Page 48 of Crimson Shifter

Fuck. I couldn't tell.

I couldn't trust my own heart.

I’d been betrayed before, by somebody I thought I loved. Who was to say I wouldn't have made the same mistake again?

“If you were truly compelled by the king,” Edward said, not even paying me any attention as I sat there and writhed on the floor, the pain of the iron draining the life right out of me. “Tell me something. Give me a piece of information that I can use. Something no one else would know. Something someone loyal to the king would never share.”

This was it. She’d never give up anything that would hurt the king. She'd make up some lie, and I’d know. I’d know she didn't betray me.

“You have to get Mom off the island,” she said again. “They've already taken Warrick.”

“Not until you assure me without a doubt where your allegiance lies.”

“I told you I was compelled,” she said, but her brother wasn't having any of it. She rolled her eyes, looking completely annoyed and irritated. “Fine,” she said. “You know the king's little human recently turned vampire mate?”

No. No she wouldn't?—

“Her blood is rare,” she continued, and I swear my heart broke into a million painful shards. “One so rare it's invaluable. It offers a weapon against what you and your new allies have been working on. She can heal almost anything. Including Night Thistle poisoning and more.”

“She's a remedial?” he asked, shock rippling down his body.

“Yes,” she confirmed.

I felt like I was dying. Not because of the iron, but because of how easily I’d been fooled by her. How much it hurt for my heart to break.

A heart that I had entrusted to her without even me realizing I’d done it.

She may as well have driven a dagger straight through my heart.

I was such a fucking idiot.

“We'll have to eradicate her,” Edward said, looking like he was talking more to himself than anyone else.

“If you're not going to leave, you should at least get Mom somewhere safe. I told you I was sent here as a distraction?—”

Edward backhanded her so hard her head snapped to the left, and even though my heart was broken, I hissed and growled like the animal I was. Even though she'd betrayed me and hurt me, some ridiculous primal instinct inside me couldn't stand seeing her hurt.

“That's for being weak enough to allow yourself to be compelled by the king.” He grabbed her shoulders and forcedher into the nearest chair. “You sit the fuck there and don't move until I come back. I'll deal with you once I secure this piece of hunter trash.”

He stomped over to me, gripping the iron chains with his leather gloves, dragging me down the hallway like I really was nothing but a piece of garbage.

I couldn't even fight.

There was so much iron covering my body.

“Don't look so sad, hunter,” he snapped at me. “I'm keeping you alive, for now. Just in case I need to use you as leverage.”

He dragged me down a set of stairs, my head hitting against the hard wooden steps with each descent. The concrete was cold and damp on my back, and the creak of iron bars groaned open before he shoved me into a cell and locked the bars behind me.

There were no less than six of his vampire guards down here, all armed to the teeth, but with the force in which he had thrown me into the cell, at least some of the iron had fallen off. I quickly moved as far away from it as possible, only to run into another set of iron bars.

I hissed, but tried to hold on to my bearings.

“If he so much as tries to escape,” Edward commanded his guards. “Put a Night Thistle bullet through his heart. He’s important, but not enough that I want him kept alive if he gets out of that cage.”

The guard's nodded, and Edward disappeared up the stairs again.

My entire body shook, and I heaved up what little blood I'd been able to eat earlier. My magic felt like it'd been locked away in an iron box that I couldn’t access, but I tried anyway. Tried hard as hell to shift into something small that could slip through these bars and get back to where I was needed.

---