Page 57 of Broken Souls

He turns around to face me, having picked up two items off the bed – the first presents I ever received – a hammer and a screw. Dayne likes to joke that even when faced with a screw, I’m still stubborn enough to hit it with a hammer, and my heart breaks, knowing that Varius is about to taint one of my favorite memories.

“Please, Varius, don’t do this,” I beg as he walks towards me. “I wasn’t leaving you. I swear, and I didn’t take down the wards. Your mother –”

His fist with the screw backhands me across the face, and my head jerks to the side as a bloody line tears across my cheek. The cut burns, but it has nothing on the pain from being hit by someone I love.

“Varius, please,” I push out, my voice cracking as I try not to cry. Pain, I can deal with. I suffered through worse when being trained by my father. But Varius is hitting me where father never could. He is tearing apart my soul with his refusal to even listen. Everything we were, everything we could have been, it is dying here along with me.

“The rules here are simple, Micha. You lie to me, you get punished. You tell me the truth, and I won’t touch you until I kill you. Now.” He pauses, letting me feel the weight of his words, the honesty within them. “Tell me what happened tonight.”

“I came back because your mother tricked me.” The text might have said it came from him, but I now know without a doubt that bitch lured me here. “Then she took down the wards and attacked me. I only fought back in self-defense.”

“She would never do that.”

“Iwould never do that.” I look at him, trying to push my love down the bond we share. “Please, Varius. You know me,” I murmur.

“I know a liar.” His jaw tics. His voice drops. “And a whore.”

“I’m not a whore.” I realize my mistake as soon as the words are free, that I didn’t protest to being a liar too, but I can still feel Antonio’s lips on me, his tongue in my mouth, and that violation makes me sick – second only to the man I love accusing me of being a whore.

I start to open my mouth to correct my statement, but his hand flies across my face. My teeth slam together, radiating pain all up and down my jaw. The end of the screw tears a new jagged line across my cheek.

“You kissed him,” he says. “Have you fucked him too yet? Or is that to be a celebratory act?”

“Fuck you.”

His hand wraps around my throat this time, and he leans in, his face so close to mine. “Perhaps I should kiss you now,” he murmurs, but there’s no passion in those words, no desire. There’s not even any anger of a lover wanting make-up sex, of an enemy wanting to punish. They are just flat, entirely and utterly empty. “So you can die alone, with not even your lover’s lips to comfort you.”

He keeps his face near mine as he chokes me, his eyes boring into me, letting me feel the force of his anger even as they shut me out. Panic floods my system, and if my hands weren’t bound, I’d be clawing at his throat. My head goes fuzzy. My vision starts to blur.

But just as I start to pass out, he releases me and steps back. I lean forward, gasping for air even as the voice in my head tells me it’s pointless. Why bother with trying to live when I’m not making it out of this room?

Because you’re not fighting for just you anymore.

Those words come out of nowhere and steal away the breath I’ve just regained. Antonio said he was coming back for the child in my belly. He hit me above my womb, and there’s no blood between my thighs.

My heart rate increasing, I lift my head and blurt, “I’m pregnant.”

For a moment, the world freezes as he stares at me.

But then he twirls the hammer in his hand, his eyes so fucking empty. “I told you what would happen if you lied to me,” he bites out, and my pulse jumps a wild beat inside my veins. I tug against my binds, willing my magic to free me. But he’s tied my fingers down tight, leaving me completely helpless.

“I’m not lying. I’m –”

His knuckles slam into my chest, hitting me right in the solar plexus. I lean forward, gasping for air as pain radiates across my chest. He switches the objects in his hands. The hammer is now in his dominant one, and seeing it there terrifies me. He isn’t planning on hitting me with his fist anymore.

“Varius, don’t do this,” I beg, coughing up spittle as I try to wheeze. “Please. I didn’t do this. Just listen to me. Varius, please.”

He places the long screw on the back of my hand, and my heart jumps into my throat. He raises the hammer, his eyes cold.

“Don’t. Varius. Varius, please, look at me. I love you. I –”

The hammer comes down, slamming the screw all the way through my flesh.

I scream, my voice cracking, pain radiating up my arm and across my vocal chords. The hammer resonates across the screw again, pure agony shooting through my body as the metal digs deeper into my flesh, the ridges causing even more damage, making the hole ragged and torn instead of clean.

I look up at him on a cry, and for the first time, he isn't wearing a mask. His face is twisted in equal parts agony and rage, and I know he cares for me. He cares for me, and his heart is breaking thinking I betrayed him. This is killing him, killing us.

But I know he will not stop.