Chapter 21 A Stranger in My Skin
Sleep didn’t come easily that night. Then again, it never really did anymore.
Even after the exhaustion of training and hours of fighting compulsion, my body refused to sink fully into anything that resembled rest. No matter how hard I’d tried, my mind stayed half-awake, hovering in that uneasy space between dreaming and vigilance, as if some part of me knew it wasn’t safe to let go completely.
Like if I relaxed too much, even for a moment, something terrible would slip through the cracks.
When I finally drifted under, it was shallow and fractured.
More like sinking and resurfacing on a current I had no control over than actually sleeping.
Images formed and dissolved before they could make sense.
Voices threaded through them, indistinct at first, blending into the half-formed landscapes of my dreams. For a while, I didn’t question it.
I just floated in it, disoriented and numb and completely unaware that anything was wrong.
And then they stopped pretending to be part of it.
The whispering grew clearer, louder, pulling at me and demanding things I couldn’t quite grasp through the fog of sleep. Foreign thoughts that had no business being in my head, wrapping around my consciousness like they belonged there.
…The time is now…
I tried to roll over, to bury my face in the pillow and shut them out, but my wrists jerked to a sudden halt.
Cold metal bit into my skin as my eyes snapped open to darkness.
For a second, I didn’t know where I was.
The room was dark and unfamiliar, shadows stretching across the ceiling in a way that didn’t feel natural, moonlight filtering through the curtains in pale stripes.
My breath came too fast, my heart racing as awareness rushed back in all at once.
I was in my bedroom.
Chained.
My wrists were cuffed above my head, secured to the reinforced headboard exactly the way we’d agreed they would be before we’d gone to bed. A necessary precaution. A last line of defense in case the call returned while I slept. Something to slow me down when the voices surged.
Like they were doing now.
…You must comply…
I pulled against the restraints without thinking, panic spiking through my chest as the voices multiplied. Two distinct tones now, overlapping and weaving together until I couldn’t tell where one command ended and another began.
“No,” I breathed out, my voice threadbare in the darkness.
But my body didn’t seem to care what I wanted.
It was already responding to the call, its muscles tensing as something primal and ancient unfurled in my chest. The need to obey.
To go to them. To hunt with them. I tugged at the cuffs harder, rattling the chains as they crashed against the headboard.
Movement exploded on either side of the room.
Dominic was up from the armchair before I had time to draw a full breath, his vampire speed bringing him to my bedside in less than a blink. Trace scrambled up from the floor on the other side, his eyes wide and alert despite having been asleep seconds ago.
The lamp clicked on, flooding the room with sudden light that made me wince.
Dominic’s hands were on my face immediately, gripping my jaw and forcing my head still.
His eyes locked onto mine, and I watched the moment he understood.
Watched his expression go from concern to something colder.
More focused. The look of a man bracing for a war he had been preparing for since the moment the anchoring spell ended.
He didn’t ask. He didn’t need to. He could see it in my eyes. Feel it through the bond.
The Horsemen were back.
“Stay with me, angel,” he said, his voice firm. Commanding. There was no trace of the panic I could feel beating against me through the bond like a second pulse. “Keep your eyes on me.”
I tried to focus on Dominic’s face, on the dark fixity of his gaze, but the voices were burrowing deeper. Wrapping around my will like chains far stronger than the ones binding my wrists.
“Trace.” Dominic didn’t look away from me. “Use the bond. Pull her back.”
I could feel Trace move closer on my other side, his presence pressing against my consciousness through the anchor bond. He was trying to reach me, trying to push past the voices and create some kind of foothold I could grab onto.
But the Horsemen pushed back harder.
…The birth is near…
…We must end this now…
My back arched off the bed, every muscle in my body straining as another wave of compulsion crashed through me. The need to go. To hunt. To kill. It wasn’t a suggestion anymore. It was a command carved into my bones.
Dominic’s grip on my face tightened, his fingers digging into my jaw. “Look at me, angel. Only at me. Block everything else out.”
But I couldn’t see him. Not really. His face kept blurring in and out of focus, the edges of him bleeding into shadows that weren’t actually there. Shadows that moved and writhed and whispered promises of purpose.
