Page 213 of Jagged Souls
Maybe I can hide his body from her. She doesn’t have to know he’s dead until I venture into the Underworld and get him back –
“Antonio?” Micha shouts from down the hall, her voice alarmed yet courageous. She must’ve heard all the fighting and run down here from our bedroom. Varius’ room is one of the furthest away from ours as with them being blood bonded, I didn’t want him close enough to affect her. There isn’t much known about how the bond works, even inside witch communities, but I seem to have made the right call. Terror squeezes my lungs at the thought of her being close enough to be affected by Rudy’s magic.
I run for the door to see her quicker and make sure she’s okay. I catch her right as she’s about to enter. Standing inside the door, I gather her in my arms. “I’m so sorry,” I say. “Rudy killed Dayne.”
“What?” Her voice is high-pitched with shock. “Dayne? How did he get here? I don’t – I don’t understand?”
“I brought him here to see you,” I murmur. “I wanted it to be a surprise, but he wanted to help me torture the Shadow brothers first for what they did to you. They killed him.”
She pulls back, shaking her head. “No! No! That isn’t true.”
“I would never lie to you, love.”
“No!” She screams in my arms, soul-wrenching, heart-breaking. I want nothing more than to gather her up and take her away from all this pain, but I gave my blood oath, and so I will honor it.
I lead her into the room, and she runs to Dayne. She sits beside him, then lies across his chest, holding him to her in her grief. But she no longer cries. Now she shakes with rage.
Walking over to Varius, I kick him in the stomach, then haul him to his feet. His eye is glazed, but he tries to focus it on me.
“I gave you a blood oath,” I say. I turn to look at my mate to ask her the question I have to. “Do you wish to go with him?”
“No,” she says, her eyes flashing with Siome’s fire as she climbs to her feet. “I want to kill him.” Her voice drips with a cobra’s venom. “I need to hurt him like he’s hurt me. He needs topay.”
Smiling at my reincarnated mate, I say, “Tell me how you want him.”
Sixty-Five
Varius
They drag me into a different room and strap me down to a chair. As soon as they do, I know I’m going to die in it. Despite the lack of chains and nails holding me down now, I recognize the set-up. My arms are lashed to the arms of the wooden chair, and my fingers are individually wrapped with shoelaces. This is how I restrained my wife when I tortured her, certain she was working with Antonio.
The irony isn’t lost on me.
I thought she deserved to die then for hurting me, for taking my trust and stomping on it, for hurting Mother and kidnapping Khalid. For kissing the enemy in my own damn home. I wanted to punish her just for that.
Now she’s well aligned with the enemy.
And yet... I don’t want to punish her for it.
I still want to save her.
I should have wanted to save her all those months ago. Perhaps we wouldn’t be here then.
My eye tears up as I think about the two I’ve just lost. I feel like I have been hit by a fucking roller coaster, then dragged all along its tracks. Antonio’s mention of Dayne being a traitor, of seeing them be buddy buddy made me so fucking angry and sick. But then I saw him place his hands on my brother’s head, and I was hit with shock.
And pain.
Micha needed him. He couldn’t die.
I tried to tell him not to do it with the wild look in my eye. Even if the disease wasn’t infectious, trying to control that amount of chaos magic for his first time would kill him. Stormie nearly killed herself when she helped Rudy when she was younger. She’s only alive because Mother got to her in time.
But Dayne just looked at me with a silent reply of his own. “You get her out of here. You get her home”
I don’t see how I can though. She doesn’t want to leave with me, and I can’t kidnap her. I can control my shadows a bit now, but if I suck her into the Plane of Monsters, without a cage to hide in, she’ll be ripped apart.
“You’re going to pay for what you’ve done to me,” she snarls as she stands in front of me with a knife as long as her forearm. I almost expected her to have a hammer and a screw. I would deserve it.
“I love you,” I say, staring up at her with all that truth in my eye. I might not be able to get her out in this life, but I will come back for her in the next.
