Page 186 of Claimed By Fangs and Darkness

By the time I was pushed past a set of guards and into a new room, my anxiety was a maddening force.

The space was dark, cold. Black pillar candles were scattered around the space. Magick that didn’t belong to me boomed in the air, whispering tales of cruelty, dark power, and unearthly Lillianic magick. Dead flowers were everywhere. A spell circle was painted in blood.

In its center, Juliette.

She was no longer bandaged. When she saw me, she merely smiled, her eyes sharp and icy.

Aster unhooked the chain from my bondage and threw it to the ground. “Tell me it isn’t true,” he finally bellowed, as if he’d been holding it in.

I flinched, and his hand closed around my throat above the metal ring.

“Tell me you haven’t been blood marked by another man,” he hissed.

Droplets of spit landed on my cheeks. Aster’s amber eyes burned into my flesh, his body trembling with fury.

“Tell me you haven’t ruined your body with classless ink,” he yelled in my face. “Allowed yourself to be tattooed byvermin. Less than fucking vermin.”

I shriveled, unable to pull free of his tightening grip on my throat. Dark splotches spread across my vision. My mind blurred.

“Did he fuck you, Evelynn? Did he stain your blood and cunt?”

Aster’s voice was quieter now as I struggled for air, scratching at his hand, body slumping.

Just when I thought I was going to lose consciousness, he tore his hand away. I gasped, falling forward and catching myself on my hands and knees. I sucked in breath after breath, forcing myself to shove everything but my own survival out of my mind.

I needed to fucking live. That was the only way I could fix any of this.

My desire to live was the only thing keeping me from flying into a deathly rage at how he spoke about me, my body, and my family.

Aster’s pupils were big, frenzied. If he entered bloodlust, I was dead.

“I was scared,” I said. “They protected me.”

I didn’t fully answer any of his questions, just like he refused to answer mine. I looked up at him with frightened, wounded eyes, remaining as small and powerless as he most desired me.

“Show me,” Aster said.

He picked me up off the ground and shoved me in front of Juliette. The moment I entered the spell circle, I shrieked, assailed by another witch’s magick. My own power was bound, leaving me with no ability to defend or protect myself.

I tried to stand, but Juliette snapped her fingers, forcing me to remain kneeling before her. She sat in a puddle of white fabric, a dress that stood in glaring contrast to the bloody magick seeping through the walls.

Aster tore my own dress from my body as I uselessly flailed my arms to try to stop him. He left me in my underwear and a thin bra.

Juliette scattered a fistful of bones, chanting under her breath in a tongue I was unfamiliar with.

Her death magick screeched, assailing my defenseless body and mind.

Oh gods, was this the day I would lose my eyes?

It felt like my skin was being peeled away. My teeth rattled together.

Aster made a violent growl from behind me. He yanked me up by my hair, his hand meeting the nape of my neck.

He was tracing The Star.

I looked down at my unglamoured arm and its clan marking, which was next to be inspected by Aster’s bruising grip. He spunme around. His enraged gaze snagged on my hip immediately. There he saw the mark of Hekate: the snake and key with blooming flowers. My tattoos remained onyx. They didn’t come alive for Aster.

He reached from behind me, taking a bottle of gray liquid from Juliette and shoving the concoction down my throat with my head pulled back.