Chapter Sixteen
“Aaaahhh!”
The pain was too intense. Maggie couldn’t bear much more. Veylo stood at the end of her bed, gazing eagerly down at her pussy, where she imagined her bloody baby’s head was ripping through.
“Come on,” Veylo said, “That’s it. You’re almost there.”
Tears rushed off her crimson face. Another immortal stood by Veylo, but Maggie didn’t recognize him. He was nearly as tall as Craetis, his white higherling wings stretched out beside him. Whoever he was, he sure wasn’t helping her any.
“Fuck you all! Fuck you all to Hell!”
The pain inside her increased so sharply that she couldn’t help but scream again.
“He’s here!” Veylo announced.
He?she thought.It’s a boy?
She tossed about, disoriented, her body overwhelmed, depleted.
The moment her mom had tried to prevent from happening had arrived.
Veylo held up what appeared to her to be a bloody ball of yarn, and in her delirium, she thought that was what it might have been.
“He’s beautiful!” Veylo exclaimed.
She thought of the boy with the crossword puzzles.
A wailing sound filled the air.
Is that my baby?Maggie wondered.Is that him?
A thought stirred in her mind, one she was ashamed of thinking:I want him so bad.
“A whore isn’t fit to be a mother!”echoed through Maggie’s thoughts. But she could prove her mom wrong. If only she had the chance.
It didn’t matter. They were going to take him away from her. If she didn’t do something, they were going to rip him from her life forever.
What can I do?
She didn’t have strength. She didn’t have energy. She didn’t have will. All she had was the pain that surged through her. The pain in her body, and the pain of knowing she was about to lose something precious…something wonderful…something that she only now understood the value of.
“There, there,” Veylo cooed, rocking the bloody yarn back and forth.
No. He’s mine.
The door behind him burst open and Kinzer ran in.
***
Kinzer stood in the doorway, two swords gripped in his hands, fury in his eyes. Maggie was lying on the bed, her pelvis dripping with blood. But Kinzer only noticed her for a moment as his attention drew to a higherling standing beside Veylo. And in that moment, all his rage, all the hate that he had for the Raze, vanished.
“Ubba—da—ga—” He stuttered nonsense. He couldn’t process a thought. “Janka?” he finally managed.
Janka stood there, silent. With wide, blue eyes, set below those all-too-familiar bushy eyebrows, he stared at Kinzer with that deep, powerful, immortal stare. Kinzer’s thoughts wheeled back to that horrible day when he’d watched Veylo and the Raze beat and torture him…when he thought they’d killed him.
How was he alive?Unfortunately, despite all his confusion, he already knew the answer to his question.
“All this time,” he said, “you’ve been working with the Raze?”
