”
    Cassareece sniggered. “You should not be so careless with your decisions.”
    Tor glanced at Joviasson and Darkesh, but their faces were masks of glee and terror. Cassareece stepped away first, going back the way they came. Even as she became a silhouette in the dark, her laughter rose, traveling with the wind and chilling Tor’s insides. He let out a breath when he could no longer see their threatening forms and ducked into the tent. Desaunius knelt in front of the altar, rocking back and forth, holding her hands close to her chest, a rough diamond in her palms.
    She glanced at him, her eyes bloodshot, and cheeks splotchy. “They cannot take you when I’ve only found you.”
    Tor rushed to her side and knelt beside her, pulling her hands away from her chest and placing the diamond on the altar. He wrapped his arms around her as she pressed her forehead to his shoulder, tears thickening and streaming down her face. “They can do their worst, I won’t leave.”
    Desaunius shook her head against his shoulder. “I don’t understand what they want. Why you?”
    Tor held her tighter, his stomach groaning. “I’m the one that can change the way things are.”
    “Will you?”
    Tor smiled. “Aye.”

    Tor heard the screams before he saw the fields. They began as back of the throat cries and melded, becoming blood curdling screams that startled Tor out of his floor-ridden cot. He threw on a beige tunic and didn’t bother with the sandals. Desaunius tried to stop him but his big arms pushed her aside, making her fall into a heap on the animal hide.
    “It’s madness out there!” she shouted after him as he pushed open the canvas and jogged down the trail. He moved westward across the village, passing the familiar walkways, morning smudge hastily lit. He skirted around the bonfire and continued down the winding paths between the trees, bushes and tents, the yelps only gaining more agitation as more and more villagers found their way to the crest of the hill overlooking the fields.
    When Tor reached it there was a crowd perched there, shoulders sagging, tears streaming down faces, hands covering eyes. He shouldered his way through them. Blackness skated across once green grass, creating track marks in the soil. Fire covered most of the fields in treachery, taking with it the leafy green leaves that housed the silver quenny fruit.
    He followed the lines of fire as far as his eyes could take him, past the first squares of field and the path of trees on the south side, all the way to the gray streaked horizon, smoke making an artificial fog in the distance.
    There was movement rustling behind him, a jangle of feathers, fur and beads. Tor heard a staff press into the ground, a dull thud, thud, thud across the grass. Villagers moved out of the way until Skeld