Page 6 of Blood So Brutal

“You did a lot more than that, didn’t you? Should I offer you my vein once more, or are you waiting to chain me up and take it by force?”

I stepped back. “I wouldneverharm you. I?—”

“I don’t believe you!” Her emotions cracked, and for a second, the walls blocking our bond fell as a rush of anguish, grief, and misery flooded me. But there was something else theretoo, like a dark moon, a dull tide. It wasn’t quite pain—it was worse. It wasempty.

And that broke my heart more than fucking anything.

She realized her mistake quickly, regaining her composure in the back of the cell. “I don’t want to help you. I am a prisoner here already. There’s nothing you can say to change that.”

“Well,” my father’s voice sounded from the back of the dungeons. Jessiah and I both spun around to find him standing with his back shrouded in shadows. “It seems we should change our approach, then, shouldn’t we?”

Jessiah cursed under his breath and backed away.

“We are only trying to help,” I said to him.

Asmodeus stepped forward. “Huntyr here has been in this cell for long enough, wouldn’t you agree, boys?”

Jessiah and I stood still, frozen.

“Take her out. Let her see what we’re really doing here. She may hate us now for what we’ve done, but no one can deny the power of The Golden City. Isn’t that right, Wolf?”

My breath hitched.

“You’re letting me out?” Huntyr asked from the back. I fought the urge to step between her and my father’s view.

He smiled as he looked down at her. “You may not be willing to help me now, Huntyraina, but you will. If getting out of this dungeon is what will change your mind, then so be it.”

He turned on his heel, and I let out a breath.

“I’ll never give you my power,” Huntyr mumbled.

Asmodeus stopped on his heel. “What did you say?”

Shit.I forced myself not to step between them.

“Whatever power I have, whatever is running through my veins, you’ll never have it.”

He laughed quietly, his shoulders shaking as he stood with his back to us. “Yet you had no problem sharing with my son.”

Huntyr’s chest heaved. I said nothing.There was no way he knew.

“You bonded with him, did you not? Which means Wolf here has access to your power.”

“How do you know that?” I asked, dumbfounded.

Asmodeus glanced over his shoulder at me, dropping his voice to a dangerously low level as he said, “Do not forget who I am and where I come from, son. I am no mortal being in this realm. I am an archangel; I knowall. Now, take her from this dungeon before I change my mind.”

And then, he was gone, leaving Huntyr, Jessiah, and I alone with our echoing breaths.

I didn’t have to use the bond to know what Huntyr was thinking. The sound of her heart radiated around me, filling the room.Fear.We bonded, yes, but I hadn’t used her power since that day during the Transcendent. I hadn’t even considered tapping into that bond; it was so foreign and violating and wrong, and I had already taken too much from her.

I wouldn’t take that. I wouldnever.

But she didn’t know that. She didn’t trust me, didn’t believe a thing I said.

“Come on,” Jessiah finally said, breaking the silence. “Let’s go before he comes back.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you two,” she argued.

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