Twenty-Five
I’m pulled out of the shadows in a fucking rage. I was so close to 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 is we didn’t fail at the school because of Maddox.
I failed 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.
Because I didn’t know Mother was that fucking broken, and I trusted my brother to listen.
To put her first above everything else, including us.
I never should’ve trusted them.
Tears burn the back of my eyes as rage, grief, and guilt tear every atom of my soul apart. I want to give into it, to let it rip me into pieces without purpose, to abandon me in a pile of shattered glass, so fragile, so broken, so utterly and completely useless to anyone.
But I can’t.
Because Antonio still has my wife – and Rudy.
I can’t break until I get them back.
So I blink away my pain and grab hold of the control I’m well known for. I look away from Maddox. I force myself to forgive him for making the wrong choice.
But I’ll never trust him again.
Not when it comes to her.
I take a moment to collect myself, to bottle up my grief and rage and guilt, and I focus it into something usable.
Something useful.
“Let me go, Enoch,”
I say, my voice calm and flat. The emotion gone, the ruthless Boss back in its place.
He looks at Khalid, but the reaper is holding Micha’s soul doll in his only hand, his dark eyes distant. He’s focused on whatever is happening to Micha and Rudy rather than on us. So Enoch starts to look at Mother instead.
“Enoch,”
I say, and this time I am not asking as a brother.
His magic releases me, and for a second, the grief pounds down on my shoulders, wanting to shove me to the ground. Steeling myself, I walk over to Khalid.
“Show me,” I demand.
His eyes focus on me, searching to see if I’m ready to see and hear what’s happening to my wife. Pain flashes in his eyes and then he turns towards the house.
I walk past Mother as I follow him. “Bury Leno where he lies,”
I say. Krypto isn’t ready to give him to the shadows.
And neither am I.
She nods, her sorrow dry and silent.
But there is a question in her eyes, one she can’t quite hide: how many more children will I lose?
Turning from her, I head into the house.
I meet Khalid outside the room of runes on the ground floor. It was first built by our ancestors hundreds of years ago, and every time we moved, it was packed up and carried with us by magic. The door is made out of solid black stone, but on this side of the hall, it’s been spelled to look like part of the wall. No seams mark its location; no handle is there to turn.
“Does he want Rudy alive?”
I ask, my throat tight as Khalid steps up to the wall. Normally, my brothers place a hand on the area and push their magic into the square room hidden on the other side, but with Micha’s doll in his only hand, Khalid instead leans his head against it.
“Yes,”
the reaper says before he murmurs an incantation in Drazic, a demonic language that most of our spells are rooted in.
I glance up as the tension in my shoulders loosen a little, then I swallow hard as I prepare myself for what I’m about to see. Ever since Micha was pulled out of the shadows, I’ve been wondering if Rudy only did that because he was dying. If he feared she would be lost in there forever, left to die in that fucking cage. Did he pull her out because he knew Antonio wants her alive and that her chance of her survival would be higher with him than alone in the dark?
But if Antonio wants him alive too, that means I’m not about to enter the room of runes and see my brother dead through Micha’s eyes.
A small victory.
It isn’t enough.
Smoke pours out of Khalid’s mouth, then washes over the wall. The hidden door moves back, a soundless slide of stone as it gives us access.
We step into a completely square room. The walls, floor, and ceiling are all the same. Shiny black stone with runes etched into its surfaces. Some glow a soft red for aggression, others blue for protection, and the rest green for our family power. It’s the same color green as the pins Khalid pulls out of thin air when he wants to torture his soul dolls. The same color green as the soul whips that Delun, Sau’s father, used to kill Antonio’s parents – those infamous weapons that could tear through even a werewolf’s natural defense to magic.
Perhaps one day, Khalid will learn to wield them too, but right now, my brother is focused on pulling on the power of our ancestors to allow me to see and hear everything Micha does. The runes themselves aren’t magical – just like the tattoos on his skin aren’t either. They’re simply trappings for power, this room having been charged by our family for over eighteen hundred years. A battery bank for us to pull on.
Khalid places Micha’s soul doll in the center of the room, on a runic symbol that looks like a twisted heart. As soon as it glows green, a chill rushes through the room, sweeping around us like a ghost seeking vengeance. And perhaps it is, this room having trapped the souls of various men over the years – our enemies whose souls were pulled from their bodies and interrogated by the witches in our bloodline who could control soul magic.
Cid Garcia, Antonio’s youngest son, is in here, killed by Khalid not too long ago. Perhaps he is responsible for the chill across our skin.
The temperature in the room quickly rises back to what it was, Khalid’s magic controlling the restless souls. They’re not quite spirits, not conscious beings just stuck on another plane. They’re more like the characterless husks that we become before the gods reincarnate us as new people. There are no whispers of memory, no real personality. A ‘fetus’ of the soul, a new beginning that is not marred by the sins of their past. But they will never be reborn, not until this room is destroyed. No one can even release them for once they are stored in the runes, they are removed from this world and placed on the outer planes of Purgatory. The amount of power needed to free them would be too volatile for any one witch to control.
