Page 45 of Death God

Instead of withering, my enemy’s cheeks flushed and grew warm. To my horror, the horseman started to absorb my power, and his eyes glowed deep purple.

It dawned on me that when I was willingly touching him, he could siphon my power. That was why War hadn’t been able to absorb my essence in the past. That was why he was desperate to form the mating bond with me, so he could transfer my power to him.

He wouldn’t let me stall him for long. He’d eventually rape me, and I couldn’t kill him with my death touch or any power I currently possessed.

I pulled my hand from his cheek, but he grabbed my wrist and held me in a vise-grip.

“You promised the wolf alpha a dance, so keep dancing. You’re doing fantastic,” he whispered in my ear. “I’m returning the reins to Jared. But before I go, I stole his confession.” His tone and voice shifted to become fully Jared’s. “I look forward to our wedding night. When I said that I had fond memories about our first time, I meant every word. I relished every detail and kept replaying them after you were taken from me. But now I’ve got you back. I can’t wait to experience your sweet, tight cunt around my cock again while you scream my name and tremble beneath me.”

I shook with rage. Before I threw up on that motherfucker, the horseman snapped his head. “I’m going to slumber and leave you two lovebirds alone. He’s one lucky bastard, Pip.”

With a final wink, his eyes shifted to deep blue, the color of a summer night. The former Alpha Heir surfaced with a gasp. For a second, his wolf peeked out at me with such sadness, longing, and rage before he vanished again, locked up in the abyss.

“Pip,” the Alpha King whispered, beaming at me.

“Well, we’re done dancing since your roommate has used up your allotted time,” I said. “Take it up with him if you want to file a complaint. The date is over.”

I turned to my family. “Come, let’s go take a look and see what this fantastic place has to offer.”

I vowed that I’d free them from this place of horror if it was the last thing I did. I owed them that. I owed my beloved parents that and more.

CHAPTER 12

The silver van that had brought me to the palace now took my family and me cruising down the winding road toward the grounds of the castle as I demanded. I needed to put as much space between my family and Spartoi as possible.

A gray van packed with shifter guards followed behind our van, and a third van that contained several dark mages also trailed behind.

Spaghetti perched in the passenger seat while the honey badger shifter took the driver’s seat. These two were my regular guards now.

Sam sat beside me, her little boy on her lap, staring at me the whole time. Dylan and his girlfriend were on the seat behind us. No one talked, the air bristling with tension.

I wanted to hug my family so badly, and I had so many questions, but I had to hold back and keep my emotions at bay while we were amid enemies. Well, the guards weren’t exactly my foes, but they weren’t my friends either.

“What happened to you, Pip?” Sam asked. She couldn’t help it. She hadn’t changed a bit. When she was afraid, she talked a lot. She vented to release stress. “You can tell me. We can help. Let me help, please.”

I gave her a warning look, not wanting her to ask me questions. But I could gather info from her and learn about what happened to my human family, which couldn’t be used as a weapon against us.

“When did you get here, Sam?” I asked.

“Three days ago,” she said. “They treated us like royalty until—” She paused, remembering what would have happened to her, her boy, and the rest of our family if I hadn’t intervened. “You’re going to be a queen?”

“How did they find you?” I asked. I’d locked that part of my memory away to prevent the horseman from learning about and locating my family.

“We’ve never stopped looking for you, Pip,” my sister said. “We posted your picture in many places.” She lowered her eyes as sorrow shadowed them. “Even after Dad was gone, Mom never gave up searching for you either. She made us promise to keep looking for you and never abandon you, as she believed that you were alive. Then one day, a group of men and women showed up at our door and said they could bring us to you. We’d take any chance just to see you again.”

Sam and I practiced sign language when we were little. I remembered some of it, and I gestured to her that nothing was what it seemed and that they weren’t safe here. I warned them to be careful. My sign language was limited, and so was hers. We hadn’t played around with it for a very long time. I managed to tell her that I was also in danger, but I’d get them to safety.

My brother regarded me intently. Although he’d seen my pictures in our old family home, I was a stranger to him. Sitting in the van, he was tense the whole time.

I looked in the rearview mirror and focused on the second van that carried the dark war mages and black witches. I pictured the tires of their van going flat then the van losing control and tumbling over the rail like a runaway train.

I waited for the accident to happen, but nothing came to pass. Fine. Let me try again. I squeezed my eyes shut and imagined fire ants biting the mage driver all over his body so he’d lose control of the vehicle. Still, nothing happened. The mages’ vehicle kept following us smoothly.

Does the foul magic in the castle prohibit me from performing my prank magic, or is it the cuffs? I asked my spirit allies.

As soon as I’d left the king’s palace, my spirit allies had poured into my cuffs again. Sometimes more of them hitched a ride on my left cuff than the right, making the left one much heavier.

It’s not the dark magic in the air, Whitesong said. It’s your own power, Pip. You’ve finally accessed your death power and linked to the spiritual realm and thus your prank magic has become a thing of the past. You gain something and you lose something else.

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