by Kaia Bennett
“Who told you about… about this Cree girl? Who?”
He asked with murder etching his voice. A deep dark secret he hadn’t planned to unearth stood between us, and someone would pay the price.
“You did,” I rasped. I hadn’t realized just how dry my throat had been until I tasted the splash of prey. I needed more blood. “I saw you in a vision. I saw Manitoba, a village burned to the ground. And a pretty girl running from you. Just like everyone runs from you. What did she do that you needed to kill her, besides make you fall in love?”
My father growled, the deep, throaty affair he reserved for whenever he caused pain.
“This is the witch’s doing, then? She got inside your head and plucked something out she could use?”
“Yes! She got inside my head. She plucked out the truth. Now, answer me. I thought only cowards lie, Father. Are you a fucking coward?”
He stood and stared through me, into the past, before pacing. “I did what I had to do. I took a witch who overstepped her bounds and made her pay for her mistake. She cursed me. She made me feel things our kind can’t feel if we want to survive. My father showed me the error of my ways and he gave me my options. I broke the curse, or I forfeited my life, and everything I’d worked for as his heir.”
“So, you killed her. You killed my mother because your father told you love was a curse.”
“That witch wasn’t your mother. She was something I fucked and bled. She was a fix for my sweet fang. Nothing. More. That she thought she could love me or love you, was her mistake, not mine! I am what I was bred to be!” My father’s roar of outrage might’ve fooled an outsider, but I heard anguish laced through his words. I saw a man haunted by the loss of his mate. Maybe she hadn’t been turned, but she’d been his woman, the witch he chose.
Are you trying to save me from a witch, Father? Or are you jealous? Do you wish you could go back and give up everything for her?
My father wavered into my vision. Already, the blood he’d given me had been stretched as far as my body would allow. My larger wounds still pulsed with pain, still itched deep within, and struggled to heal.
“I did what I had to do. Just like you’re going to do what you have to do. Get him cleaned up, Cai, so we can end this. Play time is over.”
Breathe, baby. We can get through this. We just have to breathe.
I couldn’t breathe, even with the ghost of Evie’s voice whispering in my ear like a siren song.
How can we end this if he’s letting me go? How—
I shouldn’t have been able to hear past the phantom of my mate, or the constant ringing of my panic, but my father’s voice tolled clear as a bell.
Metis smiled at what he saw on my face, and my stomach dropped to my feet. For the first time I wanted to be trapped in the vat, waking from a dream. I knew better.
“That’s right, son. We found the girl.”
I’m wide awake. This isn’t a dream.
“It’s time for you to break this curse.”
26
I drained the hefty human tossed into my new cell in a haze of feral hunger. He had no face, no voice. Just an artery pumping life into me. All too soon I’d emptied my sparse rations. The body fell to the floor with a thud, but I wasn’t given another.
Not enough! Need more!
The blood only tended most of my larger wounds, but at least I’d washed the taste of my own filth out of my mouth. What I needed more than fresh blood was to see Evie. I rushed the locked door, cursing myself for being distracted by my need for prey instead of escaping.
“Open the fucking door!”
I coughed when my throat cracked from the strain of screaming. The doors wouldn’t budge, though I’d left some light dents in the white metal and made a bloody mess from pounding my fists on them.
“Father!”
I growled and spun, my feet slapping against the white floor of the small holding cell as I paced. I tossed the dead body in my path against the wall in fit of rage, bone crunching against the unyielding white walls. I should’ve had at least three or four by now. They were keeping me weak on purpose. This had to be punishment for offending that lying prick of a sperm donor. I’d made him share truths he hadn’t wanted to share.
My naked body sizzled with heat from healing, then I shuddered with blistering cold at the thought of Evie.
Where were they holding her? How long had I been trapped in that torture chamber? How long had my father taken to track her down? Had Sundara betrayed us, or did he find her on his own?
A tremor I couldn’t control rattled my hands when I held them out in front of me. I crouched in the center of the room, cradling my forehead in my hands, and trying to think. They wouldn’t hurt her yet, would they?
