Sin of Fury

Sin of Fury

A NOVEL BY

Avery
Duncan

The characters and events in this book
are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons,

Living or dead, is coincidental and not
intended by the author.

Copyright © 2013 by Avery
Duncan

All rights reserved. Except as
permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no

part of this publication may be
reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form

or by any means, or stored in a
database or retrieval system, without the prior

written permission of the
publisher.

First Edition: November 2012

The publisher is not responsible for
websites (or their content) that are not owned

by the publisher.

Library of Congress
Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Duncan, Avery

Amethyst/ Avery Duncan

 
p. cm.

ISBN-13: 978-1481117531

ISBN-10: 148111753X

1. Paranormal—Fiction. 2.
Creators—Fiction.

3. Romance—Fiction.

I. Duncan, Avery. II. Title.

PS1234.A123G12 2012

123’.12—ab12
                                                                                    
2012123456

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

RRD-C

Sin of Fury

Avery Duncan

Chapter 1

Silence had become his lullaby. It was
the soft call that brought him from the dead, that called to him
and soothed him. With silence there was no pain. No past. No
dreams. No cries of anguish or growls of rage. It was the one thing
he accepted, and the one thing that accepted him. It was as
precious as the sound of a feather falling through the wintry sky.
So quiet and serene, it was the only thing he could take for
himself.

It was what Talon
understood most — the
only
thing he understood. Besides the darkness, silence
had become his friend and it seemed as if nothing else would take
its place.

The flutter of bats in the night, the
rustle of leaves from dying trees, the frigid howl of the wind...
It was all soothing, curing, but not as much as the silence. The
comfort stayed with him through the darkest parts of the night,
when not even a rat would dare scatter across the floor.

Darkness wrapped around him, shrouded
him in a cool blanket. He was trapped, taken, and tortured. To
them, he was a monster. He deserved what he was dealt. Pleased
smiles and bloodied hands were the only things he was given. No
solitude, no mercy.

The innocent light of the shimmering
moon was the only thing allowing him to see his surroundings. The
walls that caged him left him shivering. There was no reason for
warmth — warmth meant sympathy, sympathy meant mercy, and mercy was
something he wouldn’t be granted. It was a known fact by the two
men who took their pleasures in torturing him.

His arm stung, badly enough that he
barely noticed his other wounds. Eyes, the color of melted silver
took in his appearance. It was painful to see the shame that
covered almost every inch of his body. The marks and abrasions on
his skin felt more like brands than claw marks. With swift flicks
of a wrist, the brand had been made and he had been claimed. His
lip curled.

Checking himself for worse injuries
was useless, There was no way to speed up the healing process, and
there was no tending to be done. It had been beaten into him that
if he wanted to feel better, he might as well be similar to a dog
and lick his wounds. He breathed in, ignoring the metallic smell of
blood that sang through the air.

The blood that splattered the wall was
not just his own, but the remains of those who had been there
before him. Talon couldn’t force himself to feel pity for them. He
knew exactly what they had been through, but they had found a way
out — either through death or escaping, it made no difference. He
wished that he could have the same option.

His head hung on his shoulders. The
weakness within him was only worsening. The food they let him have
was rarely edible, and the amount they gave him was just enough to
keep him alive. He gained no strength, and if he did it was rapidly
burned off.

Once, he had stopped eating
completely. Belief that starvation was his only way out, it had
been shattering to realize that the lack of food wouldn’t kill him.
He was still stuck in this hell house, still dealing with the
bastard called Master, and
still
not finding a way to escape.
How had the others done it
? he asked
himself, absently observing a spot of blood. It was small, had
dropped from his arm, and now joined the millions of other droplets
that formed a pool of pain.

He saw his captors’ faces
in the pool of blood, i
magined his claws
raking through their skin and torturing them
. He wanted to give them exactly what they had given him, only
tenfold. Talon’s eyes closed. His time there was wearing on him.
His hand weakly moved, so much weaker than it had been before. He
trembled with the effort.

It caused something to awaken inside
of him.

A surge of power rushed through his
body and he latched onto his arm with clawed nails. The pain
radiating from it unleashed something dangerous. Recalling the
conversations that they held over him, he knew that on some level
it was the thing inside him that drew them to him.

A snarl of disgust burst from his
chest and he was ashamed of himself. Hate roiled through his chest.
Lashing out, he hit the wall beside him. His roar echoed through
his prison.

He glanced at the wall across from
him, the wall that held the window. The stone was cracked,
indented. It was a blatant reminder that he had failed to escape.
His roar turned into a cry of anguish. What they said was
true.

He was an animal, a beast.
He was only here because they took pleasure in his
cries.

