Page 162 of Degradation

“What the fuck are you talking about?” I say.

“Your soul, Paitlyn. I wanted that piece of you. I wasn’t going to let anyone else claim it. Anyone else steal it.”

I gulp, struggling to wrap my head around what he’s just said. He thinks he owns a piece of my soul? What the fuck?

He lets out a sigh, pulling me in so that my body leans more onto his, so that I’m sprawled over his chest.

“In another life, you wouldn’t have gone through all that shit, I would have realised sooner, I would have acted sooner.”

“Realised what?” I ask.

“That you were meant for me, created for me, God or the devil, or someone, intended for you to be mine.”

His hand cups my cheek, and it’s so easy to believe this, to believe his sweet words and his softness and forget the monster he was before, the man who brutalised me just as much as my husband did.

“We can leave.” He says quietly. “We could do what I wanted to all those years ago, we could disappear, start over, go somewhere they won’t find us…”

“They’ll find us.” I reply. I’m not so stupid to believe there would be any other outcome. Not so naïve now. “Besides, your brothers are reapers, you think they’d just stop looking for you?”

He doesn’t say anything to that.

“It’s not the life you want, not the life I want.” I continue. “I don’t want to be looking over my shoulder, constantly fearful that I might get caught.”

“Then what do you want, Paitlyn?”

I draw in a deep breath. No one has ever asked me that. No one has ever cared for my wants. But the ironic truth is, I won’t get what I want now. I’ll never get it now. I’m too far gone, too lost, too damaged. I had such dreams of outliving Gunther, of leaving, of travelling, but none of that can happen now.

I run my hands over my face, realising that there are no good options here. We’ve been backed into a corner and there’s only one realistic way out.

“We have to go to your brother.” I state, hardly believing the words coming out of my mouth.

“What?” He snarls, and his entire body language changes.

“Listen,” I say quickly. “He’s the one with the power here, he can protect us, we just have to have something worth bargaining with him. Something that makes it worth his while.”

The seems to tense. Silence hangs between us, and then Devin says in such a tone. “Oh, I have something.”

“What?”

“Titus Ratcliffe.”

“Who?” Who the fuck is that? The name means nothing to me, but I’m guessing that’s the man who was bundled into the van beside me.

“He’s the other candidate for Chapter Lord. Magnus can’t be anointed without him there to concede.” Devin explains.

“Magnus is going for Chapter Lord?” I hiss while my mind does somersaults. Since when would the Brethren accept a Blake as Chapter Lord? God, so much has changed, so much has shifted, since I was locked away.

“I can’t trust him.” Devin states, breaking through my thoughts. “He locked me away, had me institutionalised. He’d sooner stab me in the back than let me into the fold again.”

“Then let me try.” I say.

He scoffs, “No, malkta,” He says. “My brother is not the kind of person to listen to reason, especially not from a woman.”

“That’s not what I meant.” I reply, as a grin creeps across my face.

Magnus may be unapproachable, but if he’s going for Chapter Lord, then I know who will be behind it, who will help us. Whohasto help us.

Devin