Broken Souls (Book of Shadows)

Twenty-two

Twenty-two

HER

It is a terrible thing to be in love with the person who’s hurting you. To feel like you can reach them even through their rage, that if you just remind them of how much you love them...that they’ll stop. That they’ll remember that they love you too, and you can go back to how you were. Just a blip, a misunderstanding. He’s afraid for his brother. He thinks I deserve this. So he doesn’t really mean it. He’s just angry right now, but soon it’ll stop.

Soon he’ll remember that he loves me.

That I love him...

But Varius doesn’t stop.

That hammer rams down dozens of times.

That screw imbeds into my hands, into the chair beneath, and is yanked out, taking muscle and flesh and bits of bone with it.

I can’t move my fingers anymore.

Can’t even feel them.

And still he does not stop.

“Where is he, Micha?”

Whack!

“Where is Khalid?”

Crack!

He throws the hammer across the room, then turns on his heels. I don’t see where he goes, my head hanging too low, my vision too unfocused from the pain. It radiates up my arms and through every part of me, churning up my stomach.

“This much stress...” I say, my voice wavering, my words sluggish. “...is not good… for the baby.”

He’s in front of me before those words even finish being said. His hand’s around my throat, squeezing it shut. “Don’t fucking mention it again. You’re not pregnant, Micha. Now just tell me where my brother is, and I can make all this stop.”

He releases me, but the fear of pain won’t stop me from trying to protect my baby. “Your mother…” I say, my voice cracking. “Just get her to check. Please…Varius. The stress…” I cry out as I suddenly feel a wetness pooling between my thighs. “Varius, please!” I shout, shaking in my binds. “Get your mother. Get your mother and have her check.”

The words are flowing out in a panic as I try to squeeze my legs together. I look down, hoping like hel that I’m just imagining it. That the stress overloading my body is merely fucking with my mind.

“I told you to stop lying about the baby!” His words are harsh and ragged, his control finally snapping, and he slams a knife down on my fingers, cutting off the tips of three of them. I scream. I feel the blood seeping down my thighs, and my scream increases in both pitch and frequency.

“Varius, please! I’m losing him. I’m losing him.”

“Shut up!” he roars as the knife comes down again. He hacks off my fingers bit by bit, but all my attention is on my lap. On my baby. Our baby... Sobbing hard, I try to squeeze my legs together, to get the blood to stop, to keep him in, but I’m too exhausted. I’m too weak from the blood loss. I can’t keep him in. I can’t save him on my own. I need help. I need a healer.

“Please!” I scream. “Just get your mother. He’s your son, Va–”

His hand is around my throat. A flash of metal stained red rises high in the air. I struggle to free myself from his grip while I keep my legs together, but it’s impossible. The panic just keeps on building.

The blood just keeps on flowing.

Holding his gaze, I beg him with my eyes. Don’t do this. Please don’t do this.

His face twists with rage and pain. The knife arcs down, but just as it grazes my chest, a large furry creature tackles him off me. The knife clatters across the floor. I turn my head, trying to figure out what the fuck is going on. Why a werewolf has just come in to save me. Is it Antonio? Does he want me to live so he can kill our child himself like he promised?

“Get the fuck off me!”

A loud thump sounds, and the vicious snarls the wolf was making turn into a whimper. It staggers to the side, shaking its head, blood spitting from its mouth. Its eyes are glossy and violet in color. They lock onto Varius as he rises, his hands coming up. He’s covered in my blood, sprayed in it all across his body, and the rage he was just taking out on me in the violent swings of his knife – my knife, has been locked down. Only a cold monster remains. The werewolf will not survive.

And yet, it moves between me and him, blocking Varius from getting to me. It whines low, almost pleading, and it clicks then that this isn’t a real wolf. It’s Maddox in wolf form.

Has he tracked down Khalid? Has he come to tell Varius that I’m not the traitor? Hope erupts inside me at the idea that this is almost over.

My body shaking, I open my mouth to tell him about the baby, to plead with him to get Sau. But before I can get a single syllable out, Maddox turns and runs for the door.

I cry out as he leaves me alone with his brother.

Varius looks at me for a moment, his face expressionless, his emotions locked down.

“Please, Varius” I beg. “Just check my legs. I’m bleeding. I’m not lying. It’s your son. It’s your son.”

His eyes dart to my lap. His nostrils flare as he breathes in, and for a moment, I pray that he has the ability to smell blood, to smell that I am with child just like Antonio can, even if that makes him a hybrid.

An abomination.

I will love him still as long as he saves our child.

“Please.”

He walks towards me.

“Please.”

He bends down and picks up the knife.

My heart jumps into my throat.

“Spread your legs,” he says as he approaches, and I start to, only to instantly stop. I can’t do that. Can’t risk that being the final act needed to kill our child.

“I can’t,” I rasp. “Please just check.”

He stops in front of me. My blood drips off the knife. My hands are so damn painful, and every nerve in my body is erupting with the urge to flee, to get away from the monster who’s been hurting me.

But I lock my thighs together and lift my chin. He bends down in front of me, hikes up my dress rather than going down through the hole Antonio made in the middle of it. My legs tremble at the feel of his touch on them. His eyes give nothing away as he traces his fingers along my skin. He pushes up to the V of my thighs before pulling back. He lifts his hand to his face. There’s blood there, a lot of it, and I cry out, terrified that that is all I’ll ever see of our child.

“Get Sau,” I cry. “Please get Sau.”

He stares at his fingers, his face going pale. “Micha…”

“Go!”

He jerks away from me.

“Go!” I scream, throwing every last part of me into that word. All my prayers. All my hopes. My fears. My trust that he will do this for me. That he won’t just leave me here to bleed out with our child even if he thinks I’m the traitor.

My head sagging forward as he leaves, I close my eyes.

Please… I beg as I squeeze my thighs together.

Please don’t let me lose him.