Page 47 of Jagged Souls
“Are you right or left handed?” he asks.
Goosebumps spread across my body. “Go to hel.”
He leans in and strokes his free hand down the side of my face. “This is hel,” he whispers, “and I’m your god here.”
Lunging forward, I clamp my teeth down on his nose. He screams as he jerks back – all defense; he isn’t a fighter. He is a coward who hurts people tied down or drugged. I’m going to enjoy killing him, making him feel all the pain he inflicts.
I shake my head hard, like a dog with a hare. He screams as he tries to shove me away. I lock my jaw. Swallow the blood. He finally starts to hit me with his fist. Pain explodes in my skull. I don’t let go. He picks up the saw, but with a last wrench of my head, I tear his nose free.
Eduardo howls as he stumbles back. Dropping the tool, he clasps both hands to his face as white light streams from his fingers. He can stop the blood gushing down his face, but he cannot clean the stains off his shirt, cannot erase the evidence of my insult to his masculinity.
That’s only a temporary reminder though, gone when he changes clothes.
I want him to remember what I’ve done to him every day of his fucking life, what little of it remains.
I want him to fear what I’ll do next.
Fighting back my nausea, I start to chew. He looks up at me with murder in his eyes. He can’t immediately regrow the nose I’ve taken, but he can reattach it.
“Give it back!” he screams. He doesn’t advance. He’s too afraid. Too cowardly.
I look him in the eye as I swallow.
My gut churns, but I beat back the urge to retch it up.
Snarling, he bends down and grabs the saw. He takes one angry step towards me, his foot slapping hard on the tiles, and I wonder if I miscalculated. Antonio doesn’t want me dead, but he isn’t here, and this guy has a god complex with anger issues. All it’ll take is one snap moment for him to kill me by “accident.”
“You want to make a fool of me, bitch?”
“It’s not like you need help.” I lean over the side of the bed towards him and bare my bloody teeth. He can’t reach my arm without getting in range of my mouth.
So he goes for my feet.
Grabbing my right one, he starts to hack at me just above my ankle. “I’ll show you a fool!” he shouts as he drags the saw over my skin.
The first slice is bearable. I have been cut enough times. Pain and I are old friends. “I can already see you, dipshit,” I grit out as he makes the second slice.
He’s rough, inefficient, and powered by rage. The cuts aren’t together, one neatly on top of the other. They are a crisscrossing mess of blood and flappy flesh. The pain turns into agony, and it’s harder for me to keep my head together. I fall back on the bed, fighting the urge to scream.
Right as he reaches my bone though, the door behind him opens. I catch sight of a blurred streak, then Eduardo is being yanked off me. The bone saw is pulled from his grasp and flung across the room hard enough to embed into the wall like a spear.
“Heal her,” Antonio snaps as he shoves Eduardo back towards me. He keeps one hand on the back of the witch’s neck, ready to crush it if he so much as hesitates.
“She bit my nose off!” he whines, but he raises his hands instantly. White light streams from his fingers. A warmth spreads through my limb as he repairs what he destroyed.
As soon as he’s done, Antonio shoves him away. He does not need to tell him to hide in the corner and stay quiet. Eduardo’s enough of a coward to do it on his own.
“My hero,” I say sarcastically as I sit up to face the alpha of the werewolves. Sweat trickles down my face, and despite my newly healed leg, my body still trembles from the earlier pain.
Antonio stands at the foot of my bed, his arms crossed. His biceps bulge against the sleeves of his simple black tee. His golden eyes are sharp with intelligence and a desire to break me. “Who was the father of your child?” he demands, and a wave of sheer rage pushes out my lingering pain.
“Fuck you.”
“You fucked someone else to complete the blood bond. Who was it?”
“None of your fucking business.”
“Tell me, or I’ll let Eduardo take your leg.”
