Page 117 of Vengeful Mates

Castor suspected this might happen. That we walked into a trap. We never should have attended the Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride. The stupidest decision of our lives, and I would pay for it. All this time I worried I would lose my men, yet my mates would lose their woman, unborn children, and my daughter her mother.

“I can see how you enchanted them, Queen of Hearts.” Colton stroked my arm, not in a sexual way. In a way a predator would when surveying its prey for the first part it would devour. “A true queen. Brave. Fearless. Strong.”

Fearless? This icy bastard taunted me. My bladder wanted to empty on my skirt. My heart slammed harder and faster the more the drug cleared from my system.

Okay, think. If I couldn’t use my magick to fend him off and escape, then I had to use my wit. Distractions.

“What do you want with me?” I asked the madman.

His cruel gaze could have frozen Hell. “Something no human has ever achieved.”

Megalomaniac, much? I used the tamer version to avoid angering him. “Vague, much?”

“Something beyond this world.” His eyes sparked with a lust for power. “And your death will be the catalyst.”

Terror pierced my breastbone as if he made the first cut and the drug dulled my senses. “Why?”

Calm evaporated from Colton’s face, morphing into a dark and cruel mask. “Because my god demanded vengeance for the slight of being pushed aside as King of the Underworld.”

Now we were getting somewhere. Time for a fucking history lesson. “That’s not our fault. Blame Ra. He made the decision.”

“That’s Anubis’ quarrel to resolve. In exchange for his power, I exact his will.”

“Kill five innocent avatars?”

He seized my hair, yanking so hard, I bet he plucked hairs out. “Your mates ruined my last chance to save my empire, and now I’m invested.”

I moaned from the bite of my scalp where he grabbed my hair and the dull ache at the back of it.

Brow furrowed, Colton pressed a hand to my belly, and I flinched, expecting pure ice. Surprisingly, his hand was warm to the touch. Somewhat human. The rest of him, pure psychopath.

He ran his palm along my swelling baby bump. “I sensed the life in here when we met in the desert.” The menacing smile splitting across his face sent shards of ice stabbing my gut. “Congratulations would be in order if I weren’t about to cut them out and deliver them to your beloved mates.”

My stomach lurched and I captured it and pushed it back down. I refused to give this bastard my fright or a single tear.

“You bastard!” I wriggled on the table, only doing myself more harm, my bindings tightening to the point I ached from lack of blood flow. “I’ve done nothing to you, and you threaten the life of my children. What’s wrong with you, you sick fuck?”

Furious, I spat in his despicable face. Slade would be proud of my fight and fury.

Goddamit, Aaliyah. Don’t goad this maniac.

Calmly, my diabolical enemy removed a handkerchief from his breast pocket and wiped it away. Then he stuffed the material back in his pocket and delivered another icy smile designed to freeze my entire body. “I can’t have your mutts breeding their foul progeny into the world to menace mine, can I?”

“Please, don’t hurt my babies.” I fisted my hands, the binds on my wrist cutting off my circulation.

Colton glanced at me without an ounce of pity in his cold, brutal gaze. He removed knives from a set laid out on a separate shelf and began to sharpen his scalpel and my insides went numb. “I need them to make your mates really lose their minds.”

CHAPTER39

Zethan

“Where the fuck is she?”A bloodied and wounded Slade glared at Castor and me as if we had all the answers. “Colton’s taken her.”

My heart doubled its pace. An assessment I agreed with after the two hints dropped by that prick, threatening Aaliyah with a queen of hearts playing card.

I paced the edge of the highway underpass, swiped at my face, stubble scratching along my palm, jagged like the blade Colton might use on her flesh to send her back to us as a warning.

Traffic zoomed on the highway overpass above us. Cover from the cops. Witnesses would have reported the Jackals fighting back the shooters. Police issued a code two and thirty-seven according to Castor. Major accident and shooting. We were prime targets in their investigations.

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