Free Bounty by Harper Alexander

Kane settled back into a comfortable stance. Godren pulled the boy through the arch, and down below the ground. Feeling utterly low, inhuman, he thrust the boy into Bastin’s possession as soon as he encountered him, unable to deliver his charge to the dungeon himself.
    On his way out, he passed Ossen in the hallway. He was just beginning to truly feel the weight of what he’d done, hurrying his stride to leave it behind before he broke down and grieved. Ossen smiled maliciously at him, and with a wave of furious insight, Godren realized the boy’s escape had been no mistake. Ossen had seen Godren's reaction to the boy’s initial capture; it would not be unlike him at all to spring a disloyal lock if it meant paining his rival to be sent after the escaped prisoner whom he only had sympathy for. Godren wondered if Ossen saw through him more than Mastodon did. It was suddenly clear that Ossen was spitefully pitted against him, and that he would latch onto any sign of pain Godren let slip, going right to the innocent source and doing his worst. He was going to destroy Godren from the inside out, since he was forbidden to touch him as an ally, and the only way Godren could defy him would be by taking his punishing orders without showing how they affected him. That would be worse than anything. Being responsible for something was one thing. Not accepting responsibility for it was another, something he wasn’t sure that he could do and still live with himself. His defiance might prove to unravel everything he stood for just as much as letting it happen by Ossen’s ruthless hand.

 
     
     
     
    9: B lackmail Support
     
     
     
     
     
    H is fate seemed inevitable, one way or another. Wracked in despair both for himself and the boy he had dragged back into cruel hands, Godren shut himself away from the world and grieved as he realized the seeds of his inner downfall had been irrevocably planted.
    It wasn’t a hard thing to accomplish in the Underworld – shutting yourself away from the rest of the world. Godren banished himself to the dark, pressing his fingertips to his temples and bowing his head over his lap. His breath came in ragged intakes as he struggled to bear the awful feeling tearing him apart inside. The seeds of his downfall left festering holes in his soul – he could feel them; deep, black, and already spreading decay. They were painfully raw, too, pulsing with a deep agony that went clear through him. Waiting to grow, the seeds ate at him, taunting wounds that would never fully heal. No matter what.
    He wasn’t even the kind that could surrender to denial in order to block out the inwardly fatal things he didn’t want to see. He was too honest with himself, too prone to deep thinking and being aware of himself.
    He was doomed to live with himself, to live with the raw reality of what he was, however bad it got. How cruel it would be to survive through the shame, the guilt, the regret – the overall inhuman responsibility that would weigh on his shoulders and darken his shadow.
    Deliver me from this, he begged the gods, rocking back and forth. Give me an avenue out.
    *
    “ Hey Little-britches,” Kane hailed Seth as he entered past the guard. “Mastodon wants to see you. Five minutes ago. Don’t just stand there, chump. Scat.”
    Seth hadn’t paused. Casting a long-suffering, mordant look over his shoulder at the impatient guard, he descended through the vanishing fire and headed toward Mastodon’s dreaded study. He knew what this was about.
    He entered without knocking, thinking that an order was even better than an invitation and he had every right to let himself in. Mastodon coolly watched him approach her desk, half-hidden behind the drifting smoke of her incense. Seth tried not to choke on the overpowering scent. Mastodon just breathed in scent and smoke alike like it was her idea of fresh air. Watching the smoke whisk into her nostrils, Seth stood across from her.
    “ Have yourself a seat,