Page 139 of Broken Souls

“If it doesn’t get into your bloodstream, then nothing. If it does, you will experience dizziness, severe stomach pain, diarrhea, a boil-like rash, seizures, burning in your mouth and nose, vomiting, breathing difficulty, blindness, deafness, and complete paralysis from your neck down. Some of these symptoms might be permanent, so don’t cut yourself.”

“Shit,” Enoch groans.

“It’s a magical disease that bypasses a werewolf’s natural resistance to magic, bruh. Of course it’s going to be nasty,” Maddox teases. He turns to me, and my fingers itch for the butter knife beside my plate. Or perhaps I’ll use the fork…

“How long does it take to take effect?” he asks.

“Twenty-four hours,” I say, reaching for the control I’m known for.

“What the fuck? That’s useless,” Enoch blurts, then signs it with his hands.

“It’s the best she can do without making it so strong it kills us just by being breathed in.”

He doesn’t have anything to say to that.

“How are they testing it?” Leno asks.

“Aleric has been supplying her with wolves.”

“Bitten or born?”

My jaw tics. I have the same worry; their level of magical resistance isn’t the same. “Bitten.”

“Shit, so it might not even work on Antonio?”

“If his dosage is higher, she says it should. So we’ll need to attack him all together and stab him as much as we can.”

“Fuck.”

“Which is why I’ve ordered a shipment of silver through the portal.”

“The SCU –” Mother starts.

“Are not the priority right now. If we can make a net, we can kill him. Next month is Siome’s birthday –”

“Who?” Ezriel asks.

“Antonio’s dead mate. He visits the place he proposed to her every year on her birthday, which is the first of July. So we have until then to make a plan to kill him and any super werewolves he’s already infected.”

“Where did he propose?” Ezriel asks warily.

“The crocodile farm.”

“What the fuck?” Leno yells.

Maddox laughs, and just the sound of it makes me want to beat his fucking face in. For him to have any happiness at all right now is pissing me off.

Enoch shakes his head, forcing my attention back on him. “It’s impossible. He owns the territory up and down Matanzas River. As soon as we try to cross the bridge, he’ll have us. We could fly in, but invisibility won’t work given they can smell us. If they figure out our destination, it won’t matter where we land; they’ll just be waiting for us at the farm.”

“You forget we’ve allied with the vampires now, bruh,” Maddox says, rocking his chair back. “We can just phase in.”

Enoch opens his mouth, then closes it again. “Oh, yeah.”

“Idiot.”

“Cuntfucker,” he spits back.

“Why, yes I am,” Maddox says with a grin, and I damn near grab a knife as I think about Micha having watched him do just that.