Page 38 of Jagged Souls

“Aleric.” Short. Clipped. A fucking warning growl.

Laughing, Aleric shakes his head. “I’m fucking hilarious, and no one gets it,” he says before leaning down to grab the girl again.

“Or did you get the joke?” he asks as he shoves her to my lips. “When I said you have a small penis that you got from your father,” he explains cheerfully, “it sounded like you inherited it, right?”

I imagine ripping his voice box out even through the onset of the Craving.

“But the joke was you cut it off me. Yougotmy dick. Get it now?” He laughs as my body shakes.

I try to resist for a moment longer, but the blood is in my mouth. I can’t resist with my broken jaw, and with a cry of defeat, I start swallowing the woman’s blood down in great big gulps. I clasp my hand over my chest, protecting Bambi from her filth as it runs down my chin and neck. I growl in both disgust and anger, but I don’t stop drinking.

Can’t.

My rage claws beneath my skin almost as fiercely as the Craving does at my throat. I scream at my body to move, to shove her away, but I’m trapped in this broken shell.

Though even when it starts to heal, the blood pushing magic through my veins, the bloodlust doesn’t let me stop.

After I drain her dry, I still want more.

Need more.

Feeling watched by other predators, I glance around as I bare my teeth. Mother, Khalid, Maddox, Ezriel, and Leno are all spread out around me in a large circle. A pack of hyenas waiting for their turn to eat. I growl, a lion standing over a kill.

“If he dies –” Mother starts.

“I know, I know,” Aleric says as he pulls my meal away. I want to grab her and hold her to my lips, but the only hand that’s working is the one protecting Bambi. My fingers dig into my chest, shielding her, choosing her above all else.

“You’ll chain me to your bed and spank me like a bad, bad boy,” Aleric says as he tosses the body aside. Then he winks at me and whispers, “Ya know, not gonna lie, I kinda wanna let you die now.”

“Aleric,” Mother growls.

He grins as he gestures to one of the women sitting in a line at his feet. They’re bloodbanks, nothing but property, and they know better than to run. The first woman stands, her blue eyes glazed with whatever drug she’s shot up with, and stumbles over to us. She doesn’t react at all when he stabs her throat with his knife and then shoves her in my face. Perhaps, for her, this is a mercy.

I drink with less resistance now, but I don’t sink my fangs into her throat.

She isn’t Micha.

Any intimacy isn’t right.

When she’s nothing but an empty husk, he grabs another for me to drink. Then another and another.

My body slowly heals.

The Craving slowly dies.

But the agony doesn’t wane.

It fucking amplifies.

With a broken scream, I jump to my feet. The fog in my brain has lifted, and I can finally feel my wife through our blood bond. She’s north. Somewhere far away. A part of me knows I should head for the cars, but I can’t bear to detour long enough to find the keys and get an engine running. She needs me now.

I can feel her dying.

She’s dying, and it’s all my fault.

“Var–” Ezriel yelps, snapping my attention back to my surroundings.

Shit.