Page 38 of Unholy Gambit: Checkmate in Blood
The vision faded like mist, and she was back in the underground, the fancy hotel room.
Aury exhaled, forced her jaw to unclench. “Keep going. I was wrong. Don’t stop. I need it all at once.”
The vision snapped back like a rubber band.
She reminded herself:This is Axel. His memory. Not mine.
But her body didn’t seem to care.
This time, she heard his thoughts. Not just his sight, hearing, and senses — his reasoning. His intent. His fury.
A Celrau bitch was latched onto the mother’s arm, feeding, but before she… he, could draw his attention from the small girl, the tiny, crumbled thing on the floor dragged herself up using a table, arms trembling, legs useless, and screamed at the Celrau to leave her mother alone.
A quick peek into the Celrau slut’s mind showed him the small girl had climbed onto her back and beaten at her earlier,clawing and kicking, trying to save her mother. That’s why the bitch had thrown the child across the room like trash.
The child must live.
He made the decision in that moment.
He looked to the mother, frozen in place, wide-eyed, while the Celrau drained her, and knew the mother had to live as well.
The child could not grow up without the mother she fought so hard to defend.
He tore the Celrau off the woman and ripped the evil bitch’s head from her shoulders. Too late, he remembered how vicious the act is, the sounds of bones breaking, flesh tearing, muscles ripping.
He met the child’s gaze, expecting hysterics, but the girl gave a single, defiant nod and collapsed to the floor. With the adrenaline spent, her small body gave out.
Axel looked into her head, got a name, Aurélie. He turned her pain receptors off, levitated her on a cushion of air, straightened both of her horribly bent and broken legs. He lowered her, barely brushing the floor, so the blood trail would look right. He moved her ten feet toward the mother, then laid her gently down.
He wrapped the Celrau’s head and body in a blanket, then walked to the kitchen in search of a knife.
The fang marks couldn’t be explained and had to be erased. This time, he remembered to freeze them both, mother and child, so neither would see him…
The scene went blank and returned, the mother climbing off the bed, sitting on the floor with her child so the butchered arm was mostly hidden, petting her and telling her to be still.
The vampire went into the little girl’s head, saw a father out of town on business, a happy family. He learned names, professions, the markets where the mother shopped. Favoriteparks. He looked through the mother’s mind for something of value in the house, and discovered a diamond that never should’ve been on the premises without security there to guard the family.
And so, he ran through the recall of their evening and fashioned the girl’s existing memories so she remembered humans breaking in, torturing her and the mother to try to get the combination to the safe with the diamond. Breaking the girl’s legs, cutting off the mother’s arm, and only leaving when they heard police sirens arriving.
That handled, he put the mother’s severed arm into the blanket with the Celrau body and head, and levitated the whole mess to the backyard after making sure no human minds were close enough to see. A quick scan found the mind of a nearby neighbor, made him worry about the screaming and other noises, though he’d heard nothing, and call the local police.
Axel stayed with the girl and mother, watching over them, just out of their sight, and climbed into the attic as the police arrived, the ambulance not far behind. He went into the heads of the paramedics so they would feel as if this mother and child were the two most important people in their world, worthy of extra care. He went a step further with one, so whether his own child lived or died depended on the care these two got.
And he watched the proceedings, not releasing his hold on the child’s pain levels until she was on the stretcher and in the ambulance.
The vision collapsed.
Aury blinked hard, breath stuttering in her chest. She was in the hotel again, with the floor under her feet and the taste of adrenaline sharp on her too-dry tongue. Axel’s cool strength held her, bracing her. Solid and real.
He’d been her savior then, and now he was here to help her process it.
Andfuck, it was a lot to process, but he’d trusted her to handle it. He hadn’t doubted her.
She gripped the bottle of tea with both hands and took a long, steady swig. Swallowed. Took another.
This is your body now.One good leg. One healing. Adult bones. Adult strength.
Another drink. A deep breath.
