Chapter 37
“You don’t understand,”Juliana says angrily once Memnon has returned to her and allowed the sorceress to speak once more. “I am the daughter of Luca Fortuna. He will make you pay for what you’ve done.”
I sit amid the rubble, my body weary, my clothes in tatters, my mind aching to leave this room where so many horrors have happened.
My mate stares down at Juliana where she still kneels, studying her with those burning eyes.
“I felt it when you snapped Selene’s bones one by one,” he says. “I felt her pain, and I heard her screams. They will haunt me for all my days. I am not a nice man. I am an evil one—even more so than you and your siblings. Even more than your father. You think you understand pain? Torture? I want you to know that I can be even more creative than you. If you fail to cooperate with me, I will make you break your own bones, one by one.”
She looks afraid now.
He crouches in front of her. “Do you want to hear the rest of what I’ll do to you? How I will order you to skin yourself alive, how I will make you draw out your own intestines?—”
“Stop! Stop!”
“Then you will truthfully tell me everything you know about the murders of witches.”
“I don’t know much about the murders,” Juliana begins. “I didn’t kill them.” She pauses, like that’s enough to fulfill Memnon’s magical command.
However, after a couple tense seconds, her throat works and more spills out.
“My father and my brother are the ones who know more. I don’t know if they killed the witches themselves or why. I don’t want to know so I’ve never asked.”
She stops again, and I see the muscles in her throat strain as Memnon’s command still rides her.
Tell me everything, he said.
“Each month on the night of the new moon, my sister and I deliver one or two of our bonded supernaturals to my dad and my brother. They’re the ones that die.”
I don’t know what is more shocking: that all the murder victims were previously bonded or that we now know exactly who the killers are.
“This happens every new moon?”
Juliana clenches her jaw, then nods. “At midnight sharp.”
“And your father and brother are the only ones who would know what happens to these supernaturals?”
She hesitates. “No,” she eventually admits.
“Explain yourself—again, truthfully,” Memnon says.
“My father and brother—they get paid for the… the deaths. Whoever pays them probably also knows what’s going on.”
“Yet you don’t?” Memnon says, looking unconvinced.
“It’s the truth,” she hisses out.
“How do I get into the Equinox on the night of the new moon?” Memnon asks.
Juliana laughs. I think she’s about to tell Memnon that getting in is impossible, but then her throat works.
“You need to be invited as a guest to the midnight auction—we hold those on the new moon as well.” After she speaks, she spits at Memnon.
The spittle hits his shirt. “Do that again, and I cut off a finger.”
Juliana grimaces. “I hate you.”
She begins to turn toward where I’m resting when Memnon catches her face.
“This is between you and me,” Memnon says. “You will not look at Selene. You will not speak to her unless spoken to. Or else I get creative and I make you answer my questions.”
My heart beats faster as Juliana glares at him.
“Now, tell me about this auction,” Memnon says. “Is it connected to the murders?”
“No,” she says.
“Then what is it for?” he asks.
Juliana fights this answer in particular. Eventually it’s ripped from her. “We auction off bonds to supernaturals.”
Goddess.
That sounds like a living nightmare.
It could’ve easily been my fate as well.
“The girls I bond—not all of them go to my father and brother,” Juliana continues. “Most of them are sold, either privately or at these monthly auctions.”
For a second, I cannot draw in air. Then, then?—
I lean over and gag. There’s nothing left to purge from my stomach, but I cannot stop the visceral reaction.
It was horrifying enough when I knew Juliana was forcibly binding witches, but to realize these same women—women I went to school with, women I was friends with—were then being sold off to other supernaturals…
Memnon’s magic is unspooling out of him, and through our bond, I sense his rage deepening.
“Do the”—Memnon’s lip curls into a grimace—“buyers know these supernaturals are already bonded?”
Juliana’s gaze has drifted to Memnon’s magic, but now she brings her attention back to him.
“My clients believe their intended bonds are willing.”
“But they’re not,” Memnon says flatly.
“Some are.” Juliana has the gall to sound defensive. “Some are excited for their new lives.”
“No one is fucking excited to be trafficked, Juliana,” I say to her.
Juliana twitches, like she’s about to turn to me, but Memnon’s previous command stops her.
“How does the exchange happen?” Memnon says.
She glares at him. “The buyers pay the money, and we officiate a bond. Once it’s complete, my own bond dissolves away, and the new pair move on with their life.”
My mind catches on one detail—her bond dissolves away. Some of these binding spells, like the one she forced on me, are for life, while others must end the moment a new bond is created.
“Who sets the terms of this auctioned bond—you or the buyer?” Memnon asks.
I don’t want to know. This is all so sick.
Juliana hesitates again. “The buyer,” she eventually admits.
The terms of that forged bond could be anything, anything at all. Even the fabled deals with the devil are technically forged bonds, despite favoring one side over the other. Just like those bonds, these buyers could have some terrible stipulations, and it wouldn’t matter. Juliana could make her bonded victims agree to it while they were still under her control.
It’s not lost on me that not even the devil does forced bonds. That’s how dark this shit has gotten.
I must make some noise. I feel nauseous again. It’s too much. Too much pain, too much violence, too much sick, twisted perversion. I have many questions I still want answered, but I don’t think I can stomach them tonight.
Memnon glances over at me, his power still consuming him. His eyes look merciless as he takes me in.
“Juliana,” my mate says, “you will stay here kneeling, and you will not speak. If you displease me in any way, I will make you remove an appendage.”
The sorceress glares at him, but already, the magic has silenced her.
Memnon strides over to me, his blue magic shrouding him.
He kneels next to me and cups my cheek. I will take care of this. You are safe now, I vow it.
He presses his palm more firmly against my skin. “Sleep.”
Darkness swallows me up.