Page 289 of Halfblood Deceived

“Tell me where they are!” Micah screamed as he kicked her. “Tell me where they are, or I’ll tear you to pieces! I’ll beat all his blood out of you! I’ll keep you alive for as long as it takes, whore!” He stopped kicking her and placed his booted foot between her shoulder blades, cutting her breath.

A gurgling whimper left Aella’s throat. She tried to form words, but her tongue barely responded. She tried again and again.

“What?” Micah asked. He moved his foot from her back and crouched, taking a fistful of her hair to lift her face from the floor. “What was that? Are you ready to speak, whore?”

Aella coughed up blood. The pain in her body was so strong that she felt numb and as heavy as if she were made of concrete. “Go—go—” She coughed again.

Micah pulled harder at her hair. “Go where? Go where?!”

Aella took a whistling breath. Something important felt broken inside her. “Go fuck yourself, asshole.”

Hey, that felt great! She fuzzily thought. No wonder Aylana, Diana, and Kamilla do it all the time.

Micah dropped her to the floor. Her head bounced against the tiles.

And then he was kicking her again, demanding that she answer. He called her every foul name. And he threatened to do things she fortunately only half heard.

Aella screamed.

She couldn’t help it.

She screamed until she couldn’t anymore.

But she didn’t tell him shit.

CHAPTER 56

The smoky darkness cleared, leaving them in the reception of the hospital’s supernatural wing.

The receptionist let out a startled scream.

Aroth arched a brow at her. “Be not afraid.”

Zeydan felt as if he was spinning. The white walls and the gray floor danced around him. He shook his head.

Aylana exhaled roughly. “Ugh.”

Aroth released their wrists, but placed a steadying hand between Aylana’s shoulder blades in yet another confusing act of kindness.

“Where is Nurse Jasmine?” Zeydan asked the receptionist.

She just blinked.

They were wasting time, and Aella needed him. She needed him.

Zeydan cursed under his breath. His heart was pounding. His head was pounding—

“Where is Nurse Jasmine?” he repeated, using his hypnosis.

The receptionist’s face went slack, she pointed at the wide hall on the left. “Down the hall. Then to the right. In the trauma exam room.”

Zeydan zoomed down the hall, sniffing as he passed by several doors. The familiar scent of Diana’s blood made him halt and burst inside a room to find Nurse Jasmine and a young male doctor hovering over Diana’s prone body. She was on an exam table, half-covered with a white, bloody sheet. Her skin was as pale as Zeydan had ever seen it. If it wasn’t for the throbbing vein in her neck, he would have thought she was dead. Two surgical cuts went from her shoulders to the center of her chest. Which, added to the line of blood on the sheet, created a Y shape.

What the fuck?

“What’s happening to her?” Zeydan asked. “Why isn’t she healing?”

He’d seen Diana sustain several slicing wounds during the battle against the gargoyles in Ancora. And she had regenerated within minutes.

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