I wake on a cold floor. The sound of metal scraping on concrete is familiar to me as I move. I used to hear it all the time when I was in my uncle’s cellar. I lift my hand to my throbbing head but see no chains around my wrists. My hands are no longer tied together. The front of my face feels battered and bruised. It’s too tender to touch.
‘You took some hard hits,’ Toby says, from behind me. ‘You’ll be sore for a few days, I imagine. Here, let me help you to sit.’
He kneels by my side and takes my arms, maneuvering my body into an upright position. I can barely hold my head up. My stomach turns and the muscles in my abdomen clench.
‘I’m going to be sick.’
‘I think I have a bucket here. Hold on.’ He leaves and returns quickly with a pail. I grip it tightly and heave into it. I still can’t stay upright, so he lays me down on his lap, gathering the hair from my face as I continue being violently ill. I’m too hurt and tired to stop him placing me there. ‘Grayson hit you pretty hard. You have a concussion.’
‘Where am I?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘How long have I been here?’
‘A couple of days. I was starting to think you were never going to wake up.’
I look around the room. It’s small and made of stone, just like Harry’s cellar, with a single door and not a window in sight. I push myself up and feel a weight around my neck. I look down and see a thick chain hanging from what I can only describe as a steel collar. The chain is connected to a stone wall. Toby takes the bucket and leaves it by the door as I sway and groan on my knees. The chain is solid. I give it a light tug and know that even when I regain my strength and my senses, I’ll never pull it free from the wall. Everything continues to spin. My ears ring and I feel so nauseous I just want to curl up in a ball and sleep. But Toby is here, so I must keep my focus.
‘Don’t strain yourself,’ he coos, returning to my side and sitting on the floor with me. His hand makes gentle circles on my back. ‘You’re not getting out of that collar unless I let you out.’
‘Then let me out.’
‘Not likely.’
I shrug him off and give the chain another tug. ‘What do you want?’
‘I told you.’
I can’t stop staring at his face.
‘It’s pretty hideous, isn’t it?’ He points at his scar and has a solemn smile as he does. ‘People are scared of me now. A child cried when he saw me the other day.’
‘People have always been scared of you. Now your outsides match your insides.’
‘You used to like that. How I would scare everyone else but doted on you completely.’
‘Doted on me?’ I laugh, but only for the briefest moment. The noise hurts my head and I feel the need to vomit start to resurface. ‘You tormented me. I just didn’t know it at the time.’
‘I loved you.’ He guides my face to him. ‘I still do. I showed you that the only way I know how. I hate that we have ended up here. As enemies.’
‘I’m going to be sick again.’
‘Your head hurts that bad?’
‘No. You, saying that you still love me, turns my stomach.’ I move away but don’t get far before the collar whips me back. As I pull it away from my neck, hoping to ease how it rubs on my skin, I notice that my engagement ring is gone. My eyes flick up to Toby and he shows me he has it. ‘Give it back.’
He tucks it in his jeans pocket.
‘You’re never marrying my brother.’
‘I’m not marrying you either.’
He laughs hard. ‘I have no intention of marrying you, Red. I think we’ve established that that traditional relationships aren’t really my thing.’
‘Then what do you want?’
‘I told you.’
‘You want my submission but you will never have it. You want me to love you but I never will, so you may as well kill me.’ I tug once more on the chain as my head starts to clear and anger begins to replace my fear.
‘If it wasn’t for me, Grayson would have-’
‘I know what Grayson was about to do to me, okay?!’ I pull my dress down and feel dirty at the memory of his fingers inside me.
‘Well, perhaps a thank you? That’s twice in your life I’ve stopped a man forcing himself on you.’
‘Thank you, Toby. For stopping your brother from raping me. It was very big of you.’ Every word is hissed and filled with venom. I hate that he’s the one that saved me. I hate that I had to be saved in the first place.
‘You are very welcome.’ He crosses his legs and waits for me to say something else.
‘Where’s Grayson now?’
He produces a mischievous laugh which ends with him biting his lip and raising his eyebrows. Then, he whistles. Two short, sharp whistles which I know all too well. He used to do that to signal he was in my uncle’s garden somewhere, and I would run to him with excitement in every step.