My soul itches beneath my skin. My pulse races, and for the first time, I can feel the pull of the runes. The temptation of power. The dark whisperings of magic demanding I set it free.
Crossing my arms, I dig my nails into my bicep and side, fighting the urge to listen to its lure. Magic is dangerous, and until I learn to control it, tapping into the power of the runes would be a death sentence.
My blood screams in my ears, a demanding screech. I scratch my nails across my flesh, forcing myself to focus on the pain. My heart beats harder though, running wild, and my gaze pinpoints in on a single rune. It starts to glow red, and the air whooshes out of my lungs as if pulled by –
“Varius,”
Khalid snaps, his voice sharp, and I startle, my eyes tearing from the rune and shifting to him.
I lock my jaw as I glare at him, warning him not to say the words I know he wants to. If he tells me to leave, I won’t be able to hear or see my wife. Khalid isn’t strong enough to share her senses with me outside of this room. But if I stay and lose control, if my magic tries to fight his inside this room, he’ll most likely have to kill me to get it to stop.
I’m under no illusion that I will win in a magical fight against him.
“Show me,” I demand.
His lips tighten, but he nods, and the runes flare bright red and green, their light reflecting in Khalid’s eyes as he twists his hand in the air, tracing tightly controlled shapes with his fingers, binding the spell to be exactly what he wants it to be.
“…fuck that face of yours.”
I step forward at the sound of Micha’s voice, my heart urging me on before my brain can catch up and tell me that she isn’t here. Her voice is merely echoing from the runes. There’s no woman for me to run to, no one to pick up in my arms and hold to me as I cry in relief.
Clenching my fists at my sides, feeling the weight of her absence, I force my feet to still.
Khalid looks at me, but I don’t return his gaze. Instead, my eyes fly around the room, searching for a visual of what she’s seeing. “Where –”
“I’m not skilled enough,”
Khalid says. It doesn’t matter how much power this room can give him if he doesn’t know how to shape it to get what he wants. It’s a lot harder to pull an image into the air than mere words.
Then again, it could just be an excuse. I know he doesn’t trust me not to lose it if I see what’s being done to her.
And honestly, I can’t tell him that I won’t.
“Antonio’s separating her and Rudy,”
Khalid says flatly, his emotions well hidden, and I force myself to do the same. They need us thinking logically. Coldly. We can’t save them otherwise.
So I lock it down, cross my arms, and say, “Tell him I’m willing to trade. Micha and Rudy for –”
Micha grunts in pain as she’s slammed into something solid.
“I could just take your eyes and pierce your eardrums instead of killing you,”
Antonio says. “Then it won’t matter how many soul dolls they make of you.”
My eyes snap to Khalid. “– control of his territory again,”
I finish sharply, my tone verging on the edge of desperate. After today, with all of Antonio’s capos arrested or on the run, Aleric and I can easily pick apart what remains of his gang. But if he just gives me back my wife and brother, I’ll turn on Aleric. The Blood Fangs are too weak to fight us off.
“But I want you to hear them come for you,”
Antonio says. “I want you to see what they do to you, how your belly will swell with their children.”
“Khalid!”
I snap. An order. A plea. No one can control the soul doll but him. I can’t just grab the green figurine and carve a message across my wife’s skin. Khalid has to push his magic into it while he does it. “Tell him!”
He looks at me, but he doesn’t move. He wants to see where this conversation goes. Playing our hand too soon could force us to give up everything, and Khalid isn’t just my brother in this moment. He’s the reaper; it is his duty to protect the Family, even if I would sacrifice it all – all our businesses, our streets, the fucking portal.
Anything to get my wife and brother back.
“Still…”
Antonio says, his voice coming in from every angle. “Varius got the police to raid most of my businesses, and that can’t go unpunished. So which one shall I take?”
My heart hammers at the idea of her losing either. I’ve already taken her magic. If he takes one of her senses, will she give up? Will she kill herself before I can get to her?
“Why don’t you take,”
Micha says slowly and clearly and without any of the fear eating me up inside, “that giant stick out of your ass and fuck Eduardo’s new hole with it. Then deep throat it until you fucking choke.”
I swallow down a raspy cry. She’s still holding on, still fighting.
I have to do the same for her.
She doesn’t need my emotions right now. She needs –
“I wasn’t talking to you,”
Antonio says.
I still, that little flare of relief at her words dying a brutal death, then decaying inside of me, turning into rot.
“Pick, Varius,”
he orders. “I know you’re watching.”
“No!”
The word is torn from me as I stagger towards the soul doll. “Take mine! Trade me –”
“He can’t hear you,”
Khalid says softly, his tone flat.
“Tell him!”
I snap as I turn to him.
His eyes bore into mine. “I’m not trading you.”
“Leno is dead!”
I yell. “You’re secondborn now, so if I’m gone, you will lead. The Family won’t fracture –” Not like it would if Leno was still alive. He couldn’t make the ruthless decisions Khalid and I can. That Caden could when he used to rule, sacrificing his own kids to save the Family, to save Mother.
“I’m not trading you,”
he simply repeats.
