Hive Knight: A Dark Fantasy LitRPG (Trinity of the Hive Book 1) Grayson Sinclair (book recommendations website .TXT) 📖

aside like trash and glided back over to us, all with a positively wicked smile on her face, winking at me.

I let out an involuntary shudder and walked up the hill toward Richard’s prone form. I steered well clear of the void golem and glanced back to Adam, who walked a slower pace than me.

“Hey, Adam. I think the danger has passed. Is it possible to get rid of tall, dark, and all-consuming here?”

He chuckled, and I noticed his eyes had returned to normal, which was a positive sign. Adam could lose himself for days at a time, forgoing sleep and food when he was working on something.

“Yeah, just give me a second.”

He stared off into space, which meant he was going through his interface, his hand scrolling through invisible screens. After a second or two, the brief crack of shattered glass filled the air as the void golem shrank back into its crystal housing. The onyx crystal flew to Adam’s outstretched hand and disappeared as he placed it in his inventory.

“Abby will need lots of downtime before I can summon her again,” Adam said.

“Abby?”

He nodded. “I couldn’t think of any name that rhymed with void, so I decided on Abby.”

I wracked my brain. “Short for Abyss, I’m guessing?”

“Ding, ding, ding. Give the man a prize!”

“Oh, oh. What’s my prize?” I asked sarcastically.

Adam pretended to think for a moment as we reached the top of the hill.

“I’ve got it!” Adam said. His voice filled with just as much snark as mine. “How about an overbearing blond asshat, tied up with nowhere to go,” he said, pointing down to Richard, who was looking at us with pure, unadulterated hatred in his eyes.

“Oh, Adam, it’s perfect. How did you know this is just what I wanted?” I asked, my voice dripping false saccharine.

I stared down at Richard, whose emotions were plain to understand. His eyes were filled with hatred and depravity, telling me all the things he wanted to do with my corpse.

I kicked him in the head. That was my mother his eyes were talking about.

What to do with him? I mused while pacing, kicking dust every so often into Richard's face. It’s the little things in life. I finally decided on the age-old classic—torture for information, then slit his obnoxious throat.

I picked him up into a kneeling position and peeled the tight wire from his mouth so he could speak. His immediate response was to spit in my face and curse me like a dog. I calmly wiped my face clean and smiled. If he wanted to play games, then I’d be happy to oblige. I grasped the side of his face almost in the same way you would do to a loved one, but what I was about to do was anything but loving.

I placed my thumbs just under his bright blue eyes. Richard deserved to suffer, but I was feeling merciful. There’s been enough pain and suffering today; I don’t need to cause any more unless I must.

“Tell me who hired you?”

“Fuck you!” Richard spat.

My anger flared, but I calmed myself. “I’ll give you one more chance to answer. Who. Hired. You?”

“Fuck you!”

So be it—only chance you’ll get from me.

With a grimace, I dug my thumbs sharply into both eye sockets. He screamed as blood and vitreous fluid oozed out of his sockets to coat my hand with a mixture of clear gel and bright red blood.

He kept on wailing as he twisted and struggled against his bonds, but struggling would get him nowhere. I’d yet to meet someone who could escape Wilson's traps. Within a few minutes, his screams died down, and his breathing became less ragged as his hollowed sockets stared blindly at me.

I brought a healing potion from my inventory and poured the contents down his throat, letting his eyes reconstruct themselves. After a couple of moments, his eyes were whole again, which meant Richard was back to glaring hatred.

My thumbs went to his eyes once more. His blood still lingered, staining my fingers red. “Ready for round two?” I asked.

“F-f-f-fuck y-you.”

Very well. And so, I retook his eyes, over and over again. Giving him less and less time to recover. His voice grew hoarse as he tore his vocal cords from screaming, eventually devolving into low guttural moans and grunts. The health potion focused on his eyes and never fully healed his voice, and after the sixth time I took his eyes, I finally broke him.

Richard was shaking, mumbling nonsense in a hoarse whisper. One look at his face told me he’d had enough. I was merciful and let the potion fully heal him this time. When it finished, I placed my thumb one last time under his eye, reminding him of the cost of lying to me.

“Tell me, who gave you the job?”

“I-it w-w-was a m-man.”

“What was his name?”

He shook his head, drool slipping from his mouth. “Can’t s-s-say, he’ll k-k-kill me.”

“What do you think I’ll do?”

He kept shaking, refusing me.

“Tell me!” I shouted and slugged him, breaking his nose. Blood poured down his shining armor. I screamed and kept hitting him. “Tell me! Tell me! Tell me!”

“Stop,” he spat through broken teeth. “I’ll talk.”

He caught his breath, and I eased off him. He coughed and spat a gob of blood and teeth on the grass. Richard sighed and whimpered, squirming under the bindings. “His name is M—”

His voice cut off suddenly. Richard tried to speak, but no words would come. He screamed wordlessly, looking around in terror, searching for something that wasn’t there. Then he started to choke.

He freaked and railed against the ropes that bound him, his eyes pleading with me to save him. I watched as Richard slowly choked to death while not making a single sound. His