Page 43 of Shifting Hearts
TEN
Jas
J as’s pulse pounded as he came to. He smacked his lips and rolled his heavy tongue around his mouth. He was thirsty, parched like a man lost in the desert. His head rolled on his shoulders, as a small voice cried out his name.
“Jasper.”
He willed his eyes to open, but lacked the strength to do so.
“Please,” she cried. “Jasper.”
“Sera,” her name was a whisper on his lips.
How long had it been since he’d last seen her. Days? Weeks? Months?
He groaned as his stomach contracted with hunger pains.
“Jasper,” the angel whispered. “Wake up.”
He struggled through the darkness surrounding him. He fought to return to his mate. Jasper licked his dry, cracked lips, as a viscous fluid dripped onto his tongue.
“Jasper!” Seraphina screamed.
Her blood on his tongue invigorated his senses, pulling him back into the light.
“Look who finally decided to join us.”
Blood.
There was blood everywhere. His nostrils flared at the pungent, stale odor of oxidized blood.
His fangs descended as his veins bulged from his skin. He was starving. The last time he’d been this hungry, he went into a frenzy and attacked a group of people, killing each of them before sucking them dry. He lost himself for days before coming out of the fury.
“Jasper,” she cried.
Like a sacrifice laid on an altar, Seraphina was chained to his desk like in his fantasy. She was naked, while rivulets of blood dripped from her body. She thrashed against the restraints as cruel laughter drowned out her sobs.
“I can’t believe you hid this angel from me for so long. She’s scrumptious.”
Seraphina screamed as his master dragged his claw across the soft skin of her upper thigh, causing blood to trickle from the fresh wound.
“Don’t you dare touch my mate,” he roared, fighting against the silver shackles keeping him chained against the wall.
“You haven’t claimed her innocence,” he sneered. “You’ll watch me take her and steal her immortality. She’ll be my prized conquest. Maybe I’ll let you have her once she’s mortal before sucking her dry.”
“No!” He roared again, renewing his struggle.
The metal chains chaffed his skin raw, causing him to bleed. He didn’t feel the pain as he would cut off his hands to save her from being violated.
“Her wings truly are a thing of beauty. White and fresh as driven snow.”
A mournful wail spilled from her lips as his sire plucked out a feather, followed by several more. Her cries filled his soul with anguish. This was his fault. He’d pushed her. He’d hurt her, and now she faced torture.
“Jas,” she cried.
Her screams broke him as his mentor stabbed her with the sharpened quill.
“It will be okay, angel,” Jas assured her. “I promise.”
Her eyes fluttered. He was a fucking coward for lying to the woman he was afraid to love. He’d been afraid to show her any bit of humanity. There was no forgiveness for the pain he’d caused.
When he told her how beautiful she was, he’d led her to believe it was skin deep. Yes, she was gorgeous, but he saw her soul the first time she’d challenged him. From the beginning, he knew the depth and strength of her character and wanted to crush it beneath his heel.
The unwitting angel had been forced to engage in his depravity. He’d misled her with false promises for nothing more than his own ego. Just like the girl two hundred years prior, he now sacrificed an innocent through his own selfishness.
Edmund met his eye as he stabbed another quill into Seraphina’s left breast as he palmed the flesh of the right. He cut the skin beneath her nipple and lapped the droplets.
“Don’t you fucking touch her! Let her go.”
The duke flashed his fangs in warning, as he grabbed one of Seraphina’s wings. With a sickening snap, he broke it before sinking his teeth into her supple neck.
An unearthly sound from the angel caused the windows to shatter.
“Angel!”
In his desperation, Jasper did something he hadn’t done in over two hundred years. He prayed.
Seraphina’s wing bent at an awkward angle off the desk and her skin lost its glow as Edmund drank her blood.
His mate.
She would die without him.
His hunger didn’t matter anymore. He’d do anything for her. Anything to save her.
Jasper Conrad had never been a hero. He chose himself over the needs of another young woman. He stood by as life drained from her body. He didn’t deserve this angel in his life, but there she was.
The silver cut into his wrists as he broke the chains that bound him. He moved in a flash and yanked Edmund away from Seraphina. The elder vampire was faster and stronger, while Jasper had been starved for days.
The needs of his mate superseded his, making him invulnerable. Edmunds ribs cracked as Jasper punched him in the chest. Such a strike would kill an ordinary man by stopping his heart before his back hit the floor. But you couldn’t kill someone without a heart or soul.
Edmund never shared with his protege how he himself was turned. But Jasper had a weapon, forged from a holy relic. He scrambled toward the secret panel on the wall, but the other man was quicker.
He punched a hole in the wall, crushing the metal panel.
“What’s this?” he hissed as he wrapped his fingers around the hollow stake. “What did you intend to do with this?”
Every cylinder in Jasper’s brain set on fire as Edmund drove the stake into Jasper’s heart. With the puncture, a hollow needle injected poison directly into the organ. With every beat, it spread it through his veins, causing excruciating pain as his blood cells exploded. He wouldn’t have much time.
A war horn vibrated through the room as an avenging angel entered through the broken window. He glanced at the wounded angel before approaching Jasper.
“Where did the son of a bitch go? He will pay for what he’s done to my sisters.”
Jasper stumbled toward his desk where Seraphina’s limp body lay.
“Stay with me, angel,” he said.
“Jas…” she whispered.
“You’re safe now,” he assured her as he slumped onto the floor.
Jasper was dying. But he wouldn’t let her go as she curled up in his arms. He gave her everything his black heart could offer before it stopped for good.
His scent.
Thump, thump…
His aura.
Thump, thump…
His sins.
Thump…
His love.
Thump…