The sound of Grayson yelling in fury and pain drifts through the door from another room. It’s beautifully amplified by the stone of the walls. Ava’s deranged giggle floats through the air as Grayson begins yelling threats at her. I glare at Toby who watches my reaction, and he loves the hatred he sees within me.
‘I can’t tell what I enjoy more. Seeing you smile as Grayson suffers? Or watching the fire of vengeance burn brighter in your eyes knowing that Ava Sinclair is here?’
‘That same fire burns for you.’
‘I saw you took Grayson’s eye. If you like, I’ll take his other one.’
‘Saw? You were watching? Like you watched Theo hack off my fingers? Did you hide outside the window and laugh as Grayson whacked my head into the table and ripped off my knickers?’
‘I got to you as soon as I could.’
‘What’s the purpose of this? You have to know we can never go back to what we were after everything that’s happened. After everything you did. So why take me in the first place? What do you want, Toby?’
‘You’re not exactly innocent in all this you know. You did some pretty awful things to me.’
‘You left us to die.’ My hand rests on my belly and he sneers as I do. ‘The woman you loved and your baby. That I can forgive because it gave me the courage to leave Harry’s house and it led me to Gabriel.’
His face falls.
‘Yeah. I remember. I remember that Gabriel and I were in love years ago and that he was going to raise the baby with me. That he was going to give us both the kind of life you never would and I remember how you took me from him and made him think I left him for you. Even that… maybe, just maybe, I could walk away from. But I will never forgive or forget the Miller’s barn. That you had Ava hold me down while you did what you did. The same woman who then screwed with me and Gabriel. And who tried to shoot me, almost killing Gabriel in the process. And then you cut off his arm and left him to bleed out. You fled like a coward.’
‘You were going to raise my child with my own brother. The man who abandoned me to Hunters. He is the reason I Broke! And you chose him over me? That level of betrayal trumps anything, I ever did to either of you. You both betrayed me. You both-’
‘He didn’t abandon you. Your own stupidity got you caught. He showed me the memories of that day. He tried to get you to run with him, but you were stupid and insisted on fighting. Your fire spooked Gabriel’s horse and he was barely conscious. The horse ran, he couldn’t stop it. That was on you. Not him.’ I lean towards him. ‘And you didn’t even want the baby! Why the hell would you care who raised it?’
‘Because I told you. You can never have a child.’
‘Because you saw a vision of me dying, right?’
He nods.
‘Well, you will live without me either way. Why am I here? Just make this easy and tell me what you want.’
His fingers grab the chain connected to my collar and he yanks me towards him. I struggle to keep my hands and knees moving fast enough so I don’t land face down on the floor. He forces a kiss on my lips but I bite him hard. His blood seeps into my mouth. He growls as I sink my teeth into him. It’s a growl I remember well. One I used to enjoy because it’s a lustful noise. Not an angry one. I relinquish my grip but he doesn’t let me move away. He has me by the collar and as close as I could be.
‘You want to know what I want?’
‘Yes.’
‘I want you back.’
‘Kill me. Save yourself the bother because that is never going to happen.’
‘You think I want to be your boyfriend? That I want you to hold my hand and please me in all the ways I taught you? No. That’s not what I want. I don’t want the sad and broken little thing who loved me. Who was terrified of touch and scared of the world. No. I want her back.’
‘Her? What the hell are you on about?’
He trails his hand through my hair and holds the tangled braids in his hands. ‘When you Broke in that barn, I saw a creature who made my heart stop and my cock go hard.’
‘You’re disgusting.’ My hand slaps his. ‘Get off me.’
He yanks my collar closer. ‘She was fearless and powerful and so full of wrath and anger. What I saw you do to my men…’ He takes a sharp intake of breath through his teeth as he looks blissfully off to the side, as if remembering a beautiful dream, rather than the torture, mutilation and murder of six people. ‘Oh, Red. You hardly knew what you were doing but the skill and delicacy you wielded in tearing them apart was incredible.’ His eyes land back on me. ‘Until you turned on me, of course. Then I just got the hell out of dodge. But it got me thinking.’ He grabs my wrist and holds my hand up close to his still bleeding mouth. His skin is rough as he rubs my knuckles against his scarred cheek. ‘Your fire. The way you took control of the things and the people around you. God. It was incredible and I knew… I knew…’
‘Knew what?’
‘I had to have you. Just like that. I need you like me.’