No. He wants this over with. He wants me to kill her. He wants me to suffer for disobeying him.
I tried to convince myself Evie still lived, but Cai’s cruel smile battered my brain. Images of him raping a girl who reminded him of Evie snapped like jaws behind my eyes.
If he so much as looks at her—
“Let me out of here! You motherfuckers!”
I launched myself at the door, consumed by wrath. I didn’t know how many times I struck the metal. I left small craters in my wake, scraped myself bloody and reopened most of my unhealed wounds. Exhausted, I slid to the floor, realizing I couldn’t see. The world remained clinical white, but tears blocked my hazy vision. Tears? I hadn’t cried since Liam died, since I shoved Evie’s head underwater.
I couldn’t breathe. Smoke choked my lungs. Fire burned inside my gut. My arms ached with emptiness. No strength in these limbs now. I had no mate to fill them. She could be in this very hallway, on the other side of the wall, screaming and pleading for mercy. I’d brought her here and I couldn’t stop whatever happened to her. I couldn’t stop what my father would make me do.
I’m so sorry, Evie. God help me. What do I do, what do I do, what do I do, God, Goddess, whatever you are. What do I do? Tell me what to do!
I sobbed like a child and howled with helplessness, the hollow scrape of emotion emptying me to my core. Powerless. I was the heir to an empire and I sat in a room reserved for torturing our enemies. Powerless.
The door hissed open. I stared through my tears, registered the entrance of dark hair and a black suit and charged before conscious thought could deter me.
The boom of my body connecting with Cai’s echoed through the room. Another crater curved to fit his spine, embedded in the door. I head-butted him, cracking his skull and the skin over the bone, before throwing him against the wall behind me. He snarled as he bounced against the surface, but settled into a crouch with the fingertips of one hand braced against the wall.
“You wanna show me what a big boy you are, huh? You mad?”
“I wanna tear you apart, and that’s what I’m gonna do.”
My speed had flagged but I had insanity on my side. I bared my still-healing fangs and gave Cai a crazed grin. My senses sharpened to deadly focus. Cai’s eyes bled black, and he launched himself toward me, meeting me in the middle of the small room.
I shot forward, aiming low at his hips, and flipped him over my back before spinning to mount him. His laughter spilled out between the meaty crunch of my fist pounding his face.
“Oh, you poor baby. You must be feeling insecure. Maybe I’ve already shoved my cock in—”
Blood from Cai’s mouth splattered the white floor like paint. I squeezed a hand around his neck, to cut off his air and taunts, thinking only of how I’d rip his spine through the front of his throat.
Never mind the foreign grip of terror sitting in my gut like lead. Like a belly full of water and minerals. Never mind that, if I hadn’t turned Evie, she’d be dead and safe. I’d caused all of this, but Cai would be my surrogate now. All the rage and hatred I harbored for myself would find a home in his broken body.
I got in his face, close enough to leave a trail of spittle, lifted him as high as I could in a crouch and drove his sku
ll into the floor with a roar that shook my senses. The floor splintered. Blood spilled from the wound in his head. Cai grimaced, lifted his hips, grabbed me by the throat, and flipped me off his body. I arced into the air. Keeping my eyes trained on him, I flipped over his head, landing flat on my back. In the time it took to grimace at the force of my landing, he kneeled over me with his hand around my throat.
My father’s lackey had me beat in age and combat experience, but I had fury and birthright on my side. He couldn’t kill me without robbing my father of his sole heir. He couldn’t maim me now that I’d been set free, or risk punishments that would make the Inquisition look like a bedtime story. That moment’s hesitation was what I’d been counting on. Despite his chokehold, I used my forearms to bend his elbows and yanked him into a head butt so hard I heard his skull crack again. And again. And again, until dizziness made me fall to the floor.
