Page 134 of Our Deceptive Heat

Half my face has turned numb, but I haven’t stopped fighting to free myself. Still, my thoughts are sluggish and slow. He hit me, he really hit me.

My mother lifts her hand again, almost like she’s going to protest.

“Darling, please?” Chile whines.

“Shut the fuck up. This is your fault. You filled her head with ideas of music and being a damn whore.”

My mother flinches.

I struggle, and just as suddenly, he throws me at a wall. I bounce against it and crumple to the floor, stunned.

“Typhor!” my mother shrieks. “You’re going to hurt her! Stop!”

“Typhor, I think you should stop. What are you doing?” Tara says in shock. “You’re going to really, seriously hurt her.”

My father sneers at his mistress. “Shut the fuck up.”

Tara flinches. “You can’t do this to her. She’s your daughter.”

“Do you want to work in this industry ever again? You shut your whore mouth, and you do as I say. I’ve got enough video evidence of you to destroy your career. So choose, you can either spew your bullshit about saving my daughter or you can lose everything.”

Tara opens her mouth, her face is milk white. “Let her go.”

“Get out. I’m done with you.”

Tara hesitates, so he takes a menacing step in her direction.

She flinches, looking at me with enormous eyes. “I’m sorry.”

We watch as she runs out of the house; the door slamming behind her.

“Right, now where were we?” my father growls. “You’ve cost me my whore now, too. What is it about you? You fuck everything you touch.”

He jabs his toes of his shoes into my ribs and grinds them. I cry out, squirming to get away from him.

“You really are bonded, aren’t you? You little shit,” Typhor says almost to himself.

He grabs my hair and hoists me to my feet. I grit my teeth, swallowing the scream that wants to come out.

“Let her go!” My mother throws herself at my dad. Her tiny, manicured hands beating his back. She pulls at his hand, but he lets go and sweeps her away.

I watch her go flying, hitting a table with her hip, and letting out a pained cry. She struggles up and pauses while a massive blow hits my midsection, causing me to crumble over, the wind knocked clean out of me.

“Stop!”

“You shut your whore mouth!”

My mother flies at him and shoves him off me. I scramble away from them, desperately gulping and trying to suck in oxygen.

I can hear my mother’s cries, and this time, I get up and charge into the fight, shoving my father off her. She rolls away, dropping to her knees.

Typhor roars and spins, belting me across the face. My head rocks to the side, and I let out a hideous moan, but he turns back to my mother, kneeling over her.

My eyes widen as I watch him put his hands around her throat.

“Should have done this years ago.”

“Typhor, please!”

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