Page 104 of Jagged Souls

My grip tightens on my phone so hard my screen cracks at one edge. The werewolf husks down in the cells call to me, a shrieking darkness that demands to be used.

“Call me when you want to trade that alexandrite,” I bite out. Then I hang up before he can see me break.

Screaming, I crush my phone in my hand, then launch it across the fucking yard. It shatters through a window of the house. Pivoting on my feet, I slam fist after fist into the garage wall, making the whole building shake.

Rage pours through me as I imagine what’s happening to Micha right at this moment. How she’s lying on that damn mattress, completely fucking vulnerable, and he’s shoving his cock inside her.

Magic flares beneath my skin, burning hot and wild, chaotic energy urging me to set the world on fire. To let my husk soldiers rise from the ashes and slaughter anyone who remains.

Screaming, I slam both fists into the wall, punching right through the material, and let my power rip free. Shadows pour forth from my feet. The husks’ bloodlust runs through my veins, so pale in comparison to mine.

He’s hurting my wife.

He’s hurting my wife!

Closing my eyes, I roar as I rip my hands free of the wall. Before I can take off towards the northeast though, a pink bubble forms around me.

“Noooo!”

I rail against it, slamming my shoulder into the curved wall over and over again, but it doesn’t give. So I start to use my magic, flinging out whatever I can – an uncontrollable, volatile energy.

Pain ruptures across my body as I’m hit by the ricochets, but cracks are starting to form in the pink. Roaring, I dig deeper inside of myself, willing to offer up everything I am to my magic. It can take a kidney, my muscles, my entire left arm if it means I can get out of here and to my wife.

But I’m struggling to extend my arms now. The bubble is shrinking rapidly. Forcing me to bend in half. For my knees to come up to my chest. For my neck to curve painfully.

And still my prison shrinks.

Smaller and smaller until every part of me is touching.

Until all that’s left to breathe is the black smoke that sits thick in my lungs.

My vision narrows.

My anger grows.

I gasp as I strain to keep trying to escape.

But my limbs won’t listen.

My lungs won’t breathe.

Unable to fight it, I pass out just as I feel Micha coming back to life.

Twenty-Eight

HER

I’m brought back to life in a vicious cycle of a crushed esophagus to kill me and broken ribs to revive me – CPR never as gentle as it is in movies. I don’t know how many times I have died.

But it’s been long enough that I’m no longer fighting Sadist and Eduardo.

Eventually, Antonio comes into the room.

“How many times have you killed her?” he asks.

“Twenty-nine.”

Fuck.