Torture (Terraway Book 3) Read online

  I wanted to leap into the front seat and beat on Danny, but I couldn’t move without screaming. Mason growled at Danny for me, which I appreciated.

  Ollie busted out of the front door, his worry face on high alert. “October? Is that…” His eyes fell on me in the backseat, limp in Von’s arms. “Get your filthy perv hands off my sister! What did you do to her?” Ollie ran around to my door and ripped it open, yanking me out of Von’s arms.

  The knives sliced into me at the separation from both my Reapers, terrifying my slowly numbing nerves into full-on action again. My scream could no doubt be heard for miles, if not whole continents. I’m pretty sure the midafternoon clouds shading the sun from shining down on my pain heard my plight and sent me a sympathetic “oh, girl” chuck on the shoulder.

  Ollie was startled and lowered me to the concrete. “October, what’s wrong? Is something broken?” His tone changed from fear to fury. “You! I knew you were no good! What did you do to my sister?” He whirled on Von, who knelt on the pavement at my side, his hands working to dull the endless abyss of agony. Mason hopped down from the car on all fours and laid against my other side, doubling the opiate that kept me from losing my mind.

  “Let’s get you inside, Peach.”

  Ollie was confused, but knew where he wanted to direct his anger that could turn volatile on a dime. “Touch my sister and die.”

  “As jolly as that sounds, I’m the only thing keeping your sister together right now. Danny can explain everything, but not here.” Von’s arms were careful as they tucked under my back and beneath my legs. He lifted me fluidly, but unfortunately nothing was seamless. I bit my lower lip through a scream, my skin sweaty. “I know, love. I know it hurts.” When Ollie stood in his way, Von lowered his voice in a threat. “Let me lay her down first. Duke it out with Danny. See if you can knock some sense into him. Not all brothers care about others the way you do. This one’s on him.”

  Mason ran ahead through the door Danny opened with a somber expression. My wolf scampered to my bedroom and pulled back the covers so I had a soft place ready for me to lay.

  Ollie didn’t know where to direct his anger anymore. Poor guy was completely in the dark, and I’d been the one to keep him there. Now he would know everything, and I wasn’t sure if I should be scared or relieved. Ollie’s fists were clenched as he spoke through his teeth to Von. “Get out of my sister’s bedroom. I’m here. I’ll take her to the hospital now.”

  Von kicked off his shoes, flipping his middle fingers to Ollie and Danny, who stood in the entrance of my room, unsure where they should be. “Danny, get him out. Mason and I can clean up the mess you made.” He pointed his middle finger at Danny. “Sure, I’m the screw-up, but you did this. Never forget today. You jeopardized the whole kingdom and nearly got the strongest Omen killed. You’ll be lucky if we can get her to zero at all today. Keep the food coming and have fun breaking The Truth is Out There to the only brother who’s more clueless than you. Then you’ll call Ezra and tell him all you’ve done.”

  Von tried not to move my legs at all as he untied my shoes. He snapped his fingers at Mason. “Up you get, Mason.” He waited until Mason was snuggled into my side before taking off my shoes, ensuring I was sedated enough to get through the simple task that jarred every bone in my leg.

  “You’ll not undress my sister,” Ollie fumed.

  Von pulled a cigar out of his backpack and cast me an apologetic look as he slowly turned it to give it an even burn on the tip with his gold lighter. He puffed out a mouthful of smoke, and I knew all the pulling was making him hungry again. “Look, not for nothing, but don’t tell me what to do. I know every bit of subterfuge November’s been up to for the last couple months, and you don’t.” He puffed again, ignoring my glare that came with gritted teeth and muscles so tense, I wasn’t sure they’d ever relax. “I’m not pleasant when I’m irritated. Far more charming when I’m being told how amazing I am. Now Danny, be a love and fetch me something to use as an ashtray so I don’t give my darling a conniption.” When they didn’t move, Von bared his fangs at his brother. “Don’t make me ask twice.”

  Ollie took a wary step back, figuring he might not know everything about the situation unfolding before him.

