Page 137 of Their Blood Rite

Cole has his own hand wrapped around his throat. He staggers back, slowly turning redder and redder as he chokes himself. His eyes bulge, and his tongue protrudes from between his lips.

He’s looking behind me, to the door, but I can’t look. He’s ordered me here. To stay. So I stay.

Slow and steady footsteps come closer. More than one set.

When I see Dorian walk around me, his demonic eyes firmly on Cole and a small doll gripped in his curled-up hand, I could sob in relief. His knuckles are white with how hard he holds that version of my ex.

‘Sit,’ Dorian commands slowly, the words ground out through his clenched teeth.

Cole falls back in the chair, his swollen and bloodshot eyes looking fit to burst with fear and pressure. He gasps in a breath when his hands slam down on the arms of the seat as if pinned there. But no one’s touching him. Dorian stands over him, that doll firmly in hand.

‘Touching her?’ Dorian says, slowly shaking his head. ‘Big. Mistake.’

Cole looks up at Dorian in terror.

‘W-what do you care? She’s just a-’

Dorian’s fist tightens on the poppet of Cole, and he starts to choke again.

‘I strongly recommend you do not finish that sentence.’ He lets go, leaving Cole to slump forward with a splutter.

‘How are you doing this?! Stop! I order you to stop! I am a coven leader!’

A hand rests on my shoulder. ‘Not yet, you’re not.’ I slump as Archie stands at my side. ‘We’re here, Pixie. Don’t you worry.’

Cole looks from Dorian to Archie, and when the door closes with a click, they look past us all.

‘I was curious if you knew her trigger,’ Shaw says from behind me. ‘I needed to know. Now I do.’

I think on those words. Shaw sent me down here alone. Did he know this was Cole’s plan? That he was here waiting?

He spent the night dream walking. He can plant ideas in another’s mind. Was this Shaw’s doing?

‘If you kill me,’ Cole panics. ‘You’ll be starting a war.’

Shaw walks across the room. I hear chair legs scraping against the floor, and he stops in front of me, placing a chair down before sitting in it. I look up at him, and he gives me a slight wink.

‘Not a very nice way to treat the woman you love, Cole.’ Shaw rests his hand on my cheek, lifting my face so I can see only him. ‘Not nice at all.’

‘I don’t love her.’

’Oh no?’ Shaw laughs dryly.

‘Especially now you have touched her. She’s vile to me.’

Shaw keeps looking at me with a strange and steady comfort, even as he speaks to Cole.

‘I know different. I see much more than you could ever understand, and I know you love her. It kills you that you don’t have her. It drives you insane. I dare say it haunts your dreamsthinking of everything I’m doing to her.’ He runs his finger along my lower lip. ‘Of all the things she’s doing to me. That’s what you dream of, isn’t it, Cole?’

Hehasdream walked into Cole’s mind.

Archie’s hand clamps down on my shoulder as my vision starts to blur.

Cole starts to laugh. It’s strangled with fear, but he’s determined not to be seen as a coward.

‘She’ll pass out if she doesn’t complete my command,’ he mocks. ‘Then she’ll wake and pass out again. Forever and ever. My words are final, and you can punish me all you want, but none of you have a choice. You can watch as your whore sucks my dick, or you can watch as she suffers. Either way, I’m good.’

I fall forward, slamming my hand into the floor in desperation.

---