Page 30 of All Your Deadly Truths (The Filthy Duet #2)

Rolling my lips together, I catch her gaze on me, and I nod. “Sort of. My mom’s a crazy cunt trying to use me to breed more of our kind.” I suppose telling her doesn’t matter. Except, the moment I do, her expression shifts into… something unreadable. “What?”

She looks angry. No, maybe not that, but something between that and concern? I can’t imagine why in any form would she feel that way. “Are you currently pregnant?”

Sighing, I nod again. “Unfortunately.” I clink the metal around my hands and give her a knowing look. “It’s why I was clawing at my stomach. Then shark-boy came and did this.”

“I’ll kill it.” She says it so quickly that I let out a laugh, even if I don’t find humor in what she says. It was just instinctual. “For your heart. ”

“No, I told you, you can’t have it.”

“You want to have that thing, then.” It isn’t a question, but a resolute statement. One that sends bile straight to my throat.

“No! I don’t!”

“Then, why not? Why are you giving up and allowing it to happen?”

My eyes widen, mouth opening in shock. “I’m not giving?—”

“Yes, you are,” she says as she shifts upward. “You aren’t fighting the way you can. You’re giving up.”

“Fight.”

“I’ll kill it, Succubus.”

I’m shaking my head, even if that is what I want. I know I’ll have to give her my heart, and I’m just not ready for that.

“Fight, baby.”

My body aches for him, my Amoro crying out to see him even in the depths of my dream. If I sleep for a long time, maybe I can fight the block he has on me and get to him. He won’t be able to kick me out if I don’t have a heartbeat.

Would you be mad at me for giving it away… Would you hate me… Would you still love me?

“You’ll kill it first?” I ask weakly, not entirely convinced of my answer yet.

The eager nod of Sinnix’s head makes me close my eyes and search for the beating in my chest. She is right, and I know when my mother comes to collect me it will piss her off that I’ve somehow killed it. Even though she will just force another one inside of me, I’ll revel in her fury.

“Lie to me, Sinnix,” I say, shifting and beginning to move toward her. “Come find me again when they put me back down here. Kill the thing inside of me every time, and you can have my heart over and over again.”

Her eyebrows pinch. “Your heart will feed me for years. It’s likely the strongest beyond that of one of the Divine themselves.”

“I said lie to me.” I’m a mere arms reach from her, but she doesn’t come for me, not yet. The hesitation is weird, but so is the expression on her face.

“They will likely move you.”

“Lie to me, please.” I choke on the words.

Her eyes move between mine, just as she reaches slowly into the cage and grabs my elbow. “I won’t come back, Succubus.” Heat pulls straight from behind my eyes. “Can I know your name?”

“Xeraphine.”

“Can I know his name? ”

I hesitate, but as I watch her shift down just as my hip meets the bars at an awkward angle, I whisper, “Kairhyse.”

She smiles sweetly for the first time. “Xeraphine and Kairhyse. It has a nice ring to it.”

I’m not one to shy away from gore, but watching her jaw open, the skin between her lips stretching to ungodly lengths, has me queasy.

Then, her sharp teeth quickly bite down into the flesh of my stomach, and I turn away immediately with my scream.

The tear of my flesh is quick, but it isn’t just my skin and muscle she takes.

Whatever was in her way of getting close enough to shove her hand into my uterus, is now floating around me like a lava lamp.

My body twitches and I can’t believe how quickly I’m going into shock. Pain ruptures through my spine and I scream again. Fire erupting around my pelvic region, causing nausea to hit me like a bullet train.

“Breathe, you can’t die—your heart needs to keep beating!” Sinnix coaches, and I swear I could kill her right now.

Just like when Zade did it, the moment it’s torn from my body, I’m trembling and trying to find air to fill my desperate lungs.

I glance back at her, noticing her gaze fixed on her clenched fist, the blood swirling away as the water around us slowly claims it. “Eat it…” I demand, which has her licking her lips. “It has a heart…”

There is no part of me that hates kids, but one created out of rape…

that I do. This thing would be used and abused, just like I am.

A demon brought into the world forcibly, bound to fulfill someone else’s will, would never truly live—and I’d never be able to protect it.

At the very least, that’s what a mother is supposed to do for her child.

Sinnix does as I commanded and shoves whatever was left of the fetus into her mouth. After a moment of chewing, she turns to me. I lift my nearest arm over my head, exposing my chest fully to give her the best access I can.

“And Sydni,” I mumble. “And Mister.” My vision flickers in and out of focus, my head shaking with each pulse. “That’s my stupid little family.”

“Take a deep breath,” she says, barely giving me enough time to do so.

The initial bite pierces right to my ribs—I can feel the grinding of them as she tears back my muscle and tissue.

The snap of skin and ripping of tendons is drowned out by my high-pitched scream.

Her arm comes around my neck as she drives her hand through the hole she created, grabbing a rib.

And I think at this point, I go numb, because all I feel is tugging.

My body jerks involuntarily, leaving me powerless to keep kicking or fighting against the natural pull as my body begins to float downward.

“Stay conscious, Xeraphine, almost there.”

Staring into her piercing yellow eyes, unwavering as they focus intently on her task, I fight against the relentless pull of death, desperate to resist the descent it demands of me.

If I could have turned fully to face her, she could have just gone up through my stomach, but this… I do not want to remember this, especially as she grabs hold of my beating heart.

No longer am I numb, but the sensation isn’t painful. It’s warm, and when I release the air I have, I can feel liquid building up toward my throat. She had to go through my lung. That’s why she told me to take a deep breath.

It’s strange, but I want her to keep cradling it—I don’t hate the feeling. Even as she squeezes it, I don’t ache.

An odd sensation washes over me, each snapping tendril tethering my heart to me unraveling one by one.

Then, she lets me go, and I begin to fall.

The dark world around me drifts farther away as her face fades from view, replaced by the curve of her chest, the hand gripping the last piece of me I had fought so hard to keep safe, and finally, the flicker of her fin as I descend into the abyss.

My body lies on the seabed below, and I watch the black that will consume me crawl from under the metal restraints at my hands.

Then, as swiftly as a blink, the cold embrace of the sea vanishes, replaced by the place where I long to stay for the rest of my miserable life.

Unlike before, Kairhyse is here, hovering just above me, his hand resting gently against my cheek. A touch that feels both impossibly real and achingly distant.

“Hey, little demon.”

I inhale sharply, and for the first time, the breath comes without the searing pain that had gripped me before.

“Kai… don’t let me go… Please, don’t?—”

“Never.” He shakes his head and leans down, planting a kiss against my lips, only pulling away to whisper, “You’re mine… I’ve got you now.”