…You were recreated for this…
…Forged in darkness for a singular destiny…
…Come. Now…
A scream tore from my throat as I bucked against the restraints with renewed violence. The headboard shook, wood creaking under the strain. I could hear myself making sounds, animalistic and desperate, but they didn’t feel like they were coming from me.
I could feel Trace’s panic spiking through the open bond. Could feel him reaching for me, trying desperately to anchor me, but the connection was fraying like a rope being burned through from the other end. The Horsemen’s call was too strong, drowning out everything else.
“Hold her down,” said Dominic, his voice still controlled even as I felt his own fear bleeding through the cracks.
Trace was already moving, his hands pressing down on my shoulders as Dominic tried to pin my legs. But I was stronger than I should have been. Stronger than I’d ever been before. The Horsemen’s power flooded through me, amplifying everything, burning away every limit my body should have respected.
I nearly threw Trace off entirely, my body twisting with inhuman strength.
“Fight it, Jemma. I know you can do it.” Trace’s voice was strained but controlled. “Just hold on. We’ve got you.”
My wrists pulled violently against the cuffs. The metal cut deeper, drawing blood, but the pain barely registered. All I could feel was the pull. The overwhelming, suffocating need to obey.
“She’s not responding.” Trace’s hands tightened on my shoulders, struggling to keep me still. Through the bond, I could feel his desperation warring with his determination to stay strong for me. To not let me see how scared he was for me.
But I could feel it anyway. Could feel both of them struggling to hold onto me as I slipped further away.
Dominic leaned closer, his compulsion bleeding into his words. “Listen to my voice. Only my voice. You are not theirs. You’re ours.”
His power crashed over me in a second wave, trying to override the Horsemen’s call. To drown it out. For a moment—just a moment—I felt the briefest flicker of clarity. Saw his face clearly. Saw the fear and desperation in his dark eyes that he was fighting so hard to hide.
But then the Horsemen pushed back, and the clarity shattered.
...They know nothing...
...They keep you weak...
...They will make you fail...
The chains groaned as I pulled against them with everything I had. Blood dripped down my wrists where the metal cuffs had cut, but I barely felt it. All I felt was the need. The hunger. The call.
Submit.
Obey.
Kill.
My back arched off the bed again, every muscle straining as the whispers crescendoed into a roar that threatened to split my skull open.
Trace was still trying to hold me down without hurting me, but I could feel him losing ground with every passing second.
Could feel both of them struggling as I fought against the chains and their hands with the same animal violence.
“It’s not working!” shouted Trace over my screaming. “Nothing’s reaching her. She’s fucking hurting herself!”
“I am well aware,” he bit out, struggling to contain me.
“What the fuck do we do?”
“I. Don’t. Know.”
“You don’t know?!” snapped Trace, the panic in his tone overriding everything else.
“Would you shut up and let me think,” snarled Dominic, his grip on my legs tightening hard enough to bruise.
Trace gave it all but five seconds before he shoved Dominic off me and growled, “Fuck this.”
“What are you—” started Dominic, but Trace was already moving.
One moment he was beside me, the next he was straddling my body, his weight pinning me down like a physical anchor as his hands moved to frame my face.
“I’m sorry,” he said gently, his eyes meeting mine for just a second before I heard the soft click of his fangs descending. “But I’m not losing you.”
Then he struck.
His fangs tore into my throat like knives, rearranging everything in my head as if to make room for him.
Pain lanced through me first, immediate and bright, stealing the breath from my lungs.
But it lasted only a heartbeat before the venom flooded my system, turning the agony into something else entirely. Something hot and liquid and consuming.
The voices screamed in protest, their commands still clawing at my mind, but Trace pulled harder. Drank deeper. Taking more than he should have. More than was safe.
The pull to hunt started to fade, the Horsemen’s commands losing their grip as the rush of his bite took over.
Pleasure washed over me in waves, pushing their voices further and further back until they became nothing more than distant whispers.
Background noise I could barely hear over the intoxicating warmth spreading through my veins.
He kept drinking.
He drank until the pleasure turned hazy and soft around the edges. Until my thrashing slowed, and then stopped entirely as my body went slack beneath him.
And still, he didn’t stop.