Page 69 of Eternally Yours

Beastie…

I tried connecting with her one last time. To have her feel the warmth of my love and devotion. To draw her back from whatever mental hell that fucking mad doctor had put her in. But the bond was weak. She was blocking it or the collar was. She snarled and her attack came so fast, I didn’t have a chance to blink before she was on me.

“Now!” I shouted to Cat, giving her the all-clear to chase after the doctor.

Loren landed on me like a truck, knocking the wind from my lungs.

I didn’t fight back, wanting to just hold her back as long as I could, but I’d not been prepared for the ferocity of her strikes. She was unstoppable.

Time seemed to lapse in slow motion as strips of flesh were ripped from my body. I thought I’d known agony before. Fighting for Queen Isabella had left me with a good share of ghastly wounds, but this was something different. Loren wasn’t fighting to kill me. She was trying to leave nothing left of who I was.

It wasn’t long before the pain gave way to numbness, and a deep chill settled over my bones. I closed my eyes, envisioning how beautiful Loren looked as we were wrapped in each other in the cave the night of our union. How freeing it was to finally give in to my desires and make her mine. If I was to die tonight, that was the last thing I wanted to see—the moment we bonded forever and accepted the call of fate.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Loren

Ilaid on a cold floor inside a pitch-black room, quivering. I didn’t know how or why I’d been imprisoned there; time seemed to be nonexistent in this black hole. I couldn’t remember who I was or if I was even alive. Perhaps I was in purgatory, sentenced to an eternity of nothingness.

But then…

Without warning, my spine bowed in one violent thrust and I felt my vertebrae crack as a thousand volts blasted through my body. I screamed for the suffering to end, but there was only silence as I was blinded by a fierce flash of white light. Then came the peace. As the electric currents ceased and the devil released me from his prison, muffled sounds clogged my ears. A high-pitched ring bounced inside my skull, and I winced from the pain.

Opening my eyes, the world flooded back into focus. Light. Color. I remembered my name. Could feel my heart beating, which meant I was alive. But where was I?

“Oh, no. Nic!” A woman’s pained screams reached my ears and her words hauled me back to the present in a punishing blow.

Liquid dripped over my eyes, and as I reached to wipe it away, I noticed the red smears on my hands.

Blood. So much blood, it didn’t cover just my hands. I was bathed in it. Breaths shallow, I shuddered as my gaze froze over the body lying underneath me.

The world came to a halt.

I’d been released from purgatory and dropped into the pits of Hell.

Nicholas’s body was lifeless, his face tattered, his neck a mangled mess of meat and bone. Deep gashes cut across his chest and his muscles were ripped to shreds. Staring at my trembling, blood-caked hands, at the pieces of flesh buried beneath my nails, I came to the horrifying realization.

I did this…?

No, this couldn’t be happening. Oh, God. Please, no. I would not bear it. Tears welled in my eyes as I frantically searched for a pulse, for the sign of life I knew was no longer there.

“No, goddamn it. You will not die on me, Nicholas Guerra. I won’t let you!”

He was a vampire. He was supposed to heal.

Desperate, I bit down on my wrist, ripping hard at my flesh to make the blood flow faster. I held the wound to his mouth, and when he didn’t latch, I pressed hard on my wrist and poured the blood directly over his lips.

“Come on, Nic! Drink! Please!” I cried, but nothing happened.

His tongue didn’t lap at the blood. His eyes didn’t open. His lungs didn’t breathe. His heart would not beat.

“Nicholas!” the woman screamed again.

Continuing to pour blood over his mouth, I struggled to see through the deluge flowing from my eyes. I was ready to slash my neck open for him when a set of hands iron-gripped me by the shoulders and yanked me off Nic’s body in one swift swing.

My back hit against a wall, but the crushing pain was nothing compared to the anguish assailing my soul. Rising to my feet, I staggered a few steps before falling to my knees, hopelessness clinging to my heart.

Catherine kneeled beside Nic. She was the woman who’d called for him. Turning toward me, her eyes were wet with sorrow and hatred.

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