Page 48 of Jagged Souls

My jaw locks. I glare at the fucker in front of me. That wasn’t a bluff. I don’t need my foot to get pregnant. But I can’t tell him Varius is the father.

If the Shadow Domain finds out he’s a hybrid, Antonio won’t even need to destroy our Family himself. They’ll turn on him like a starving pack of wolves. If Khalid doesn’t kill him, all of our allies and associates will. Or perhaps they’ll just jump ship, moving to do business with our enemies. We will be attacked by every fucking sewer rat wanting a piece or street cred, and our Family, a multi-billion dollar empire, would crumble overnight.

“Aleric,” I spit out, my voice one of disgust. There’s no way Antonio will be able to hold him here. Although, he’s taken other born vampires who had the ability to phase, he forced them to breed with werewolves. They were poisoned day after day, their body melting from the inside out. They had no chance of escape.

But a witch’s bodily fluids aren’t poisonous to vampires. If he brings Aleric here to fuck me, he might as well release me himself.

Antonio studies me like he doesn’t believe me, but I don’t waver from his gaze. Nor do I offer up any more details to “sell” the lie. The only time I’d tell him shit willingly was if I was lying, and he knows it.

“Is the bond completed?” he asks.

“Yes.” If he knew the truth, he’d kill me. I’m of no use to him if I can’t make it to term, and the bond, as much as I cherish it, is a ticking time bomb.

Although Varius and I shared a lot of blood yesterday, I have also lost a lot. I can barely feel him now. It’s like he’s a word on the tip of my tongue or a shadow just on the edge of my peripherals. I can’t feel his emotions raging inside me anymore. Can’t feel where he is. I reckon I only have four, maybe five months left before the bond demands blood in one way or another.

I expected Antonio to be concerned about the bond being completed though. If Varius can find him wherever he is, he will have to move me constantly. The added stress of being on the run nonstop, combined with the increased risk of me escaping during transit should garner some sort of reaction, but he doesn’t look concerned at all.

“I’m bait,” I say with a mental curse.

He smiles for the first time.

“Tell me about the Shadow family, and I’ll put you with the other women,” he says. “You’ll have a room to yourself, and you’ll only be bred during certain hours. Refuse, and you’ll room with the men you’ve already met, available to them twenty-four seven. Then I’ll force the answers out of you anyway.”

I lean forward as far as I can. “Fuck. You.”

He stares at me for a moment, then turns to leave. “Draw her blood,” he says to Eduardo. “Then put her in with the men.”

Eleven

HER

Eduardo looks too fucking happy to be alone with me.

The binds on my wrists and ankles seem to grow tighter as he advances with a scalpel in his hand, but I keep my chin up, my fear down. “I’m going to take your ear next,” I say with a lick of my lips.

“The only thing you’re going to take from me,” he sneers, “is my cock.”

I jerk against my cuffs, unable to help myself. I’d rather he cut into me a thousand times with that scalpel than know what his cock feels like slamming into my pussy. “If I even see it, I’m going to tear it off and then use it to fuck that new hole in your face.”

He stops, his eyes narrowing. Fury and fear clash in his gaze. He’d have to turn me over to rape me without getting his jugular ripped out, but as soon as he freed my hand, I’d find a way to kill him – scalpel to my throat or not.

Turning to the counter, he puts the blade back down, and a burst of relief hits me, followed by optimism. I controlled that. I’m not entirely helpless in here. I will survive until I escape or Varius saves me.

Eduardo grabs a hypodermic needle and a blood bag. He walks over to my feet, places the bag on the bed, then grabs my toes. He leans my foot back so the veins are clearer, then lines up the needle. “Imagine this is my cock sliding into your cunt,” he says as he pushes it inside me.

“It’s that small, huh?” I snort to hide the fact that inside I’m panicking. I can fight against a scalpel. I can’t fight against his words, against the memories slamming around my skull. My pussy can feel it, and I want to be sick. He looks between my naked, open legs. I want to close them, but I can’t.

Can’t move against my cuffs.

Can’t show any weakness.

“It’s so small, I could put it in your urethra,” he says, and nausea hits me hard.

He pulls the needle out of my foot, then stabs me with it again. I grit my teeth as I try not to imagine him fucking my pee hole. The pain would be intense.

Stop.

He wiggles the needle as if he can’t find the vein, but I’m sure he’s just being a dick. “I’m not allowed to come inside you,” he says, “so maybe I’ll just take your earlier suggestion and make my own holes.”