“No.”
“I was rough.”
I snorted as my hand drifted down his spine, finding the raised scratches from my claws. “You’re holding back,” I countered. “And it’s pissing me and Indigo off that our mate is not giving us all of himself. How can we fully bond if you continue to treat me like I’m on the brink of death when I have been healed for weeks?”
He grabbed my arms and pulled them off him to kiss my fingertips. “Okay, I get it,” he replied. “No more holding back. Hope you are ready, Cora.”
I fell asleep with a smile on my lips and a challenge in my soul. Bring it on, Hudson.
Fire sliddown my throat and pooled in my belly. I cried out but couldn’t form words as my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. I was going to die. My gut burned as if the flesh was singed, and I could smell my death in the air—a sickly sweet but decaying scent that made my eyes water.
“Just give me access to your power, and all this pain can stop,” a coaxing feminine voice said. “I don’t want to hurt you. We can work together to usher this world into a new age, one we shape according to our design.”
My eyes fluttered open, and I twisted my head. My body hung suspended inside of a dark room. Pain engulfed every nerve ending, but to give in meant death. Not mine, but everyone else’s. I peeled my tongue from the roof of my mouth, and hot blood slid out of my lips. “Fuck you,” I muttered, my voice hoarse and raspy.
Eloise emerged from the shadows, sheathed in an elegant white gown, looking like an angel. How deceiving. Her fingers trailed down my cheek in a feigned affectionate caress. “Oh, Cora, this is my fault. I taught you to be strong, to withstand pain beyond what a soul can take. But now is the time to take the easy road. Let her out and revel in your power. He only seeks to tame you, to control you, to dominate and use you.”
“You seek the same,” I choked out.
“Perhaps, but the difference is I want you to use your power, while he wants to leash it.”
Lies. All lies spoken by a woman I share blood with.
Eloise sighed and nodded. “Bring him in. We need to do this the hard way.”
My head jerked to the opposite side, and The Hound shoved Sebastian to his knees. His hands were bound at his back, and he had blood splattered across his white shirt. He was wearing his lucky tie. Sebastian lifted his head, and his Nordic blue eyes caught mine.No. Not him. You can’t have him.
I jerked against my invisible bonds, desperation and helplessness warring inside me.
“Stay strong, Cora, keep your heart beating,” he whispered.
“You keep your heart beating,” I snapped back.
The Hound winked at me as he tipped Sebastian’s head back with one hand and brought a pink ivory bowl to his lips with the other. Sebastian clamped his mouth closed and struggled against The Hound’s hold as he poured liquid from the poisonous bowl. Sebastian’s flesh blistered and peeled back as an unworldly scream tore from his bloody mouth.
“Bring in the cat,” my grandmother instructed.
“I hate you,” I snarled.
She patted my cheek. “Hate is simply the flip side of love, Cora. You cannot feel one without the other. You have the power to stop this.”
Chains slid over concrete as elementals dragged Keverin into the room. Clumps were missing out of his matted fur, stripped away to show his injured body. His soulful eyes caught mine just as Sebastian convulsed and flopped to the floor. His eyes fell closed as his chest lifted once, twice, and then collapsed.No.I stared at him and willed him to keep breathing. His chest rattled with an inhalation of air.There we go.
Keverin snarled at The Hound.
“Are you willing to sacrifice your mate?” Eloise asked. “He’s going to take time to wear down, unlike the vampire, who was most disappointing.”
“Disappointing?” I snarled. “You are beyond disappointing, Grandmother. You play with lives like you are God. Newsflash, you are not the Almighty. Good news though, He’s taken more than a passing interest in this little situation you’ve engineered. Are you ready for His wrath? I will never be your tool, but I was born to be His. There will be no mercy, no pleas, no trial. You have been found guilty, and I am your executioner. Now release my mate and my friend.”
Eloise threw her head back and laughed. “You think I don’t have the backing of a powerful being? You haven’t been paying attention. Bring on your God. I am ready, are you?”
The Hound moved to my side and twisted a wicked serrated knife in front of my face before slicing it into my chest. I gritted my teeth and tried to trap the terror clawing its way up my throat. I won’t give him my screams.
Keverin roared, and my head snapped back to him. The barbed chains wrapped around his body sunk into his flesh as he fought to get to me, cutting into skin and muscle the more he struggled.
My heart stuttered, and another wave of pain sliced through me. I shook my head as a tear slid free. “Be still,” I whimpered. “Please, Keverin, be still.” He whined low in his throat, and Indigo rattled my chest in response.
“That’s it,” my grandmother coaxed with glee. “Let her out.”
