Page 195 of Jagged Souls
“You thought or it was?”
“He was!”
“You’re exhausted,” he says, his voice low and lethal. “Or maybe you just lied to me?”
“No! I –” The healer cuts himself off on a whimper. “I might not have checked the heartbeat. But I checked he was there,” he blurts. “I didn’t –” His words are smacked out of his mouth.
“Fix her and start her ovulation again. I want her bred this evening.”
“I’m too –”
“Has your use to me ended, witch?” he murmurs.
A heavy weight smacks the air. A terrible silence. “No,” Eduardo wheezes. His hands are back on my belly. The heat that flows from him this time is a lot warmer. I whimper in discomfort, but my attention is on the man lording over me.
“Please… My baby girl…” I say as to Antonio, pushing the words out through the clog of tears. “Don’t leave her...”
“Who was her father?”
I tense, my heart rate increasing. There’s a memory in the fog of my brain. “What?”
“Her father. You told me it was Aleric Zadar.” His voice softens dangerously. “Did you lie to me.”
My shoulders shake as I’m hit with an earthquake of fear. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Please –”
“Who is it?”
His name lodges in my throat. I sob against the wall as Eduardo continues to heal me. But he can’t fix the hole in my chest. Can’t fix the chasm created by the choice I’m about to make.
“Varius’…” I sob, pushing his name out even as it wants to choke me, grabbing hold of my tonsils so I can’t speak. “But please don’t leave her because of who her father is,” I beg. “You promised me you’d get her back.Please… You can kill him.” My throat closes even tighter, wanting to stop the words from escaping. But I can’t hold them in. Can’t protect him if it means losing her. “Ican kill him. He doesn’t have to have anything to do with her at all. You can still end the Shadow line. I won’t even give her his name.Please… Just bring her back to me.”
Don’t judge her for Sau’s sins.
Let me have my girl.
The air moves, and Antonio squats down in front of me. His voice brushes the air right in my face, a tender caress, a god’s attention. “Birth me a hybrid,” he says, “and I will let her live.”
Sobbing, I reach for him. “Thank you.” My fingers grip his shirt tight, holding on to the only lifeline I have. “Thank you… Thank you…”
Who needs hope when you have a man who cares?
Fifty-Eight
HIM
Someone is on me.
I’m on my back in a bed, every nerve feeling splintered and fried from my jump through the teleportation circles. The touch of their body, their movement against my hips is making me sick from the increasing pain. My eyes roll back in my head. My atoms weep. I almost lose consciousness again despite having just regained it.
I fight through the darkness, though, dragging my body kicking and screaming into the world of awareness. Because a woman’s body is riding mine, and I don’t know if it’ll be worse to find out if she’s a stranger.
Or my wife.
Her pussy grips my hard cock as she slides up and down my length. Her hands are on my chest, her fingers flat, and just from that, I know it’sher.
I shudder from the force of my warring emotions, the battlefield shaking underneath steel-toed feet. I’m relieved to feel her against me, to be beside her after months of being apart, but the fact that she’s gone straight to doing what Antonio wants breaks my fucking heart. She used to be such a fighter.
I’d hoped that once she realized I was here, she’d get a bit of that back. She would know that I had never given up on her. She’d understand that I had come here just so she wouldn’t be alone. And that would break through to her. Remind her that she is loved. That she has a life outside of this hel. A family who wants her home.
