Page 42 of Hell Storm

Something about the way he said those words chilled me to the bone. Or perhaps it was the satisfied look that followed.

“I tell you what,” Levi spoke up, “I don’t know what this guy is paying you to do his dirty work, but I assure you it doesn’t compare to whatIcan give you.” He stepped closer to Jax and I held my breath. “Let us go, right here, right now, and I guarantee there’s no demand you can make that I can’t grant you.”

Jax’s face went slack.

“I’m talking wealth, women, and status,” Levi promised.

The room was quiet and I silently prayed Jax had been moved by this offer.

“Unlike you, my Ianite brother, no one in this building can be bought,” Jax asserted. “Your money is no good here.” After nodding for the kid to follow, he opened the large, heavy door to exit.

“You’re wrong about that,” Levi added in parting. “Everyone can be bought. I only need to discover your price.”

With that, the door was slammed shut, and it was just the two of us again—the furious prince of the West and I.

Acknowledging that there had been a bit too much excitement for me today, I sat. Now, I was beginning to feel the effects of it—the dizziness, the haze. Internally, I was pleading with myself not to lose it, but I wasn’t sure I could hold the episode at bay.

Levi didn’t seem to notice, and I preferred it that way. Even when I decided to rest my head on the lone pillow we were given, he continued to pace and curse silently to himself.

Maybe if I find some way to settle and fall asleep I can fight it.

But then again, that had never worked.

“I’ll get us out of here,” he muttered as he walked the perimeter of the room. “Someone will slip and say more than they ought to and we’ll use that to our advantage. Besides, they don’t evenwantto know the hell I’ll bring down on their heads when this is all over.”

My head swam, so I didn’t bother joining in on his conversation. Instead, I lay there listening to him rant as the fog spread through my brain. I moved my fingertips aimlessly along the edge of the cot, back and forth over the rough edges of words etched into the metal.

“With what our blood bond stands to offer the Ianite world—an eventual cure to the sickness—it won’t just be the monarchs and guards who will be out for blood. It will be the entire free world.”

Darkness had begun to close in, and it was only a matter of time before my quiet suffering would become a violent scene I could no longer hide from Levi. In a perfect world, I would’ve been able to dismiss myself to a quiet room, and endure in private. I would’ve been able to hide from him and all his outward perfection, knowing how my condition was perceived by his kind.

But I didn’t have that luxury.

However, in the coming days, I’d become one of them and this major, life-defining condition would be a thing of the past.

That was the one and only silver lining I ever found to being turned.

I continued to trace the letters and simply waited for the jittering that had already started in my hands to spread and intensify.

Another outburst from Levi, and I flinched when the bucket of fresh water we’d been given went soaring across the room. I prepared myself for the loud clatter of the metal hitting the ground, but was reminded of the soft flooring when it simply hit with a muffled thud.

Peering down at my hands as the shaking in them grew stronger, I focused on the letters I fondled in hopes that it would slow the process, and to my surprise, it did.

But not because the letters themselves were of any particular fascination; however, what they spelled out was a different story.

“Blackthorn,” I mumbled.

Levi turned when I spoke. “What?”

I pointed so he, too, could read the words engraved in the cot: PROPERTY OF BLACKTHORN SANATORIUM.

I only managed to glance up and take in the shock in his expression a moment before I drowned in the darkness. While I was certain the location was devastating to us both, the concern in his voice was only meant for me.

“Corina?”

He said my name in such a way that I knew. I knew he saw me fading, knew he understood what was coming. That suspicion was confirmed when my head was lifted from the pillow and a large body joined me on the cot. He held me to his chest, and somehow made me feel safe even despite these horrible circumstances.

“Relax, Love,” he whispered with his lips pressed to my ear. “I have you. It’ll be over soon.”

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