He clawed at his chest desperately.
His bare hands latched onto the collar around his neck. By now, he
was accustomed to the heavy weight of the metal ring and the pain
it brought when Auro initiated it. He drew in a ragged breath,
knowing that if he attempted to take the collar off it would only
hurt him.

Spasms would rack his body. Muscles so
tense and stiff, he would crumple to the ground. It was
excruciating, almost worse than what his torturers did to him.
Almost.

His hand dropped.

From what he had heard, the only way
the collar could be taken off was if someone other than himself
unlatched it. His eyes closed, head falling back, his rage fading
away. In the aftermath, he was broken. The possibility of anyone
taking the collar off of him was slim. In the past months, Talon
had only seen Auro and Lyne, and what he saw of them…

He shuddered, wrapping his thin arms
around himself.

The door opened, a shaft of light
entering the room, and his heart stopped. Talon raised his head
high and stared defiantly at the shadowed man. The light from
behind shrouded him in darkness, making him appear like the
menacing son of a bitch he really was.

Auro stood at the top of the steps,
staring down at the beast. His dark form was hidden in the shadows,
but he could clearly make out the rebellion that glowed in the
monster’s silver eyes. Auro leered tauntingly at Talon, closed the
door behind him, and sauntered forward.

More like a dungeon, closer to a stone
cage, the only source of light came from the window. The glow from
outside had been snuffed out the second Auro locked them in the
prison. The rusted bars left a pattern embossed on the dirty
ground, the smell of the room was rank, almost acidic with the
amount of blood that had been shed. Auro smiled wider, the stretch
of his pale cracked lips more like a sneer than
anything.

Talon looked up, drawing farther into
the shadows. The soft growl that rang through the room reminded
Auro of a lion. He noticed that the beast was cradling his left
arm. The blood flow from earlier had ceased its flow, leaving his
arm dry and messy with thick strings of pus oozing from the long
wound. Auro leaned closer, proud of his work.

Talon moved back, eyes flashing. It
was almost impossible to hide the tensing of his muscles. The
action would tell Auro more than he needed to know, and Talon
didn’t need any more wounds than he already had. He sneered against
his arm, the cold stone chilling him to the bone as his back hit
the wall. He looked at Auro from under his hair, taking in his
expression in silence.

“
How are you faring today,
my pet?” Auro asked, a bony hand reaching out to caress Talon’s
damp head. The room was cold, almost as frosty as an ice box, but
his arm was sending hot flashes throughout his body. Auro leered,
his pale hand dropped to Talon’s arm. He dug his hand into the open
flesh of the limb, earning a pained groan.

Blood seeped down his arm with a
renewed flow. Shots of ice and fire slid into him, dragged forth
from the bastard that practically lived to torture him. He was so
used to the pain now that it almost shocked him that he felt what
Auro was doing to him. Of course, when a man with nails like
needles shoved his hand inside of your arm and tore out anything it
came in contact with, it was going to hurt like hell.

Talon tried to hold back the groan, to
hide how much it hurt him. But with Auro’s hand embedding itself
into his skin, pushing muscle and flesh aside with sharp nails, it
was a feat that he was not at all proud of. Rage boiled in his gut,
the sound of pain turning into one of absolute anger.

Auro drew his hand back, face twisted
with disdain as Talon turned mute. No one would know, but Auro felt
a fear deep within him when Talon was angry. He knew that Talon was
more than close to killing him, the hate between them strong. Not
for the first time, Auro was grateful for the collar that wound
around the abomination's neck. It took everything Auro had not to
beat him.

“
No answer?” he asked
pleasantly. Talon’s teeth flashed in the dim light, the only answer
that Auro got.

Talon’s chest was tight. What would it
be like, he thought, to attack Auro, to hear his cries of pain? He
had been trapped in this dark room with nothing but a water bowl in
the corner; action, or at least a chance to give into his
fantasies, would be a godsend.

If he had to shit or piss, he had to
do it right there. If he was hungry, Auro only forced him to
starve. If he was sick, Auro made the torture worse. The power the
old bastard had over him was something that Talon was most ashamed
of. From the first time several months before, when he had awoken
to find Auro standing over him with his brother Lyne beside him, it
had only registered a short time later that he was, in all honesty,
fucked.

Auro placed a long hand on the wall,
the scrape of his nails grating on Talon’s nerves like they did on
the stained stone. The chill shot through his teeth,
painful.

Talon held in the snarl
that threatened to burst from him. Was it too much to ask for a
moment of silent peace? Talon knew that it was a hope that was a
dying hope, and wondered why it hadn’t yet perished. Lyne and Auro
would not give him mercy, just as
he
would not when he finally gave
them his revenge.