Page 69 of Blood Bound

GABRIEL

When the arrow hit my chest, I knew that I had been cornered. The baobab smoke that followed rendered me unable to react and when I woke up, I found myself in what looked like a shipping container.

They’ve kept me weak under a constant stream of baobab mist and I can do nothing but take the beatings, stabbings, removal of fingers, and streams of sunlight.

A hot slice of pain shoots through my mouth, showing that the fang they extracted had grown back. I knew who took me before I even saw his face, and as he continued to torture me with baobab stakes and UV lamps, the only thing keeping me level-headed was her.

He wants me to scream; he wants me to beg - but I’ll be fucking damned if I allow him to elicit those things from me.

“You know the council will hunt you down after this, right?” I scoff. “Do what you want and get it over with, Décès.”

The man who has been killing my kind for decades, the fucking bane of my existence, steps forward with a crossbow and shoots five arrows into my stomach before picking up a stake. He’s not even that threatening; shorter than me and muscular, but were I not in these shackles, he would be dead by now.

“The council has tried for years to get me, and I’m still here,”

“I can say the same thing about myself, and yet here I am.” I scoff, tasting blood in my mouth. “Who in my circle did you bribe, Décès? You can at least afford me that bit of information before you put that through my heart.”

“No, I don’t think I will,” he says, then rears back and embeds the stake a few inches from my heart. “I’m enjoying this way too much, seeing you bloodied and knowing that I hold your life in my hand.”

I chuckle and spit out blood. “My life is sitting in her apartment waiting for a date I’m supposed to take her on,” rage flares in his eyes, and his lips thin when I say this. “But you’re more than welcome to believe that you’re hurting me.”

He crosses his arms and places two fingers against his lips. “Perhaps I should have her brought in here and let my men have their way with her while you can do nothing but watch,” he taunts.

Threatening my woman will be the last thing he ever does.

“Do you honestly believe that she would allow that?” I laugh at his empty threat. “She’d have their balls ripped out before they could even lay a finger on her, and you know I’m not exaggerating when I say that.”

His smirk wavers slightly, but he knows what I’ve said is true. He trained his only daughter to be a beast with a gun, the only reason that the bounty hunter almost caught her was that her guard was down and they ripped her of her senses.

He doesn’t say much after this and pulls the stake out of my chest before shooting me a triumphant smirk. “I’m suddenly bored –”

“Before you kill me, tell me this last thing: why did you kill your wife and son?” The fact that Décès killed his own wife and kid never sat right with me. Why kill the little boy when he’s done nothing?

Grinning, he spins the stake in between his fingers and levels me with a dark look in his already deranged eyes. “Valentine tainted her, and my son already saw him as a better person than me. I knew that I still had Katherine, so I killed them to spur on her hatred for your kind.” He says as if reading the morning paper.

“So you killed your wife and son to fill her heart with hate?”

“Yes, and it worked until I sent her here to eliminate you. I don’t know what you did to twist her mind –”

“She’s my Fated,” I grin, watching as horror fills his eyes. “She will always choose me over you and there’s not a fucking thing you can do about it.”

He cries out and rears back his fist to embed the stake in my heart, but I don’t close my eyes or bow my head, knowing my death is near.

I lived a life I loved and met my Fated before my eventual demise; it’s just a shame that I will never be able to fully make her mine.

However, something happens way too quickly for me to comprehend, and when I blink again, a woman has her fangs deep in Alexander’s neck.

Beautiful, with hair the color of honey, crimson eyes, and black sclera. She looks me dead in the eye, nearly draining him while I know he’s pumped full with the baobab mixture.

How the fuck?

Alexander thrashes around while she feeds on him, but he can’t even call out for help because a few seconds later, the woman steps back and snaps his neck.

“You deserve so much more than the gift I have given you, but I am sure you won’t live as one of us for long,” She looks down at him, stomping her heel into his back before her attention snaps to me and she smiles.

It’s only then that I notice her double set of fangs.

She crosses her arms and saunters over to me as her eyes shimmer to an icy blue, the blood a stark color against her pale skin. I wouldn’t have believed it if I didn’t see it right in front of me, but I know her… I know her deeply and my heart shatters knowing what she’s done.

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