Page 46 of Broken Souls

“I didn’t.”

“But Sau said –”

“She was misinformed,” I snap, not wanting to get into an argument now. I need to be on my A-game. Antonio can react faster than a fucking bullet, faster than I can throw. If I’m to have any hope of getting out of here, then I need to concentrate on survival and not correcting lies. That can come later.If we’re still alive.

I will be.

Because I’m not leaving Varius before I even get to know him. I want to learn how he looks when he sleeps; he has always stayed up after me, always left before I woke. I want to hear him laugh without restriction, without that fear of happiness choking the life out of him. I want to see him dance when no one’s looking, feel the touch of his hand when it’s covered in wrinkles. I want a lifetime with him. I want the bond to be completed.

So I can’t die here today.

I have too many things I want to –

Thud!

The loud bang in the ceiling has me pivoting on my heels and looking up. I warded the door. I didn’t ward the fucking ceiling. My eyes narrow as I try to figure out where they’re going to come in from, but then they widen, and the two potions slip from my fingers. I don’t know if they shatter. Don’t know if the contents inside them get on me.

Because all my concentration is on the pain exploding in my stomach. A nest of fire ants. The impact of a bus. The tearing of a chainsaw as it digs into one’s flesh. I don’t think any of those things feel as bad as this.

My eyes roll back as my vision blurs. I’m vaguely aware of blood bubbling out of my mouth. I can taste the copper, can smell the iron.

Someone is screaming, but I don’t think it’s me. I don’t think I have the ability to do anything other than breathe, and even that is a struggle.

Dropping my chin, my head unable to hold itself up, I peer down at my stomach. A clawed fist is poking through the right side of my body. A large presence is at my back.But before I can even question what the fuck went wrong with the ward, the darkness starts to take me.

No! No, I need to fight –Varius...

“Shhh,” Antonio whispers in my ear, his words so soft I can barely hear them. “Just relax. Don’t fight it.” Spreading his claws out, he rips his hand back out of my body. Chunks of me splatter at my feet, and my knees buckle in an instant. He lowers me to the ground, his lips still by my ear. “I’m not going to kill you now,” he murmurs. “First I’m going to take the bitch in front of you.”

My eyes find her at the shelf of potions. She’s grabbing handfuls of who knows what. I want to yell at her to turn around, to not give him her back, but I can’t do anything other than gurgle up blood.

My cheek hits the floor. Antonio slides his hand down from my shoulder, where he was holding me up, to my back, below the hole he punched in me. His breath chilling my ear, he snarls, “Then I’m going to come back for the bastard in your womb.”

My eyes widen.

His hand wraps around my throat.

Get up, Micha! Get up!

“I will make you suffer like I have.”

He squeezes, and the darkness closes in on me. My brain screams at me to get up, to protect this child he’s hinting at.

But my limbs won’t work.

And my vision isn’t clearing. Isn’t coming back. It’s just falling to the darkness like I’m falling to him.

No!

No, godsdamnit! Get up!Get…up…

“I will show you what it’s like to be a parent without a child.”

My blood spikes. I want to scream, but all I can do is lie beneath his hand and bleed out.

“And only then, Shadow whore, will I kill you.”

Get...up...gods...damn...it