Page 92 of Jagged Souls

I will kill you.

Just not today.

Twenty-Five

HIM

I’m pulled out of the shadows in a fucking rage. I was socloseto getting her out. I should’ve had the thought to go in sooner. I should’ve had Enoch take me in first. I should’ve run faster.

“Fuck!” I can feel her in this world again. My head whips in her direction. Northwest. Further than she has ever been. I’m hit by the urge to call Aleric, who left with his men as soon as they dropped us off, and demand he take me to her. But I know it won’t matter. Antonio will just transport her again. We need a plan to deal with that fucking witch now that Maddox failed in his task.

As my youngest brother is pulled out beside me, still in his snake form, my rage ignites into ice cold, merciless fury. I start to lunge for him, wanting to tear him apart for what he’s caused, but Enoch’s magic has already wrapped around my clothes. My feet stay rooted, and I know Khalid ordered him to restrain me as soon as I entered this world. He saw what happened in the Plane of Monsters through Micha’s soul doll, saw her get taken from me again, and he knows I have been struggling to not blame our little brother for what happened at the school.

But I can’t hold it in anymore.

“You were supposed to save her first!” I yell as Maddox appears beside me in his human form, tears in his eyes, guilt on his face.

“I’m sorry!” he rasps. He doesn’t try to explain, doesn’t try to defend his decision under the weight of my pain and the weight of his own shame.

Power rages beneath my skin, an overwhelming need to let it all out. To kill him to release some of the agony inside of me. My muscles straining, I struggle to reach my brother, but Enoch’s magic holds me back.

“Varius,” he murmurs, his voice cracking. He doesn’t say anything else though. Perhaps he can’t.

But he doesn’t have to.

We all know why Maddox did it.

He did it to save us, knowing that we’d gone in without the numbers, without enough planning because I couldn’t wait after getting that video of my wife. He heard Zita sell us out as he hid in her intestines, and he knew that Antonio was ready for us.

If he hadn’t summoned the demon, Leno wouldn’t be the only one dead. The number of slaughtered werewolves and chimeras in the hall outside the gym would have joined the ones we were already fighting and overwhelmed us.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers again, and there is so much pain in those words, so much guilt and sorrow and regret.

I know he means it. He likes my wife.

I recall him standing between me and her when I wanted to torture her for hurting me. I had to knock him out and cuff him to a radiator to get him out of the way, and when he woke, he just chewed off his own fucking arm to get free. To get between her and me.

“I’m sorry,” he says, his voice raw, his emotions thick. His tears run faster, as fast as they did for Leno.

My legs give out from under me, and it’s only Enoch’s magic that keeps me standing. The urge to scream bubbles up in my throat. I just lost my wife. I just lost my fucking wife!

But I don’t let it out, knowing if I do, it’ll break me.

Cripple me.

Destroy me.

I stare at Maddox, wanting to hate him for fucking up the order I gave him.

Micha was supposed to be his only priority.

We failed to save her because of him.

My throat closes, thickens,hurts so fucking much as it traps down the scream that is clawing at my chest, ripping its way through my lungs and heart and ribs.

Because the truth iswedidn’t fail at the school because of Maddox.

Ifailed because I banked on plans A (asking him to go in as a tapeworm, something he had never tried before) and B (having Mother race to Micha immediately) without having a plan C.