Page 198 of Jagged Souls

“I hate you!” she screams as she runs from the room, and I can feel the truth of that so damn hard.

The blood bondhurts.

I try to sit up to go after her, but my body crumbles from exhaustion. My right arm’s still pinned to the bed, and the crash from the Craving hits like a fucking truck. I fight it as much as I can, but my eyes close, and all I’m left with is the nightmare of having lost my wife.

Fifty-Nine

Antonio

May 30 1893, Cornelius, North Carolina

She presses herself up against me as soon as we enter a private room of the whore house. She wears only her skirts, her breasts free to dangle and grab. I have no interest in them though. Or her. It’s just been three years since I’ve been touched, and the primal part of me will no longer be ignored.

Especially not when I just got news from Jack that Siome is dating some fucker with a ranch. I am happy for her. I truly am. She deserves all the good things in life, the love and laughter of a good family. I’m just miserable for myself.

So I got drunk and came here. The matron knows what I’m really after though. She’s been paid well to clean up after me. She also knows that if this place didn’t have the Death Hunt stamp on it, I’d kill all of them for being dirty fucking whores.

Instead, I’m just going to kill this one. It’s still cheating on Siome; it’s still fuckingwrong, but it eases some of my guilt. Allows me to get hard enough to actually use her for the release I need.

She murmurs something in my ear as she reaches her hand into my pants. I’ve already taken a Rick, so the dick she grabs isn’t mine.

I’m not interested in foreplay though. I don’t care about her getting any pleasure from this. She sold her body and I purchased it. So I shove her up against the wall, turn her around, and hike up her skirts. She tries to face me again, to tell me perhaps to slow down, she isn’t wet enough, but I punch her in the face, breaking her nose. She screams as her knees buckle. I hit her again, this time in the jaw, and she stops on a dazed whimper even as she hits the ground. I reach down and grab a fistful of her golden hair, then drag her just far enough to lay her out. Right in front of the door. She isn’t fit to have a fucking bed.

This isn’t romantic.

This isn’tpleasurable.

It’s just a fucking animalistic drive.

I turn her over onto her stomach. She moans in pain as blood seeps into the wooden boards. I hike up her skirts and throw them over her head, then pull my cock out of my pants, slip on a condom, and lie down on top of her. Not caring which hole it goes in, I push in wherever it lies.

She yelps, her ass clenching, her torso jumping off the floor. I wrap a hand around her head, pressing her skirts into her face as I muffle her cries.

Her ass is squeezing my cock, trying to stop me from going in any further, but with a jerk of my hips, I ram in balls deep. She screams against her skirts and my hand, and I close my eyes as I fuck her, trying not to think of Siome with another man.

I want her to be happy.

Ineedher to be happy even if it isn’t with me.

I just want her –

That’s fucking it.

I justwant her.

And I can’t have her.

Because of the godsdamn curse from Artemis, Grecian Goddess of the Moon and Hunt. I’m sun touched. Supposed to live a life of misery so she doesn’t.

And I can deal with that. As long as she is happy, I can take the torture of her absence. As long as she is fucking happy.

This new man better take care of her, or I swear to the gods, swear to death itself, that I will kill him and anyone he fucking knows. Including Jack, the man I owe a thousand times over for taking her away from me and watching out for her all these years.

Because they might think they’re not at fault, but they knew him and allowed him to live long enough to hurt my mate. I don’t give a shit how little they knew him. Not when it comes to her. The whole world will burn for failing her. And then I will kill myself too because I’d be the biggest failure of them all.

I squeeze my eyes tight as I rut the whore, imagining her easy laughter, her quick smile. Her fearlessness in the face of my grumpiness and misery. Not even my parents ever looked at me like I was worth knowing. No one like that deserves the only life I’d be able to give them – an infection of pain and sorrow.

She deserves the world.