Page 129 of Madness Behind the Mask
“You took my children from me,” I seethe, my heart twisting as all their deaths flash in front of my eyes. “So I will take all of yours.”
His vampires hiss as they shake the cage, but they can’t get me here. They can’t break through the wards I put up as we fought. They can’t get out of this gym either.
He laughs, and there are words on his tongue – the half that’s left. Turning from him, I try not to think about how little he cared when Colton and his family died, try not to think how itfeltwhen I stared at his lifeless body, how disappointed Caden was in me, how I’ve carried that guilt for the last twelve years, mourning a child that was not even mine. I lookat the vampires around us, and I seethem.
They are not just things I can use for my revenge. They live and they breathe and they hope and they love.
And now they will suffer.
Not because Aleric cares about them but because they give him power. Because they make up themajority of theBlood Fangs, and as today, the entire gangis going toend.
I’m going to have my peace.
I’m going to have it without my children…
Tears want to fall down my cheeks. For them. For me. For taking this path I won’t be able to come back from.
But I’m not like Aleric. This won’t be mindless killing. This will be for the greater good.
For peace.
Opening my shadows up, I call the monsters to them outside of the cage.
And then I bring them out.
“This is the end for your Family, Aleric. I put my wards around this entire building before I came in. No one can phase in or out. And now you must watch them die for your sins.”
I don’t lookat him, don’t want to see his indifference. If he makes me think these deaths are meaningless, then I don’t know if I’ll be able to see this through. And I need to see it through. I need to protect the futurekidsCaden and I will have. I’m not losing another one. Not one damn more.I can’t.
So I watch as tears fall down my cheeks, as their high-pitched screams and blood-drained faces humanizes them even more. I mourn their deaths as they are ripped apart by teeth and claws, by pincers and talons, by tentacles and spikes, but I don’t close my shadows.
This is needed for peace.
For my children…
A particular movement catches my eye, and I turn my head to the left. A gasp of horror escapes me as I watch a hairy monster with an upturned snout and horns curlingout of the top of its head munch on the ripped-off bottom half of a sired vampire. The man’s upper half is beneath the beast’s hairy bulk, his intestines spilling out all over its angry red cock as it slams intohis bodyover and over again.He begs and cries, still alive, and my heart thunders with regret and horror and a want to save him.
But he quickly fades into dust, finally dying, the curse that came with his siring coming intoeffect.
The beast howls in outrage, its thick cock pulsing withbeads that ripple up and down its length beneath the skin. Then it grabs the next person it can and impales them on its cock.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Aleric whispers in my ear, and fear floods my system as I turn. He waits until I’m facing him before he grabs my arms, forces them both over my head, and then phases us. We reappear only a few paces away, the wards I put up when I was tossed into it previously keeping us from passing the criss-crossed wire. Instead, a wall of energy meets my back, lets him pin me between it and his body as mine shakes from his method of travel.
But I see now why he didn’t walk. He’s missing his left foot, having cut it off, sacrificing it to the shadows, so he could escape.
Clamping a large hand over both of mine, he squeezes my fingers together so I can’t use them. Then he grabs my face with his other hand and forces it sideways, forces me to watch the monstrous rape of that vampire. Aleric licks up from the base of my neck to my ear. His tongue is too short, not yet fully healed, but it doesn’t stop him from tasting my skin.
“So much power in its thrusts,” he says in my ear as he presses his hard cock into my stomach. “Can you imagine how it feels being torn apart from a big cock like that?” He laughs. “Of course you can. I bet Caden uses those incubus potions on himself all the damn time. Someone like him needs to overcompensate.”
“Fuck you.”
“No, Sau.” He turns my head back to face him. His grin is wide, his eyes predatory. “I’m going to fuck you.”
My pulse spikes, but my thighs clench, remembering the feel of his fingers.It’s just anatomy. It’s just anatomy.
I try to move my hands, to access my magic, but he just squeezes them tighter. “Rule four,” he murmurs with a wicked smirk. “Never turn your back on your opponent.”
His hand trails down my neck to the collar of my shirt, and he rips it straight down the middle. He cups my right breast, forcing my nipple to harden between the roll of his fingers.
