Page 11 of Jagged Souls

I don’t have time to wait for the pain to subside.

So I dig my fingertips into the carpet and drag my spasming body across the room. I pull the door open and crawl through the hall. I push out my senses, trying to detect her heartbeat or just smell her blood.

I detect the latter. A lot of it. She’s near the basement stairs. There’s a heartbeat there too, but it isn’t hers.

Screaming in utter agony, I drag myself towards her presence. I can imagine her lifeless eyes as she lies in a stagnant pool of blood. I can imagine her eyes aren’t even there anymore, ripped out by the harsh rake of a claw across her face. I see her so broken and beaten, she isn’t recognizable to anyone but me. She’s been torn apart. Her chest plate ripped open. Her face gnawed off.

Those images curb stomp me in the back of the head. I drop my face to the ground and scream.

The pain in my muscles and limbs has been replaced with a terrible ache, an exhaustion that’s begging me to give up, to not force myself to see her body. Because deep down, I already know that’s what I’ll find.

Just a body.

Not my stubborn, sarcastic wife.

“Noooo!”

I push myself up. My muscles and bones protest, but I bite through the pain. A hand grabs my shoulder and pulls me the rest of the way to my feet. Ducking under my arm, Rudy helps me stagger down the hall.

More heartbeats flood around the house. One kneels down by the faint pulse that isn’t hers. Two more race down the stairs to the basement – Khalid and Leno no doubt, checking on their girl and dog who should hopefully be there. I can’t sense them through the magic of the ward.

Tears burning my eyes, I suck in a breath before we turn the corner. Rudy squeezes me with the arm he has around my waist. My heart in my throat, I take that final step. And then I cansee.

Mother is kneeling over Dayne, her hands glowing over a fist-sized wound in his stomach. The hole is just like the one Micha had when I found her in the basement. Antonio was here. And he came for her.

Shoving away from Rudy, I lunge for our mother. “You were supposed to protect her!” I yell. I grab her by her hair and pull her to her feet. I don’t care that she’s in the middle of saving Dayne. He might be family, but he isn’t mywife.

“Where is she?” I roar as I shake her. “Where is my wife?”

“She’s alive!” she says, and my grip loosens as my chest is hit with too heavy of a blow. “Antonio took her. I tried to stop them –”

I backhand her across the face hard enough her hair rips out of her skull and stays in my fingers. She stumbles away from me. “If you tried, you wouldn’t be here!” I shout.

I go to lunge for her again, but my body can’t move. I’m trapped by the power of Ezriel’s telekinesis. I struggle against him, gnashing my teeth and spitting in fury. I feel like an animal. A basic beast who only wants one thing.

“Where is she?” I scream.

“I don’t know,” Mother says as she turns back to me. She doesn’t heal her swollen cheek from where I hit her. “I only got here after they already cast the transportation spell.”

I scream as I strain against my invisible binds. Ezriel is holding every atom in my fucking body. My eyes turn to him. He still has strength to stand, but I can detect the harsh beat of his pulse. He’s worn out from his fight with the hybrid and werewolves. If I keep pushing, he’ll break. Then I can kill the bitch in front of me for not having been by my wife the entire time.

“You should’ve made sure they got to the basement!”

“I know!” she says. “I’m sorry. I thought I stopped them all before they got to the house. If I’d known they had a transporter –”

“Look at the plants!” Even the ones inside the house are all dead. “They obviously had a fucking witch!”

Not many witches know how to work a transportation spell, but I don’t care. She should’ve known Antonio would have something up his sleeve.

“He took my wife! You let him take my fucking wife!”

I pull against the binds of my prison again. All my muscles strain for release.

“Enough,” Khalid says softly but firmly as he moves between us. He faces me, his mien dangerously calm. “Mother, finish healing Dayne,” he orders. “We don't need another casualty. Then get out of the house.”

She doesn’t say anything as she obeys.

Khalid clasps my shoulder as he looks me in the eyes. “We’re going to find her, Varius. We’re going to tear apart every single one of his compounds if we have to, but we will get her back.”