  Danny narrowed his eyes at Von, but knew he had to take whatever cockiness was thrown his way. Once he closed the door, Von lowered himself to the bed, toeing off his socks and climbing in next to me. The second his hand reached over me to rub my arm, the pain decreased from pure torture to just really bad. I could handle really bad pain just fine. I melted into him, letting the tears run down my cheeks now that it was just the two of us. Well, plus Mason. For some reason I didn’t hesitate so much around wolf Mason. It felt like having a dog who loved you for all the things you were to him, even if they weren’t true or all that impressive.

  Von rolled me onto my side, shushing me through the searing that made me bite off a whimper I hated myself for. He draped my arm around his neck and wrapped me in a one-armed hug I loved him for, while Mason leaned against my back. “More contact means we can pull it all out of you better.” He kissed my wet eyelashes when my eyes squinched shut through a shudder. “I can make it better.”

  “Mm-hm.” My voice was pinched and unable to conceal the pain I refused to scream about anymore. “V-Von?”

  “Yeah, love?” He took a puff of his cigar and blew it away from us, but the sweet smell still landed on me. I could only hope he didn’t ruin my perfectly white carpet with the ashes.

  “I n-need you to bliss me out. Please, Von. I c-can’t feel this. Hurts… too… much.”

  He paused a few seconds. “Call me your big, strong, sexy man.”

  I ignored Mason’s low throat growl. I would’ve called Von Mayor McCheese if that would’ve sped things along. “You’re my b-big, strong, sexy man.”

  He drew his mouth to the side. “Huh. I thought that would’ve done it for me, but still no.” He kissed my cheek. “See, if you bliss out, then you can’t tell us when the souls are completely gone, or if you’ve still got something swimming around in you. The only way we’d be able to tell is to look for your skin turning translucent in parts, like Mariang’s.” He kissed my other cheek and then brushed his nose back and forth across mine. “As much as I’d love to get you good and naked so I can stare at your peachy skin, I prefer my women conscious. Old fashioned, I guess.” He puffed his cigar through my sobs of defeat. “Hold tight, November. It’s you and me till the end, remember? I’m right here, and I’m not going anywhere.”

  29

  Flirting with Disaster

  Danny came back in with a cereal bowl for Von to use as his ash tray. “Pizza will be here in twenty. Can you wait until then?”

  Mason stood up on all fours on the bed, shaking his head and jumping off the mattress. He scampered out the door, no doubt to raid the refrigerator or chase a few squirrels. The second he broke contact with me, the pain ramped up again, but I found I could breathe through it as my body writhed against Von’s.

  “How about you, Von? Can you hold on until then, or do you need more blood?”

  Von groaned. “Oh, don’t say blood. I’m alright. I can make it fine until the pizza comes. How’s Ollie handling the whole thing?”

  “Bad? How’s one supposed to take something like this?” Danny shrugged. “Finn’s giving him the breakdown of the different countries in Terraway. It’s a geography lesson at best right now. He’s not gotten into October’s role in all of it yet. Expect a lot of yelling when that happens.”

  Von moved the cereal bowl to the other side of my head on the pillow so he could keep his arm around me. “I’ll be simply waiting on the edge of my seat.” He took a puff and turned to blow the smoke in Danny’s direction. “I’m surprised you’re sticking around to do damage control on the mess you made for us. I expected you to be off honeymooning with Mariang by now. This is what you wanted, isn’t it? November barely able to lift her head, screaming in pain so that Mariang can go to the prom wi
th you?”

  “Sod off. You know I didn’t want this. I didn’t know it was even possible to reap that many in a day. It was an experiment gone wrong.”

  “Yes. An experiment you never would’ve risked with Mariang. You threw October away, Danny.” Von’s upper lip curled at his brother as he clutched me through a quiet sob that rose up in me at Von’s choice of words. “You disgust me. Clean up the mess you made with Ollie and get out. You and Finn both. Don’t let me see his smug mug again until we have to go back to Terraway.”

  Danny shoved his hands into his jeans pockets and stared down at his shoes. “October? I’m real sorry. I didn’t—”

  “No!” Von snapped, flashing his fangs at Danny. “You don’t get to apologize for something like this. Not to her, not to me and not to Mason. Go take your self-loathing to Mariang and bed her the way you’ve been missing it. This is exactly what you wanted.”

