Page 210 of Jagged Souls

“Choosing won’t stop the blood bond!”

“It will because we both know who you’ll choose. And then she will come to hate you.”

I shake my head. He’s fucking delusional. “When she learns you were behind it –”

“I would’ve done nothing but proven to her thatyouwill always hurt her when given the chance. You will put your own selfish needs above hers.”

“You will hurt her if you kill him!”

“I will be all she needs.” He says it so flippantly, so damn confidently. He truly believes it. He doesn’t know her at all. A life with him will destroy her in so many ways.As if a life with me already hasn’t,a mocking voice says.

“The blood bond isn’t completed!” I shout desperately. “If I die, I’ll never see her again.” Never be able to hurt her even by accident.

“You’re lying.”

“I’m not –”

“A pathetic attempt from a dying man. Nowchoose.”

“I’m not lying! If you kill me –”

“I want you tosuffer,” he cuts in. “I want you to wake up every day, wondering what you could’ve done differently. What you could havepossiblydecided to do that would’ve changed what happened. I have spent over ahundred yearsliving with the choices I made. The guilt that led to my mate and pups dying. She wasn’t supposed to be there. She was supposed to stay back. Sau was supposed to be an easy kill, so I threw her at my wife, fuckingdamningher because I thought she could handle her.

“I saved your mother from being killed by my pack for what she did, willing to let bygones be bygones if she justhealed my mate.” He shakes with his emotions. So much fucking rage and fury and pain and grief flickering across his face.

“But she refused, and so you will suffer for her sins. She tookeverythingfrom me. Death will not be so easy for you.”

I stare at him, trembling with my own rage. With the fear that I’ll lose my son or my wife’s best friend –mybest friend who I have actually come to trust over these last few months.

Then Dayne cuts in. “Youreallyneed to go to therapy, dude.”

Rudy’s mouth breaks out into a grin. Mine falls open in shock.

“If you think killing me is going to push Micha into your arms, you don’t know her at all.”

“She’s already in my arms.” I pick up on how quick he is to get jealous. Wonder how I can use it.

Dayne shrugs as well as he can in his chains. “Eh. She always did have a terrible taste in men.” He glances at me, that same smile on his face Rudy has, that same willingness to die for her. “You know her first crush was on the mean kid inKarate Kid?Likehello?Blond villains are never hot.” He points his head at Antonio as if the point is made.

Seething, the wolf looks at me. “You have one minute to choose,” he demands. “Or she’ll stay here with me forever.”

Sixty-Four

Him

“Thirty seconds,” I drawl as I pull out the needle that I got from Terra. “This is a nasty little disease. It targets the magic in one’s blood, eating it until it’s gone, and do you know what that does to a witch?” The magic is a part of them, woven into every atom of their being. “His death will not be quick,” I say. “Or pleasant.”

It gives me great pleasure to see the pain on Varius’ face as he struggles to give me an answer. I might have Siome back, but his family is the reason I lost her in the first place. I used to think a child shouldn’t be punished for the sins of their parents, but then I held my mate in my arms as she died, and I changed my fucking mind – at least when it comes to the Shadow family.

They’re all as vile as the disease I’m holding.

“Nine seconds…

“Eight.

“Seven.”

He screams, so much delightful pain in that sound. His mother took my mate from me, and he thought he could take her again. But once I tell her he picked her best friend to die – regardless of who he actually chooses, she’ll hate him forever. Siome always could hold a grudge, especially against those who hurt the people she loved.