Page 142 of Jagged Souls

I scream and cry as the wolf pins me down, and another man places his hands on me, forcing his magic through my body to take out what V remains.

I beg for them to stop, to just let me have this. I promise them I’ll be good and obedient and fuck them as much as they want if they just let me keep my sanity.

My protection against the pain.

But Eduardo makes my own body work against me. It uses up the V – sudden and quick, and I get a little high from the orgasm it pulls from me, but it isn’t enough to sedate me. And then it is gone, and I remain.

I don’t want to fucking remain.

I want to be gone.

I want to gohome.

To her.

To Varius…

To that moment in the karaoke bar when everything was beautiful and perfect.

But instead I am here, carried back to the bed by a wolf twisted in form. Held down by a witch whose magic makes me feel sick.

“Shit,” Sunny says after they manage to tie me down and he shifts into his human form. He sighs in annoyance even though I’ve stopped screaming, stopped fighting, once again consumed by unbearable grief. Just a broken shell stretched out on the bed, wishing for death. “You couldn’t have killed him, Bear?” Sunny demands.

“Antonio would have killed me when he got back!” he protests, no longer from his position on the floor. Given the witch’s snares are wrapped around something again, they must have set him free so he could work the magic of my binds; only the one who put them on can command them.

“I broke both of his arms and legs and tied him to the mast,” he growls. His voice is still shaky though, still full of pain despite his anger. “He’s only free because of Eduardo.”

“What the fuck?” Sunny says, turning on the witch.

“Antonio isn’t going to kill him when he’s the only one who can breed hybrids.” He talks with all the sootiness in the world shoved up his ass. “What do you think Tim would have done to me once he got free?”

“We could have blamed him for the V.” He pauses. “We could still do?”

“And if Antonio doesn’t care enough to kill him?” There is a second of silence as Eduardo’s words weigh them down. “No. The risk is too great,” he says. “Besides, he might not even be coming back. He’s been gone for weeks. He could be dead…”

“Shit.”

“Then we should kill Tim,” Bear says.

“And face Antonio’s wrath if hedoescome back?”

“Shit.” Sunny again.

“So what do we do? We can’t just live under his tyranny.”

“He won’t go that far. Not unless he knows Antonio’s dead. Otherwise, even if he could stop him from using the portal to get back here, he will never be able to get off this ship,” Sunny says at the same time Eduardo says,

“We pray Antonio comes back and is forced to stay now that the Shadow Domain has destroyed every place he can hide.”

Their footsteps move away from me. A door opens. The hum of magic in the air dissipates, felt in its absence as I was too focused on screaming to realize its birth. A broken silence rune.

The door shuts, and the magic hums to life again. It seems they wish to save their ears from me now that I’m no longer docile on V.

Feeling so utterly helpless, I don’t care if I’m only doing what they expect of me. I can’t help but scream.

And cry.

And pray to Varius to please…