‘Like you? You mean…’
‘White hair,’ he whispers, looking at the strands still in his fingers. His gaze lingers on my eyes. ‘Lilac eyes.’ He rests his hand over my chest. ‘And a heart and soul as unforgiving and alive as mine.’
‘If I Break, I’ll kill you. I know I will. I won’t care about Gabriel or Collins. I’ll just want you dead.’ I snatch my hand free. ‘I want to kill you right this minute and go to Ava and slit her open from the belly up. Carve out her insides just like she helped you do to me. If I Break, Tobias, you will be the first person I come after.’
He gives a low chuckle and shakes his head. His teeth clamp down on his lip once more. ‘No, you won’t.’
‘Yes. I will.’
‘No…’ He leans into my face and whispers, ‘You won’t. Because when you Break, I’ll have control over you completely.’
‘You will never have control over me again.’
‘You ever heard of Blood-magic?’ He tuts. ‘Of course you have. You made a Bloodstone with Grayson and he branded you using Blood-magic too. Well, did you know that there is a way, an old, dark and dangerous method that was lost to us centuries before the war, that allows the will of one to be given… or should I say… taken, by another?’
A wash of uncertainty travels over me like a cold wave on an icy ocean. This doesn’t sound good. ‘That’s not possible.’
‘Tha mi a ’ruidhinn Scottish Gaelic,’ he says. He laughs at my confusion. ‘The pages you were translating from Rebecca Hooper’s journal, Hendrix was sending me photographs of them and stealing certain ones I didn’t want Grayson to have. Like the one written in Scottish Gaelic which tells of a very special spell. I wanted you back before. When Hendrix told me he had found you in the cellar, I was desperate to get you back. I thought you were dead, you see. After you escaped the Miller’s barn, I thought Harry had killed you. I saw him bury a body in his garden. Guess it must have been one of the members of his staff you killed during your rampage. But when Hendrix told me he found you, alive, I wanted to make you pay for loving Gabriel. For choosing him over me. Trying to get you out of Grayson’s house and away from his watchful eye was near impossible. A few times, I got close. I almost gave up on geting you back and was going to settle for just killing you. But then, when I learnt of this spell written in Scottish Gaelic, I knew that killing you was not our destiny. So I took drastic measures. I got anonymous word to Theo telling him that you had been branded and were defenseless. Predictably, he attacked, and Hendrix was supposed to get you out and bring you to me. He even persuaded Grayson to hide the Bloodstone on him incase Dad managed to take him. But then you tossed poor Hendrix out the window and the plan went to shit. I’ve been trying to prize you away ever since.’
‘So you can do this… Blood-magic spell?’
‘Yep,’ he nods. ‘According to Rebecca and her brilliant journal, if a witch – say you – ingested another’s blood – say mine – during a Break… And if that same witch – say me – said a series of words in Latin while performing a few other rather unpleasant spell necessities, the will of that witch…’ He points at me and mouths “you”. ‘Will become theirs.’ He points to himself.
‘Really.’ I swallow hard, unsure if what he says is true, but fearing it nonetheless. ‘That seems unlikely.’
‘I guess we will soon find out, won’t we?’ I know the blood has drained from my face as I let what he has planned sink in. ‘So, we’re going to push you, Red. My friends and me. We’re going to tear you down and when you start to Break, when you mind and your soul start to crack, I’ll pour my blood down your mouth, slide in between your thighs and say that incantation. My will shall sneak in through those cracks and take you over completely. And then, just to make sure it’s worked, you and I will find Amara and do unspeakable and filthy things to her together. I’ll order you to kill and maim. To destroy our enemies. To make me happy in all the ways you used to with that sweet, damaged little body of yours. And you will be incapable of resisting me. Just like you were. I’ll get you back, Red.’
‘Why Break me first? If you want to take control of me just do it.’ My voice holds its tremble well. Better than I expected.
‘The spell won’t work unless done during a Break. My will can only take over yours when there’s a break for it to sneak in through. Like plaster, repairing a crack in the wall. But don’t fret, my love. When you Break, it’s freedom. No more guilt or fear. Nothing holds you back! I think that will probably be best for you in the long-run, considering all the things I plan on forcing you to do.’ He leans in. A malicious smile playing on his lips. ‘I’ll have an Arcane Witch as my very own toy. I can’t fucking wait.’