Cai stumbled away, almost fell on his ass, but caught himself. He stood, dazed as blood ran like a river down his face from the wound in his forehead. I drew my knees into my chest, and kicked forward, landing easily on the balls of my feet. I sprang up, reaching for the back of his head as I did so. With a roar, I drove my knee into the softest part of his throat, below his chin and above his Adam’s apple. Blood spurted from his mouth. A ragged inch of his tongue smacked to the floor. Cai collapsed onto his ass, sprawling. I thought for a long, delicious moment about how I’d make him beg to die. I’d snap his spine over and over again before I finally pulled out the broken pieces—
“Jesse!”
I froze with my foot poised above Cai’s throat. I scrubbed my face free of tears. Evie’s voice echoed through the small room. I scanned three white walls before daring to believe the sound came from the intercom. I blinked. Her precious, beautiful face floated in darkness from behind the two-way mirror.
I must be dreaming.
I whirled on Cai, who’d risen to one knee with both hands in the air. “She’s real,” he lisped around a mouthful of blood. “Delusions are part of the torture, but this isn’t one. She’s real. Look at her for fuck’s sake.”
I kept Cai in my sights as I retreated a step, only turning when Evie’s plaintive, “Jesse,” lured me with hope.
Not a dream? Real? She’s real?
She gaped at me with wide-mouthed horror. Her lip trembled as she scanned me, head to foot. I was at the window before the first tear fell from her eye.
“What did they do to you?” Disbelief etched her features. Then, she snapped her mouth shut, as if she couldn’t believe she’d asked, that she cared. And yet, she cried and touched the glass as if she could heal me if she wiped the blood away from my face.
“Are you alright?” I probed, ignoring her question. “Did they hurt you?”
She shook her head and swallowed. “No. N-not yet.”
She knew the animal she dealt with. ‘Yet’ would come. For now, she looked unharmed. I dared to breathe, but I didn’t let go my fears. We had to find a way out of here.
“They took Stark and Vaughn somewhere, I don’t know where.” Her voice rose in panic and her words tumbled from her mouth like water down a cliff. “There was a fight. I thought Josh might be dead, but then I heard his heart beating and Vaughn lost it trying to figure out what happened to you, but they subdued him and dragged them out to a van. They put me in a different car and brought me straight here.”
I turned to look at Cai, who leaned against the wall like a sack of battered grain. Triumph ticked my gut because I’d beaten that nonchalant air of grace off the motherfucker. The other man wiggled his jaw, popping the bones into place, working his healing tongue in circles with a wince.
“Where’s Vaughn and the wolf?”
Cai spit out a couple of teeth and mouthful of blood, before sucking on his swollen bottom lip.
“Safe. They’re being held until you do what’s expected of you, then they’ll be released. They were just following orders anyway, no need to die for your stupidity.” He gestured limply at the window without looking at her. “Evie will be doing that.”
I turned again to stare at Evie, who glared at Cai. “You’re a despicable piece of shit, and that’s saying something considering your species. We were breaking the bond, Cai! One more rite and he’d be free of me. I’m not a threat to you or your stupid plans.”
Cai laughed, a rare belly laugh that made him double over. “Breaking the bond? Well. When you’re finished with that, I have some invisible gold to show you. Breaking the bond. I should get you two lollipops because you’re fucking children.”
I gritted my teeth. If I hadn’t been inside those circles, I might’ve laughed myself. But, I had been there. I’d bled for the earth and set the forest on fire with the power of my need for Evie.
Then why do I feel closer to her than ever? Why do I love her?
I searched my mind for the answer, but knew I wouldn’t find one. I had no idea how to deal with an empath, a turned witch, a mate I hadn’t known I would create.
“Let’s also get something straight.” Cai jackknifed to his feet, hands shoved in his pockets. I heard the crackle and pop of his neck as he stretched out the muscles. “You’re a threat to Metis’s plans. When the king says jump, well, you know the rest. That doesn’t mean I don’t,”—he tipped his head in Evie’s direction—“sympathize.”
“If you’ve spent the last few days ‘sympathizing’, you have a funny way of showing it.”
“Your angle is understandably biased.” Cai shrugged. “But I didn’t bring her here to reminisce about how fun it was to cut you open because you wouldn’t give her up.”
