Page 117 of Madness Behind the Mask
My body shakes. My breathing is rapid with fear. I lean with one hand against the wall of the building, the other to my chest.
I’m outside the wards.
I’m in the fucking open.
With no protection.
With no guards.
The world is closing in on me in its utter vastness, and I’m struggling to breathe.
A dark feeling hits me like a sucker punch, raising the hairs on my nape and dropping a weight in my stomach. I twist around, then scramble to the side, but I’m not fast enough to evade the hand reaching for me.
Antonio grabs me by the arm and tosses me against the wall. He’s in his human form, but I know he can still kill me easily. My back slams into the building. I try to sink into my shadows to run, but he grabs my hand and twists.Crack!The entire thing is bent back the other way. Bones snap out of my flesh, and I cry out on a small whimper, my mind tossed back to that night in the woods.
I can’t stop him from grabbing my other hand. I try to kick him, headbutt him, but he just envelopes my fingers with his, then crushes them all together. His other palm slams across my mouth as I scream, muffling my criesforhelp. My knees give out from the pain until it’s just him holding me up,his palm squeezing my jaw. I feel a tooth crack, my jaw fracture like a spider’s web.
“You should’ve stayed in your fuckinghome.” He jerks my head forward, then slamsitback into the wall. Pain explodes in my skull, but even it can’t override the agony in my mouth as multiple teethpop out like kernelsinafire. Ikick him. I claw at him with the bones sticking out of my hands, raking the jagged edges across his face. He doesn’t move, doesn’t blink. Just glares at me with those damn golden eyes as he keeps the pressure on my jaw.
I aim for his eyes, the pain of my exposed bone nothing compared to the fear of dying in this alleyway,ofCaden never finding me, Leon never getting justice, my children losing their mother all over again,the Shadowbloodline potentially dying with me as my twin girls are infertile.
He slams my head back into the wall, on my vision, the swing of my arms, and I miss his eyes with a gurgled cry of broken teeth and bleeding gums. He leans in closer, as if he needs to watch every last twitch of my muscles, spot every shade of terror in my eyes as his palm crushes the lower half of my face into mush. But he keeps my nose free, keeps me breathing. Killing me so quickly won’t do for his rage.
Whatever peace he used to hope for, whatever life he wished to give his mate and pups has been ripped away from him.By me.
My eyes flutter as the pain makes me start to pass out, and the last thing I see is the twisted, painful triumph in his eyes. Ismy death healinghim like I believe Aleric’s will me?
Before the answer can be found, I’m dropped to the ground, and he flies through the air. Hope fills my chest as my ass hits the pavement, and I watch as Antonio gets run over by a car. Its engine is off; there’s no driver inside. Knowing Caden must be here, I roll my head to the side.
My heart jumps at the sight of him. He’s so fucking angry, and I know half of that is aimed at me. For doing something so stupid, for leaving the wards only three days after he finally got comfortable enough to leave my side.
Movement to his left catches my attention, and I see Jonathan running towards me. I want to scream at him to get back, to not get this close to Antonio even if his father has him pinned under a car, but my mouth doesn’t work. Heskids to a stop in front of me, down on his knees, his hand fumbling in an inside pocket of his jacket. He pulls out a healing potion, one of the ones I made for him, and raises it to my lips. He curses as he tries to figure out how to pour it down my throat. My mouth feels like a tin can that’s been stepped on and squished, and by the look in his eyes, it probably doesn’t look much better.
“Sorry,” he says as he tilts my head all the way back. Agony ruptures on every nerve, and I instinctively flinch away from him, but he fists his hand in my hair and holds me still. Placing the vile on my nose, he pours its contents down them, lighting up my nostrils with a burning pain that makes my eyes water.
But the potion works quickly, and a small cry is finally able to leave my lips. He ducks under one of my arms and hauls me to my feet.
An animalisticgrowl comes from beneath the car. I turn my head towards it just in time to see it get tipped onto its side.The crash is loud, but no humanrunsinto the alley to see what’s happening. Caden must’ve erected a shield around it, hiding us from their eyes.
A flash of red fur darts towards us, and Jonathan tries to move in front of me just as I try to drag him back. The car slams into Antonio, knocking him to the side.
“Run!” Caden shouts.
Jonathan and I turn back around. We take one step, but then he’s wrenched away from me, pulled by a man who’s just suddenly appeared.Grinning at me, Aleric throws my boy at Antonio, trying to force Caden’s attention.
But my husband whistles a high note. Jonathan shifts into his shadows. Aleric spins towards me, his arm out, but I’m suddenly flying through the air, pulledalongby Caden’s magic. Just as the vampire looks like he’s about to phase to me, a bright light explodes in the alley. I close my eyes instinctively. My body keeps moving. Up, up, and thensideways at speed, flying in the direction of home.
“Whatin Hel’s namewere you thinking?”Caden yellsas I sit onthecouch in our living room asLouisetendsto my injuries. Healing potions, like premade wands,can only do so much, each body too uniquely different when magic needs to be exact. A few of the teeth that regrew have come in sideways, and Louise straightens them, her hands alight with white light. She keeps her eyes down, a blush of embarrassment for me across her cheeks.
My jaw ticks.“I wasthinkingsomeone finally needed to dosomething!” I say, trying my damnedest not to shout back. A good wife doesn’t scream, and she most certainly doesn’t tell her husband to shut the fuck up. Father would beat me for the thoughts in my head. I love Caden, but right now I want to throttle him.
“Do ‘something?’ Like what, feed him your face? Die at his feet? Decorate him in your intestines and teeth?”
The rage blisters beneath my tongue. “I was trying to lure Aleric out –”
“And did you just forget about Antonio? Youknowhe’s been watching this fucking street since you woke up from your coma.”
My cheeks burn. My eyes flash. I’m not the idiot he’s painting me as. “Of course not! But I thought –” I stop, biting my tongue.
