Rainbow Comet Chapter 26

“So stupid, you never learn, do you?” He laughs, and his long tongue swipes out of his mouth. “All I have to do is threaten a child and you come running. Just as reported.”

Brett

“They’ll never be able to find you,” the nightmare in front of me says. “I can assure you of that.”

He has dark pink hair, an odd color for a nightmare. But it’s a sickly pink, like skin the wrong color. Like strangled faces.

Like rough tongues.

He wears a dark pink robe, open at the chest.

I can tell he thinks he’s attractive. He has me bound to a stone table and tilted up so I’m mostly standing, but my feet rest on a small ledge. My hands are bound above me to each side, and my legs also, so I feel a bit like a starfish.

But I’m not afraid of this thing.

“So stupid, you never learn, do you?” He laughs, and his long tongue swipes out of his mouth. “All I have to do is threaten a child and you come running. Just as reported.” He comes in close, makes as if to lick me. I pull back, dodging.

For now, he makes no attempt to try again.

Even now, he only seems to want to taunt me, coming in close then moving away.

Not taking whatever it is he wants, just feeding on the menacing way he is behaving.

Like he expects it to scare me. Well, he doesn’t know Boreas Everfrost the third.

“I don’t think it’s stupid,” I say. “It’d be stupider not to come when a child is in trouble. I’m nothing compared to the future, the next generation of titans. With time, and training, they will be better than me. As long as we give them better than we have—“

He closes a hand over my throat, making it hard to breathe.

But I just grin up at him. Fae of my type don’t need oxygen. He hisses and lets go.

“I forgot about that. What would scare you then?”

I grimace, thinking before I can help it, betraying my love.

He smirks at me, his hand moving over to my shirt, unbuttoning the top one.

“Nightmare, you will pay for this,” I say.

“I’m just toying with you, just playing around for now. I know not to mess with the unicorn.” He purses his lips in a look I think I’m supposed to find attractive. “But my people are desperate now.”

I’m going to show him another one of my cool weapons when I get free.

“If you get free,” he says. Reading minds and desires and adapting is one of the nightmare’s powers. He paces in front of the stone. “We have some time, because I sent my army to slow your people.” He taps his chin with one unnervingly long, thin finger. “Let’s see, I die if I attack you, we all die if I don’t.” He gives me a lascivious grin. “Not that I care what happens to them, but if I die either way…” he looks over me. “I might as well eat something…sumptuous.”

I shiver under his gaze against my will. Something about the way he stands, moves and talks is so unnerving.

I’m not scared, just incredibly turned off.

He’d better not do anything. I know Flynn will kill him first. I know he and Moonbow will be here in time.

He looks at the clock on the wall. “I kind of doubt it. I’ll have you by midnight, you know.”

“No, you won’t,” I say.

“We’ll see,” he says, reaching for and undoing another button. “Gods, you are a fat one. I’ve never seen a fae like you.” He prods into my stomach, letting his finger bounce back dramatically.

I just laugh. “All the harder for you to eat.”

He smirks. “I don’t eat people, I eat pain.”

My smile drops. “What?”

“Like the pain you’d feel if I took you before your friends could get here.” His hand undoes another button. “Before your man could get here.”

My eyes widen, but then I relax. I’m still glad I came to help children, even if this was a trap.

Hopefully I taught them something about titans.

“You really don’t care about yourself, do you? What about your lover’s feelings?”

“I don’t think he’d want a lover who would think about himself and let down a kid in slavery. I’ve already had freedom. Those kids hadn’t.”

He scoffs, folding his arms and turning away. “I should have kept one to torture you with, then.”

I shake my head. “I would know an angel would take their death. I will always do anything to save them, but I won’t be blackmailed by their safety. I’ve found it doesn’t work anyway. Once I give in, I’m powerless, and then they are hurt the way they would have been anyway.”

He walks over and falls against the stone I’m on with a thud, putting a hand on both sides of my head and peering into my eyes.

His look like toxic pink waste. They seem to emanate chaos.

“I was a radiant fae once,” he says. “But you can’t win, being a nice guy.”

I roll my eyes. “No true nice guy ever says that.”

He undoes another button. “Well, I’m no longer a nice guy.”

“If you ever were. Maybe you had the blood, but you seem to have always been an agent of chaos.”

“Bad parenting,” he says.

“Bad choices,” I correct.

He shrugs one shoulder. “You’re so interesting. Now I want to have you for real. Maybe I’ll eat your dick in front of you.”

My eyes widen, and I can tell he gets a glimpse into my soul because of my rising energy.

“Ah, you fear that. Something you fear.”

I shake my head, regaining my calm. “It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what you take from me or do to me. I know my man will come, and fix what you’ve broken. I know the universe doesn’t make mistakes. This is all fake.”

His mouth closes over mine, and he bites my lower lip cruelly, drawing instant blood.

“You taste amazing,” he says moving down my body, licking my chest and going for another button,

When he reaches my belt, he struggles to undo it. But it’s a security device as well.

“For now, I’m just going to eat your fluids. I have no choice or else I’ll die, so I might as well try. So just hold still while I figure out this contraption.”

I struggle. Like hell I’d stay still.

Flynn, I call out in mindspace. Hurry the fuck up. Where are you?

But I hear nothing back.

He’d better be on the way, or I don’t know what will be left of me.