  Danny’s face hardened, but he wasn’t the type to defend himself. He wasn’t usually wrong. He watched the tears fall down my face with something that looked like regret while I cried silently in Von’s arms. “Whatever you think of me, I am sorry. I’ll stay with Ollie until he understands everything. I’ll make sure he doesn’t bother you with questions until you’re ready for it. I’ll keep the food coming for the guys. Then I’ll go home.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I’ve got to ask how you knew there’d be so many bodies to reap at the carnival. You suggested the place before we were close enough for you to feel any sort of pull.”

  “Lucky guess,” I worked out through gritted teeth. It was a valid question, and one that scared me. How did Philip know? Philip was a figment of my imagination. How did he know something I didn’t?

  “Well, I’ve been watching the news, and there was a terrorist bombing at the carnival. They’re still counting the casualties.”

  I gasped and Von clutched me tighter. He all but barked at Danny, “Do you think adding more stress is helping anyone right now? Save the details for another day, Danny. Out you go.”

  I buried my face in Von’s neck as soon as Danny shut the door behind him. A few of the faces of the people I’d reaped flashed before me in various stages of bloodied and blown apart. I let out my grief over all the terrible things in the world into Von’s skin, shuddering and wetting his collar with my tears that had no end in sight. “It hurts! It hurts,” I whispered, confessing my weakness to the one person I trusted enough to be careful with my vulnerability.

  “I suppose this is a bad time to tell you that you shouldn’t have hesitated when I told you we were done for the day.”

  “Bad time,” I agreed, calming a little when he rubbed my back. His leg draped over my thigh, pulling my knee between his as we enveloped ourselves in each other, soaking in the comfort that felt intimate behind closed doors. “Finn hit you!” I wailed. “I c-couldn’t get to you. I just stood there and watched it all happen while my body froze over.”

  “Not the first time I’ve taken a punch from him, the fishy bastard.”

  “I was so scared for you! You can’t get hurt, do you hear me? That k-killed me!”

  Von paused, his cigar in his teeth as he studied my distraught face. “You really were scared, weren’t you? Scared for me while you were on death’s door.”

  “You’re my treasure,” I said meekly. The second the words were out of my mouth, I wished for better ones. Less embarrassing ones. “Oh, forget I said that. So dorky.”

  Von was at a loss, which thankfully meant he didn’t say anything to call me out on my overemotional response. He ramped up the pulling, and my shoulders started to droop. “I think I might like dorky.” We looked into each other’s eyes, saying too many things we shouldn’t have even let our eyeballs converse about.

  “I’m sorry you got punched,” I offered, swallowing the strange feeling that tried to introduce itself to me. I batted it away, certain my emotions were off because of the almost dying and the whole nature of the job thing. “Where’d he get you? Does it still hurt?”

  Von rested his cigar in the bowl behind me and reached his hand between our bodies. “It’s not so bad.” His fingers snuck under the hem of my shirt to thumb my navel, making my stomach go concave. My body thrilled at the sexy touch I could feel above the icy stabbing that was finally starting to dull. “He got me right here.”

  “Here?” I reached my hand between our pressed together bodies and dragged my knuckles up and down over his abdomen, tracing the dip when he sucked in his stomach with a lusty hiss. “Does it feel better now?” I worked out in a whisper, unsure of what I was doing, or the madness that drove me there. I could feel the second the goosebumps erupted on his skin, his grip on my back tightening as his whole body responded to my simple touch.

  “Oh, keep doing that,” he breathed, his hips moving against mine in a seduction that was entirely new to me, but one he was well-versed in.

  “Does it still hurt?” I traced a circle around his navel, thumbing the light smattering of hair that trailed downward and disappeared below the waistline of his jeans.

  “Easy, baby.” Von shifted against me, throwing his head back as we held each other. “Oh, you’re driving me mad! It’s been too long since I’ve had sex. Or blood.”

  I pulled my hand away from him and leaned back to give him a few inches of breathing room. “Sorry about that. You alright?” I wiped the tears from my face, finally calm enough to compose myself.

