Page 146 of Their Blood Rite

He’s been tortured.

His mouth has been gagged, and tears stream down his face as he desperately tries to get free.

His feet kick out. His fingers claw at the stone, and the sobs mix with the screams, making my stomach twist in knots.

Shaw is hacking at his chest, sawing him open. Blood squirts over his face as Dorian and Archie bury their hands inside and rip open his ribcage. The sound of tearing muscles and snapping bones is barely audible over my father’s agonising screams, and before I can blink, Shaw has pulled out his still-beating heart.Father looks at it, at his own fucking heart in another man's hand. At the blood dripping onto his open chest.

‘I am so glad you needed to be alive as I did this.’ Shaw leans over him, hate carving deep lines on his formidable face. ‘If only you had loved her as she deserved. Then you would not have ended up like this.’

Shaw spits in his open chest cavity as my father’s gaze moves from Shaw and lands on me before, with a slow blink that releases tears down his bloody cheeks, my father dies.

I let out the breath I was holding, and all three men turn to face me at the sound. Their eyes widen as I just stand there, dumbstruck and frozen in horror.

It’s then I see the book resting on the corner of the slab. Just the same as the book I stole from my coven. The same size. The same taste of magic and power emanating from it.

It’s a Grimoire.

But a deep red one with a grotesque covering of what I'm pretty sure is human flesh.

It’s dark and twisted. Evil. A book of death. I hear it. It sings to me.

Beside it is my snake, sealed in a clear box. Trapped. Kept away from me.

Even worse, cast aside in the corner, like rubbish waiting to be tossed out, two others.

‘Oh my gods…’ I cry, my hands covering my mouth so I don’t scream.

Kieran stares into nothing. Dead. His throat slit, and both his hands severed at the wrists. The hands lie neatly beside him. The fingers are still twitching.

On her side, unconscious with her wrists and ankles bound, is Thalia. She’s still wearing the same dress she wore to the swearing-in ceremony. Blood stains her lower jaw and chest.Beside her, held in a black bowl, her severed tongue rolls around as if still trying to speak.

‘Pixie,’ Shaw says slowly as if talking to someone standing on a cliff's edge, readying themselves to jump. I look away from the gore and death, back to him. ‘Pixie, we can explain.’

It’s blood magic. Dark and sick blood magic. They all face me, every muscle tensed as they watch me. Waiting. My mouth remains agape. My eyes are unable to blink.

‘W-what are you doing?’ I ask through a painfully tight throat. ‘What…’ I take another look at the absolute carnage. ‘Blood magic? Why…’

I step back. It’s a small step, more of a stumble, really. But they panic. Their faces go stone-like.

‘Grab her!’ Shaw orders.

Dorian and Archie charge.

That scares me just as much as what I just saw and has me sprinting away, running with all I have to escape.

Chapter 23

‘ASHE!’ Archie bellows, giving chase. ‘Just stop!’

I reach the stone stairs leading out of the cellar and sprint up them, taking them two at a time. Before I can reach the hall, his hand grips my ankle, and I fall forward, my front colliding with the stone steps and making me scream in pain.

‘Stop fucking running!’ Archie orders.

I kick at his face, slamming the sole of my bare foot into his nose again and again. I wriggle free as Dorian leaps clear over us and lands at the top of the stairs, blocking the way out.

I get to my feet, struggling to breathe through the sheer panic as I look at the blood-soaked shadow master.

‘Please let me pass.’

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