She thought about fighting them off anyway but realized she would lose quickly if she did. Neither one really spoke and she could tell by the looks on their faces, they would not be letting her go until ordered to do so.

She had to watch as the fight started. Immediately, she knew the situation was dire and much worse than Russel had let on. His father was not only bigger and stronger, but clearly more skilled in close quarters fighting. In seconds, he dodged every attack Russel tried throwing at him, slashed his son across the chest, picked him completely up off the ground, and then threw him straight into a stone column as if he were some kind of ball.

Russel slammed into it with an audible cracking sound and she knew he’d broken something. Probably something vital. He didn’t get up for the longest time and while Carter had plenty of time to deal a finishing blow, he elected to stay back and gloat some more.

“Ah, come on, boy. Is that really all you got?” he asked with a contemptuous sneer. “What was I paying your fighting tutors all that money for?”

He got to Russel, who was still lying on the ground and trying to get up. He bent down, grabbed his son by the throat, and lifted him completely off the ground. Lola heard Russel’s choked gasps as his throat closed. His eyes widened, the amber light there flickering on and off rapidly as he faded in and out.

“Remind me to cut off their heads when I’m done with you,” he spat. “If this is the best you can do, then it’s clear my money was wasted on those so-called masters.”

Then he whirled Russel around in a brutally fast arc that brought his entire body smashing into the stone floor face-first. Blood flew out of his mouth and a few of his fangs popped out and clattered along the floor. He let out a groan of pain but only a small one. He didn’t want to give Carter Polver the satisfaction of hearing him cry out in pain.

“The fool will be dead soon, Father,” Roland said. “Cull the weak! Excise him from our bloodline.”

Carter whirled on his firstborn and heir.

“Shut your fucking mouth!” he snarled. “All of you.”

Roland’s mouth immediately snapped shut and the other three brothers gave Ro dark looks for getting them in trouble too. When Carter was done yelling at them, he turned his attention back on Russel.

Who had, with some miraculous bit of reserved strength, managed to get to his feet. When Carter turned back around to look at Russel, and finish him off, he was met with claws. They sank into his stomach, past the fur and skin, and pierced his guts. There was pain but he hadn’t lived for over three hundred years without feeling almost every flavor and type of pain imaginable.

“Keep fighting, Russel!” Lola screamed, a surge of hope exploding inside her chest like the world’s largest firework.

Russel screamed again, his face a mass of swollen flesh, chipped fangs, a broken nose, and blood. Lots of blood.

Carter gripped both of Russel’s wrists in his hands and clamped down. Russel struggled to bury his claws in deeper, to do more damage, but the king just laughed a cruel, merciless laugh. Inch by inch, he pulled those hands out of his stomach.

Russel tried to fight it but his father was too strong. No matter what he did or tried, he couldn’t stop him from yanking out his hands.

“That was a much better attempt than I would have given you credit for,” Carter said with a weirdly proud smile. “Take that knowledge to your grave, my son.”

Then he clenched both of his hands as hard as he physically could and snapped the bones in his son’s wrists like they were dry twigs.

Russel finally broke.

He screamed.