Page 47 of Tethered Souls

I claw the painting from the easel. Set it aside. Snatch up another, blank this time, and grab a different set of paints. Red meets black meets a sea of other colors, all muted dedications to pain. Silent screams flow out of my brush. Unwanted questions lurk on the edges of the canvas. My chest tightens with every broad flick of my wrist, every movement cut sharp and hard and wild.

“Do you think she deserved it?”

“Don’t you?”

My breath becomes shallow, like it doesn’t dare exist, terrified of drawing attention to itself.

My head grows dizzy.

My breath nearly nonexistent now.

Is my lack of magic...

The brush wavers from a shaking hand, but I push on, don’t stop, no mercy even to myself. I drag that thought kicking and screaming from the dark depths of my mind, from the cobwebbed corners it’s stayed in for so long and shove it full force into the light.

Is my lack of magic...

Because Caden isn’t my father?

Fifteen

HER

When Sau told me we were going shopping this morning I didn’t want to leave the house, didn’t want to lose another part of my self identity under draping silk and glittering jewels. Now that we’re back, though, I don’t want to get out of the car.

Because I’ve been summoned, our trip cut short.

And I hate that.

Hate how he can just demand I come back to spread my legs.

Hate how I can’t tell him to go fuck himself.

Hate it even more how much it bothers me that he didn’t even textme. He texted hismother. And now sheknows. And this whole ride back was super fucking embarrassing.

In the week I’ve been here, Varius hasn’t even looked at me outside of the bedroom. I’m pretty certain he could spot my pussy in a lineup, but I doubt he even knows what color my eyes are. And I hate that.

I hate him.

Because I knowexactlywhat color his are. As tired as I have been, as annoyed with him as I am, I still know every fleck of color in that damn intense gaze. And isn’t that just pathetic?

So when he storms out of the house, my back is already up, my levels of annoyance skyrocketing with every step the damn neanderthal takes. Sau somehow disappears in the seconds it takes for me to undo my seatbelt and for him to yank my door open and drag me out. He crowds me against the car as he grabs my bicep with one hand and leans into the interior with the other. He grabs a random dress from the backseat, then drags it and me away.

“Get off me,” I snap as I wrench my arm free. I stumble a step from the momentum, surprised that actually got him to release me. But then his arm is around my waist and he’s hauling me over his shoulder. My ass in the air, my face low, I growl at him. “Put me down!”

When he doesn’t, I bare my teeth. Gods, I’m so fucking tempted to bite him. I yelp as his hand lands hard on my ass.

“I told you to be here when I want you.”

I glare at him – or rather at the back of his jacket given I can’t see his face. “That’s the first time I’ve left the house in over a week. You have a hand. Use it.”

He spanks me again, and I jolt. The sting of the blow is rubbed out by the palm of his hand.

“You have a brain. Use it before you speak to me.”

My eyes widening at hisaudacity, I lean forward and bite him. Perhaps it’s not the best plan I have had, but I’m tired and exhausted, and I have spent ten full fucking days keeping the real me weighed down with cement shoes and chicken wire. I have done nothingbutthink before I did something this past week and a half, and it feels so damn good to break that.

Until I hear his deep-throated growl – a warning of hot, imminent danger.