Micha grunts in pain as a crack! reverberates through the room. He’s broken something of hers.
“It’s just a finger,”
Khalid says, as if that should fucking matter. “He’s going to kill her anyway.” If she were anyone else, I would ignore her pain and not let it affect me from making decisions. The reaper is right; Antonio is going to kill her regardless. He has to stop her heart to stop us from using her soul doll – the alexandrite burning up as soon as she dies.
But that is my wife.
Her screams of pain still haunt me from when I tortured her myself. I haven’t slept a single night without reliving her cries, without seeing all the blood pour from the blows of the hammer. Some nights I watch her miscarry. Other nights I can’t stop myself from raising that hammer to her thighs…
I can’t stand by while she suffers again, even if it’s ‘just’ a fucking finger.
“Choose, Varius,”
Antonio says as if he’s talking about the fucking weather.
“Khalid!”
I snap, this time taking a step towards him. The runes flare red beneath my feet. The power hums inside my blood.
He stills like a predator in the grass. “Choose her eyes,”
he says. “She’s smart. She’ll interrogate –”
“I’m not hurting my fucking wife!”
“Antonio –”
“It’ll be my choice!”
It doesn’t matter if I’m not the one picking up the scalpel. I would have hurt her if I decide.
And I can’t do that to her again.
I can’t be the reason she loses her eyes.
“Dammit, Khalid. Please.”
His lips tight, he kneels down beside the soul doll. I don’t know if he’s going to carve what I’ve told him to or if he’s going to make the decision for me, but there’s nothing I can do other than beg. I am completely helpless in this situation.
Powerless.
Only Khalid can affect the alexandrite.
Only Maddox could infiltrate the school.
Only Aleric can phase me to my wife.
I’ve never felt so fucking weak.
My body trembling, I watch as Khalid picks up Micha’s doll.
I can’t breathe.
My chest feels too tight.
Like I’m being crushed from every side.
I open my mouth to suck in more air.
My lips wobble as I struggle to stay calm.
But every second is dragging out.
I can’t –
“Take the tattoo!”
Micha’s voice punches me in the gut, slamming up into my chest, and I fall to my knees on a wretched cry.
I know it’s just a mark on her skin, something I can redo, but her desire to remove it feels worse than a demand for a divorce. Like a rejection of us. A sub removing a collar. A dom demanding it back to put on someone else.
But fuck, if it saves her eyes… if this is the choice… hurt me or hurt her…
I will pay it a thousand times.
She is my wife.
It is my job to protect her.
So I will gladly have my heart ripped out to save a single strand of hair on her head.
She is my wife…
“You want to hurt him, right?”
Micha says. “Punish him for what he did to your gang? Then take the tattoo. He does not give a shit about me as long as I’m still his property.”
My throat closes as I fall forward. My hands barely catch me before my face hits the ground. I know she’s only saying this to manipulate him, but the words cut deep.
The fear that she believes them.
That even if she doesn’t, maybe one day, while trapped in Antonio’s prison, she will come to think that they’re true.
“So cut it off,”
she says, a ringing hatred for me so clear in her voice. “Show him that he’s failed and I’m no longer his.”
I squeeze my eyes shut on a silent scream. My hands fist on the floor as her words beat down on me.
Because I have fucking failed her.
She should be home. With me. With Bambi. Smiling and laughing and planning a nursery. Antonio should be dead, cut down by our ambush at the crocodile farm. Instead, we killed his double while he ran into our house and murdered our baby girl, then kidnapped my wife.
Now Bambi lies as nothing more than a red smear on my bedside table, waiting for her mother to come home to bury her.
My fists tighten as I struggle to keep my emotions in check. I want nothing more than to give into my grief for just a moment.
But I can’t.
Not when Micha’s still fighting.
She’s going through hel and isn’t giving up.
I won’t insult her by acting like she’s already lost to me.
“I chose her, Varius, because she isn’t some damsel in distress. She’s a fighter. Your equal. Now fucking treat her as one.”
Mother’s words slam into me, shaming me, and I push my palms against the floor as I let out a ragged breath. My fingers press hard into the stone.
Micha hisses in pain as Antonio skins my mark from her skin.
I tremble as I kneel on the floor, listening to her being in agony but unable to help. Clenching my jaw, I force down my grief. She doesn’t need me to be her husband right now. She needs me to be the Boss of the Shadow Domain.
A cold, ruthless businessman who’ll tear apart Antonio’s entire Family so there’s nowhere left for him to hide.
I have failed my wife too many times.
I will not fail her in this.
Climbing to my feet, I look at my brother. His eyes fasten hard on mine, and I push out the words I know I must say. “Release her soul doll.”
As much as I want her to know she isn’t alone when Antonio kills her that first time, we can’t afford to lose the alexandrite. We only have two pieces left, and if we’re to go after that fucking teleporter, we might need it to kill him.
A flash of approval in his eyes, Khalid pulls the drop of blood from Micha’s doll, and the room falls silent. My heart twists over the loss of her voice, but I tell myself I’ll hear it again soon.
My wife’s a fighter.
My equal.
It’s about time I fucking treat her as one.