Thirty-Seven
I’ve cried myself dry. I’ve screamed myself hoarse. I’ve emptied myself of everything I am until nothing remains but a hollow pain.
A constant ache that burrows into my soul.
This is a wound time will never heal.
A mother should never outlive her child.
I stare into nothingness, feeling like I’m looking inside of me. Rage flickers like a flame, but there’s no oxygen for it to burn. No energy. I just lie here grieving, hating how easily I draw breath.
Hating Varius for letting me suffer.
I don’t want to live anymore.
I don’t want to keep fighting to survive when I don’t even have anything to go back to.
What about Dayne? a little voice asks. And Lou? And whatever helspawn she’ll give birth to?
I hate her for being pregnant.
I hate her.
And I hate myself for turning on my own sister. For being bitter and jealous over her pregnancy. It’s not like hers will make a difference to mine.
But that doesn’t stop me from hating her.
I open my mouth to scream but nothing comes out. I’m empty inside.
Except I’m not.
I have a monster in my womb.
A parasite.
A disease.
It’s killing me.
I want it out.
I want it out!
I want it out!
Varius, please, I beg.
Please just kill me.
You promised you would protect me…
The world has lost its colors.
The birds their morning song.
My pulse no longer beats,
How can I live…
How can I live when you are gone?
I don’t want to hurt anymore.
I don’t want to work through the pain of losing my baby and come out stronger.
What the fuck has being strong ever gotten me anyway?
Self loathing.
Humiliation.
My stomach churns as the bitter taste of shit drags itself out of my memories and across my tongue.
Being strong got me disfiguring the face of a little girl on my first mission as an assassin. Her screams still haunt my sleep, and her trauma’s tattooed on the back of my hand.
Being strong got me married to Varius. Got me tortured by him and then broken by his next betrayal.
Being strong got me kidnapped because I didn’t hide in the basement and let Sau and her monsters handle it all on her own.
Being strong got my eyes ripped out.
My throat burns from unshed tears.
Being strong killed my little girl.
So perhaps it is time to be weak.
To take the easier path…
The next time Bear comes to feed me, I beg him for some V.
“I can’t,”
Bear says, his voice strained as I cry without shame. I know it’s hurting him to see me like this, so I let it all out. Use it to manipulate him. He’s a good guy, the only one who hasn’t raped me, but he’s also afraid of Antonio.
“Please… you have to. The baby…”
My throat tightens as I think about that thing inside of me, the thought of helping it survive. But the pain is just too much, and I know there is only one way to escape this hel.
Now that I know Dayne is alive, I won’t risk using dark magic to kill myself. It might take him as the sacrifice, and that is one loss I cannot bear.
I hate myself for thinking Lou would be an acceptable payment… Simply because she’s pregnant when I am not; I am infested. That cruelty burns itself into my soul, changing me into something I’ll never come back from.
The pain increases.
My need to escape it becomes unbearable.
“Please,”
I sob. “It’ll help with the stress. Antonio wants the baby... to live, right?” I cry harder, hating the idea of giving birth to this thing. “It won’t make it without the V.”
“The risk –”
he starts, but I don’t let him continue. Can’t let him talk himself out of helping me again.
“Is less than Tim and Eduardo raping me.”
“What?”
he breathes, so much horror and terror wrapped up in that single word. The empathy…
And the knowledge that he can’t do anything to stop it.
“They’re not supposed to fuck you.”
His voice shakes. “I can tell Antonio. I can get them to stop.”
I shake my head, crying louder. That’s not what I want. I want the V. What Sadist and the healer are doing to me are nothing compared to feeling this thing inside of me. I don’t want to feel it anymore. I don’t want to be aware of it at all. I need the V.
“You know it’ll be too late,”
I say. Antonio hasn’t been back on the yacht since I got pregnant. Aleric and Varius have been keeping him busy by hunting down the last of his connections. He’s running out of funds and allies – his bank accounts being closed or emptied, his associates changing to the winning team. With him scrambling to solidify what he can in terms of money and resources, no one knows when he’ll be back.
Eduardo gives me a ‘health check’ once a week and fills him in on my status. That’s when he takes the time to sew me up and rape me, then heal me so no one will know.
Sadist fucks me at night, when the others are asleep. I’ve been crying and screaming at all hours, so no one’s noticed when he’s on me. And considering he pisses and shits on me for kicks and giggles throughout the day, no one can tell that the smell he leaves on me isn’t just from that either.
“They’ll keep raping me until you give me V,”
I say. The stress of what they’re doing to me is nothing compared to the knowledge that it’s not Rafiki growing inside me. Not my girl. Not a wanted child.
And while I’m in this much agony, I’m more desirable to Eduardo and Sadist. They won’t be able to stop themselves even if they’re punished for this, not while Antonio is away. When he isn’t here to keep them in line.
“No,”
Bear says, denial in his tone. “No, stress doesn’t cause a miscarriage.”
“It does.”
“It doesn’t, or rape babies wouldn’t happen, but the V –”
“Please!”
I shriek, my voice cracking. “Please! Just help me!” I thrash against my binds, my arms and legs flailing against the mattress, rubbing my skin off until it burns.
“Micha! Micha! Stop! You’re going to hurt yourself!”
I scream, arching back on the bed, all my pain ripping out of me. I can’t live like this. I can’t. I just can’t. I can’t make it through another day.
But I will.
Because they will force the food and water down my throat.
They will carry me to the bathroom and bathe me.
They will change my sheets so I’m not lying in filth, so the risk of catching a disease is slim.
They will heal me from any wounds.
They will keep the thing inside me alive.
Because their alpha wants it to make it to term.
With the three female werewolves failing to get pregnant with hybrids, Rudy’s magic too strong to share the womb, I am currently his only option. So I will live.
Because Varius doesn’t love me enough to kill me.
Screaming myself hoarse, I thrash on the bed until I’m so exhausted, I pass out.
I wake up in a sweat, Micha’s pain pushing down the bond despite the wall I’ve tried to erect. They’re torturing her right now, making her hurt more than she ever has. My heart beating rapidly, I throw my covers off and sit up. I can hear her screams as if she was in the room with me. My magic crawls across my skin as I run my hands through my hair and tug.
I want to help her. I want to do what she is asking of me simply because she is the one asking me.
Help me, Varius!
You can stop the pain.
Why won’t you stop the pain?
Her words echo inside of me, soundless as we’re not telepathic, but I can feel them. The hatred for me. The need to get it all to stop.
I want to help her.
But Dayne knows her best, and he’s confident she will survive this.
If that requires her to hate me, to never want to come back to me, then so be it. But she will live.
And she will heal.
And I will love her from afar.
Breathing out harshly, I rebuild the wall in my heart like Khalid told me to do. Each brick I lay is a solid commitment to losing her in order to save her. But even with it up, my skin itches.
For another loved one of mine weeps, their pain so deep, their desire to die so pungent on the air.
It’s a giving up.
A plea for someone to end the misery of being forced to stay alive.
My eyes closing, I shudder over the sickness I can smell in the air, my senses having sharpened with the breaking of my curse.
I want to help her.
But I’m just so fucking helpless.