Page 89 of Judas

“Fuck you, she will always be mine. I saw her first, loved her first, I own her.”

“I think the fuck not! How did you get out of Sortiger, Lucien!?” he shouts now.

“Havok, we have a problem,” Babel spills from the door.

“Fucking deal with it, Elias. I’m busy!”

“Kace…” Nadia’s voice is broken as she’s helped out of the room, Babel flanking Sadie as they hold the girl up. Her hair is strung everywhere, strands stuck to her face, some falling outof a loose ponytail, other full locks hued red. Stubborn asshole swivels with a heavy breath, like tending to his family is a burden and not the whole reason he’s standing in front of me. The second he sees the damage before him, his shoulders stiffen.

“The fuck happened?” Kace bellows.

Babel and Nadia are still supporting Sadie. She’s delirious. Manic grin, filling her blood-splattered face, hands colored with the same slick essence I want to touch. I want to writhe in it. Kate’s here, just like I said she would be. They’re not prepared for the deranged entity. I am though, I’ve survived worse.

Speaking up, I grit, “Let me help.”

“Lucien, shut the fuck up. Nadia, what happened to her?”

“Havok, I need to take her to the hospital. She’s bleeding all over the place,” Babel responds, taking control of the situation versus letting Nadia answer Kace’s unimportant question.

The energy that railroads me swoops in out of nowhere. I should be dead a few times over, yet here I am. Struggling against my restraints again, trying to escape them to get to the girl whose body houses the mate of my darker part. Is it instinct? Is it a need to get to her because a darker part of me has deemed her mine, and the thought of her leaving my vicinity is unbearable? I don’t really know; what I can prove at this very moment is that I need to reach her.

Get us out of this, Lucien, or you will be stuck with me for as long as I exist.

God, please.

“Don’t you touch her. You’re not taking her anywhere. She’s mine to fix, I can bring her back. I warned you all and you didn’t listen!”

Sadie is cackling in the same way she did in the park, her head snaps side to side, every wiggle of her fingers flings blood on herself. Blood I need to—stop, Lucien, you’re slipping, too. I can’t help it; she’s beautiful. Inside and out and my soul calls toher. She deserves tranquility, serenity, peace that only death can deliver. He can’t take her, not when she’s so close to amputating the voices.

Break, Sadie, break.

Babel is on the move, the energy in me is so immense it makes my chair rock. Bending down, he scoops Sadie up—my Sadie—and carries her to the door.

“Give her back!” I roar. The sound births from deep in my chest.

Kace crossed the room when I started to fight harder, righting my chair so it wouldn’t tip over with me in it. His hand shoots out and grabs a fistful of my hair, yanking my head back and to the side, making me watch Babel leave the apartment with Sadie. Capitalizing on my distress—sadistic asshole.

“You see her, Lucien? You still think she belongs to you, that rotten brain of yours clinging to some weird fucking notion that both of them are yours to keep, refusing to let them go. This will be the last time you ever see my daughter. She is not yours, she will never belong to you, she is not a part of your insane fantasy of acceptance and family. Do I make myself clear?!”

Heat, uncontrollably scorching heat, floods my veins. I turn on him even as he holds my range of motion hostage with his unforgiving grip.

“They’re my blood! Your monkey brain will never fathom what it’s like to be us. What it means to be part of a family that’s deranged and discarded like ours. You’re an outsider, a vagabond, and I cast you out!”

I’ve been demonized for my possessive behavior For claiming two individuals others ruled as undeserving and barred from existing. Their souls belong to me—all mine. They’re a fucking part of me!

“They’re mine!” The sound of my voice booms through the apartment.

Pain shoots through my face when Kace’s fist connects with my eye socket, momentarily blinding me and sending me into a daze. Knowing I’m not going anywhere, my hands grip the armrests of the chair I’ve lived in for the past couple of days, hoping to ground myself—things running raw between all of us. The anxiety hits an astronomical level now that Sadie is injured and the unpredictability of her behavior is rousing my devils.

“Kace!” Nadia wails but the man is too far gone. Showing his true colors—the ones Nadia has yet to see.

“Fucking MINE,” Kace growls, rage fills his expression. He’s close enough to hit me again, his left hand rubbing the knuckles of his right. Don’t guess it feels to fucking good punching me, does it asshole?

“That little girl is my goddamned DNA. That woman belongs to me heart, body and fucking soul. Do you hear me, you psycho piece of shit?! You kneel for a god who abandoned you so he could hide in a corner and watch his prized possessions maim and kill each other. Nadia, though? She kneels for me.”

Kace’s words feel like acid as they sear me across the psyche and heart. I can almost feel the little boy I placed up on the top of the proverbial shelf in my head for safekeeping, weeping. Little Lucien is curled up, away from the edge as small as he can get, hiding from the angry man who’s come to hurt him.

“Y… you’ll never understand. You were born with a silver spoon in your mouth. Didn’t experience pain until your father left you and even then, your family still chose you. I chose Nadia. I’ll always choose Nadia, and that also means HER daughter. The only one of us who made an attempt to be part of her life.”

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