  His heavy breathing started evening out as he kept up a high dosage of pulling to mute a little of my pain. “Blood and sex, that’s what I need right now, and I won’t be getting either from you, you little strumpet.”

  I clumsily palmed his face and chuckled as I came down from the tease neither of us had a right to indulge in. “You should write Christmas cards. That was downright poetic.”

  He took another puff of his cigar and then rested the brown stick in the bowl. Von took my hand and slid it across his face, drawing out a hiss from me when his tongue laved over the inside of my wrist. The pain went down another notch to make room for the unbidden pleasure. Now it was my turn to erupt in goosebumps.

  “Your blood… Mm. I can still remember the taste. I don’t care about the different kinds of wine, but blood? There’s a difference between someone from Terraway and a pureblood human. Terraway’s overly salty, humans are far too sweet. But you? A mix?” He inhaled my skin, his lashes fluttering as his eyes rolled back. “I wish you were anyone else. I wish you were ugly and mean and selfish. Then I could work out some kind of logic where you didn’t smell so delicious to me. If you were haggard and covered in warts, I could resist you on lack of package appeal.”

  “I can work on getting some warts. I’ve already got the haggard thing down,” I said of my bedraggled state.

  “Not haggard. Captivating.” Von dragged his lips over to my ear, making my back arch and my body slide against his in unladylike ways that were all primal instinct. I couldn’t feel the needles. I couldn’t feel the cold. I was on fire, and all I could feel was Von.

  Von’s lips tugging on my earlobe.

  Von’s lips sucking on my jaw.

  Von’s hips grinding into mine while my knees parted and trembled.

  Von’s lips dragging down the slope until they puckered the skin at the juncture of my shoulder and my neck. I was utterly twisting in the sheets beneath him as he tortured my neck like only the best vampires knew how to do. “I can almost taste you,” he murmured, tugging my skin with his lips just to hear me moan. “Delicious.”

  I let out a gratuitous soft whimper of longing I couldn’t keep inside anymore.

  30

  See What you Won’t Do

  I was writhing beneath Von’s lithe body when he froze. “I… we…” He extracted his lips from my neck, suddenly scared and apologetic from his position atop me. “I don’t know what I’m doing. It’s been an off day all around. I’m… I should not have done that.”

  “If you don’t want me to feel all the… you know, the
n you probably should stop sucking on my neck. Vampire stuff aside, you know it makes me… And we’re not.” I’m pretty sure that was the point my cheeks turned the brightest shade of crimson. “I shouldn’t have touched your stomach like that. This one’s on me. Sorry, Von.”

  Von leaned down and kissed my cheek. “Let me go outside and take a breather. When I come back in, we’ll start over with something very platonic, like farting or belching contests.”

  I cast him a dubious look. “I feel like you don’t know many women you’re not sleeping with.”

  He batted his hand at me. “Oh, you.”

  The pain ramped up when we broke contact for the briefest of seconds, going from almost a two to a solid seven. “Ah!” I’d been so distracted by the Von of it all that I’d forgotten the true purpose behind our entwined bodies. That’s the thing about a really sexy vampire.

  Von came back to himself, scooping me up in his arms and calling for Danny. When Danny ran in, Von’s tone was sharp. “Get me something to eat before I bite into her.”

  Danny bolted out of the room and came back a few seconds later with a box of cereal Von looked insulted by. “What? It’ll tide you over until the pizza gets here. Then Mason will come back to help you.”

  Von dug his fist into the box of off-brand cereal and shoved as much as he could into his mouth, getting crumbs in the bed. Luckily this distracted me a fair amount from my aching bones. I didn’t allow food in my room, least of all food that made crumbs. I made a mental list of all the things I’d have to do when I felt better to get my room back to what it should be.

  I expected Danny to leave, but he leaned against the wall near my window and crossed his arms over his chest. “Ezra’s on his way over to help with Ollie.” He hung his head. “Lang’s here. Showed up with Ruiz and Klark. Lang wanted to check how close she was to reaching her goal to see if we could start the trek early.”