Evie’s exhale hit me like a bittersweet punch to the gut. That she cared what happened to me meant something, but to know the lengths they’d go, even when handling me, terrified her. I could feel her fear like my own.
Cai dared a stealthy approach. “This meeting is off the books. You should know, Evie, despite what Metis will tell you, Jesse didn’t sell you out. Neither did Sundara. We found you because Metis Oldman is as smart as he is scared. He has the best trackers on retainer, and he knows about Sundara’s real estate collection.”
“Why are you telling us this?” I contemplated whether I could take him hostage in order to escape with Evie.
“Don’t bother.” Cai scoffed, as if reading my thoughts. “You’re in the basement. You’d have to get through the entrance and then out of the city before you could get off the grid enough to go into hiding. She’d die right in front of you, while you’re on the rack. Then you’d go back in the box.”
I couldn’t suppress my shudder or the uptick in my heartbeat. I tried to steady my breathing, but I knew they both heard the signs of my frailty.
“I’m telling you this because Metis is old. The end of his life approaches, but yours is just beginning. Against all odds, I like you, Jesse. I like your potential to owe me favors in the future even more.”
My mouth dropped open. “You’d help us escape?”
“I’d help you make a choice. It’s up to you what you decide to do. No matter what, the decision will hurt. One choice will hurt less. What Metis has coming for the girl and you is an old ritual. But, what you and Evie have is older, so old it’s new again. Doing what Metis asks means the girl dies and you get back in his good graces. You take your rightful place as his heir, hopefully get a son off the queen. Choosing his way will hurt less than the alternative.”
Cai dared to stand beside me and stare at Evie’s dark eyes slowly blooming with malice toward him.
“The other option means exile. It means you run with your mate and don’t look back. You’ll never truly be safe, not with Metis hunting you. You’ll probably die bloody, horrible deaths.” The older vampire shrugged elegantly. “It’s possible he could give you another chance, Jesse. He’s old, it’s hard for us to breed, and you’re his only son. He might forgive you out of necessity after he’s punished you. He’ll use the girl as part of that punishment.”
This time, Evie shudder
ed. Her fingers buckled and clenched into fists on the other side of the glass. She had experience with punishment. She knew what my father would force me to do in order to prove myself. She knew what she’d endure as his victim.
“You have the slimmest chance of eluding him until he dies. Even if you manage that Herculean effort, once he’s dead, you either forfeit your territory or you fight for your claim. It’s up to you, Jesse. You’ll know what you have to do soon. You’ll sleep, heal just enough to mate with the queen, then you’ll meet with Metis about your new job. Or, this time tomorrow, you’ll be the prodigal son of a vengeful vampire.”
“Let me speak to her alone. Just for a moment.”
Cai shook his head. “She has a meeting to get to. He won’t hurt her, but Metis wants to see your mate.”
“Please.” Evie begged, leaning closer to the glass to capture Cai’s attention. “You like favors, then claim one from me. Give us one moment and I’ll owe you.”
My tormentor tilted his head, staring at Evie with a strange mixture of desire, anger, and curiosity. Was she prey pleading with him, or the mate of his future business partner making a request?
He held up a finger. “One minute. Starting from the second I close that door.”
He strode out of the room. I stared so hard I could’ve willed a hole through the glass separating me from Evie. The second Cai’s door hissed close, I opened my mouth and silence tumbled out.
She didn’t meet my eyes at first. I bit my lip so hard I drew blood and leaned my forehead against the glass.
“Jesse… when the time comes….” Her voice cracked and tears rained down her cheeks. “Make it quick, please. Kill me quick. A-and don’t punish Stark. Let him live so he can tell my family I chose to go and I died peacefully.”
“You listen to me,” I whispered, finding my voice. “We’re getting out of here. Alive. Together. I’ll take you to the witch that can break our bond and you’ll be free of me. I’ll make sure you never have to worry about someone like me touching you again. I’ll make sure you’re safe. I swear.”
“Don’t—”