Page 206 of Jagged Souls
As much as I don’t want Micha passed out on his table, there’s nowhere else to do the operation. So I lead her to it when the time comes, after Eduardo digs out Jenny’s eyes without an anesthetic spell because he doesn’t have much magic to spare.
“Will you be here when it’s over?” she asks.
“I’ll be there the whole time,” I reply. And she climbs up on the table.
It takes him four hours to undo the spell he used to heal her after I scooped out her eyes. Anytime one is broken, it triggers an explosion of energy, so he has to concentrate hard in order to unravel it and control it, to stop it from going inside of her and frying her brain.
Then it takes another three for him to connect all of the nerves to her new sets of eyes. Each passing minute feels so godsdamn slow.
And then finally, he is done. He steps back with a wipe of his brow. He wakes her up, and I step forward as she opens her eyes so I’m the first thing she sees.
She sucks in a breath as I stare into her new red orbs. He modified them a bit, changed them so they don’t quite look like Jenny Ann’s. They don’t look like Siome’s either, and I can’t stop the flicker of pain in my chest at the knowledge that I will never see those specific beauties again.
Pushing that thought aside, I smile at her. “How does everything look?” I ask.
She blinks, then keeps her eyes shut. “It’s too bright.”
“Hold on.” I pick her up and carry her out of here. Back to my rooms. Our rooms. I close the curtains to block out the majority of the sunlight. “Open them now,” I say.
She cracks them open in the gloom of the room, but our kind can easily see in the half-light. She sucks in a breath, then starts to cry. With a jolt of worry, I hurry to her and gather her in my arms.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, terrified Eduardo messed them up somehow.
“I canseeagain. I never thought I would see again after the fucker chose to take my eyes,” she babbles against my chest. Her fingers dig tight into my shirt. “Thank you.” She starts to cry with joy. “Oh my gods, thank you.”
And that’s when I get the idea – how best to break Varius and make her solely mine.
Sixty-Two
Varius
I don’t know how many days have passed; each one has been blurring into the next. It’s too much of a struggle to keep track through the sickness. My body is drenched in sweat, and I’m lying in my diarrhea just like he promised I would be. But I’m too out of it to care. Too dehydrated and aching all over. It’s like I’ve been hit by every strain of the flu at once, and I don’t know how the magic inside of me hasn’t killed me yet.
Hasn’t seen my weakness and striked.
Perhaps because it’s sick too…
I wouldn’t put it past a witch as badass as Terra fucking Harrison to make a disease that could target magic itself.
Not that I would allow myself to pulse and hurt my wife. Or Rudy…
Tears burn at the memories of him being dissected on screen. I want to cry. I want to scream into the void and have the noise itself wrap around this ship and drag it into the sea. I’m going to fucking kill Eduardo for healing him, healing me so we can be tortured over and over again. And I’m going to kill Antonio for everything he’s done to them.
Maybe not in this life though…
I feel so weak.
Too weak to help anyone.
I came here hoping to let Micha know she was still loved, that we hadn’t given up on her. And to find a way to escape with her from the inside, but I haven’t seen her outside that first time. I’ve been trying to push my feelings of love and no regrets down the bond – even after all of this, I do not wish I’d stayed away. She needs to know that she is loved. That I love her enough to have followed her here just so she wouldn’t be alone. But all I’ve felt from her is hatred.
And love for another man.
And then, slowly, nothing at all. We need to exchange more blood for the bond to slip back into place.
Agony twists through me, deeper than the aches and pains of the disease. Because what if she wants to reject the blood bond entirely now? What if she does give that part of herself to Antonio, lost to his madness and brainwashing?
The panic hits hard.