‘Never,’ I snarl back. ‘It will never happen because you will never Break me, Tobias Kendryk.’
He throws his forehead hard into my nose. Blood explodes over my face as I fall back into my previous dazed state on the floor. He crouches over me, angry.
‘My name is TOBY! TOBY SMITH!’
‘Your name is dead man walking.’ I cough and splutter as I shake away the fog. ‘You will never control me again.’
‘When you Break, which you will, you will be mine again. Completely. You will have no choice. And then the real fun can begin.’
‘For a Broken witch, you sure seem to care about getting me back. I thought the whole point of a Break is not to care.’ I sit and wipe the blood from my face. In a quick and dominant move, he pulls me close to his body and pins me to his chest.
‘Oh. I care. About me. About what I want. About what I desire. Together, we will return magic and rid this planet of the pests who claim they are superior to us. Humans.’ The word is said with vulgarity. Like it tastes vile on his tongue. ‘Witches are supreme beings. This world is ours. They stole it. I shall steal it back. Humanity will worship us. They will shovel our shit and grow us our food. They will wait on us, hand and foot. Clean us. Undress for us and serve our deepest and darkest desires. Just as they were born to do.’ As he talks so passionately about his new world-order, his arousal presses into my belly. I fill with a cold dread. Not only at his body’s reaction after what happened with Grayson, but also at the idea of millions of innocent people being thrown into chains and forced into servitude. Myself included, if what he says about the spell is true.
‘Why is Hendrix helping you?’
‘I promised to give him exactly what he wants. That’s all. When the Veil is down, he will use humanity to create a new race of vampires. A hundred-thousand of them, who will serve as our military and help us reclaim this world from those who have spent so long trying to wipe us out completely. They will farm humanity and their blood will sustain our vampiric soldiers. The rest of humanity we will enslave. Kill. Torture. Whatever I want. Just as they did to us.’
I shake my head in disbelief, which is foolish. How could anything he say or do ever surprise me?
He stands and looks down at me. ‘I want to enslave everybody. I will rule over all. Hendrix and his vampires will be my army. You will be my power. You will be strong enough to destroy towns and kill hundreds without even moving a muscle. I will share with you the immortality spell and no one, not witch nor human, will ever put an end to us. Me and you, Red. A world made to our liking.’
‘To your liking.’
‘You will be my queen. I’ll satisfy you. The same as I always did. You’ll be well fed and want for nothing if that makes this any easier for you. Not that I particularly care what you think. We will be perfect together! I’m a volcano and you’re an earthquake. We set each other off in all the best and all the worst ways. That’s why we’re so brilliant together. Two of the most powerful forces in the world. If we work together, we can save every single witch on this planet and create a new world-order where witches rule. Where witches are free. And humanity will bow down to us, just as they should.’
Silence. His eye twitches as he waits for me to speak.
‘Well? What do you think of my plan?’
I sit up and push my face upwards to him and with a sneer on my face I tell him, ‘I think it’s as insane as you. And you will never succeed.’
‘Oh no?’ he laughs. ‘And why is that?’
‘Because to get me under your thrall, to perform your spell and turn me into your slave, you’ll have to Break me first. And I won’t let you. I’m stronger than you now, Tobias.’ I lunge forwards and sink my teeth into his neck. He roars as I clamp down as hard as I can and with my hands I claw at his already mangled face. The metal door flies open and Hendrix rushes in to drag me off. I scream threats and kick out as Toby holds his bleeding neck and looks at me with a weird fascination. Hendrix’s grip is unbearably tight and he’s not even struggling.
I watch Toby stand and stalk towards me as Hendrix keeps me pinned. ‘Oh, I will Break you. And between me and you, Red, I will enjoy every single second of it. I can’t fucking wait. You made a big mistake betraying me. And an even bigger one when you burnt off half my fucking face.’
‘I’ll do something much worse than that when I get free. I promise you.’
He storms forward, blood seeping down his shirt and hatred creasing up his face. Snatching my chin in his hands, he slams his lips onto mine. Hendrix keeps my arms held tight with his thick and immovable biceps. Toby lets me go making a loud smacking sound.
‘The only way you get free is when you Break and are once more under my control. Let’s get started, shall we?’
