Page 80 of Villains and Vengeance
‘Your spider pet is fine,’ he assures me. ‘But the venom, once taken and distilled for bottling, is potent stuff. It only takes a single drop in a cup of water to fell a dragon shifter for about two days, you know.’
‘Okay,’ I say, wondering where he’s going with this because I haven’t drunk anything in several minutes and I’m pretty sure I’d be paralyzed already if he’d poisoned the water Jayce gave me. ‘So?’
‘I acquired some the other day.’ Maddox takes a small bottle out of his jacket pocket and shows it to me and the rest of the table.
I look down at the drink that’s in front of me and then at him. Why is he telling me? I haven’t had a drink.
‘Oh, no, not for you, Jules.’ He points at Axel and Jayce. ‘For them.’
Jayce and Axel’s matching looks of incredulity might have had me laughing at any other time, in any other place.
But not now. Not here.
Jayce stands, his chair crashing to the floor behind him, looking at Maddox in horror.
‘What have you done, Maddo—?’
He falls to the floor and Axel collapses over the table at almost the same moment.
Maddox rolls Jayce over and looks down at his unmoving form. ‘What I had to to save this clan, my friend. You’ll thank me when this is over.’
He turns to look at me again, his face turning triumphant when he takes in the horror in mine. ‘Thought you had it in the bag, did you, darling?’
Maddox’s eyes stay on me, taking me in. I school my expression, mask falling back into place.
‘Looks like you got me,’ I choke out, willing myself to be calm.
‘Take Jayce and Axel to the spot where the breach is set to open, hide them, and then come right back,’ the incubus megalomaniac orders the two members of his clan who he hasn’t paralyzed.
I stand up at the table, hardly able to comprehend what Maddox has done.
‘You’re making a mistake,’ I say to him. A pleading note enters my voice and I hate it, but I can’t help it. ‘Please don’t do this, Julian.’
He grabs me, pulling me towards him, his eyes flashing with anger and hate. ‘Shut your mouth, woman, or I’ll cut out that viperous tongue of yours. You’re the worst thing that ever happened to my clan,Victoria. It’s broken because of you.’
I laugh in his face to hide my own distress. ‘You did that all on your own.’
His fist closes around my shirt and the other rises and I’m positive he’s going to hit me. I don’t want to back down, but it’s too ingrained and I flinch away.
He doesn’t notice my fingers flutter into his breast pocket though, pilfering the thing that might just save his dumb clan, and I have no idea why I do it. Maybe to make up for past wrongdoings, or maybe it’s just for Jayce and Axel because their caring did seem real to me despite Iron’s revelations.
He takes a breath, his emotions evaporating from his face like he didn’t just almost lose that tight control he prides himself on.
His slow grin is vengeful and terrifying to behold.
‘I’d be worrying less about my clan and a bit more about your own skin if I were you. You’re Dante’s now.’
‘Take me with you or I’ll tell him where the portal is,’ I threaten in a last ditch effort to make this shitshow go my way. ‘It doesn’t open for hours. He’ll kill you all before you can escape.’
I’m bluffing like an expert poker player. I’d never tell Dante where Jayce and Axel are; I do care about them. I see that now. I’m not sure how that happened after everything, but even if it was all bull on their side, I’m not going to lead Dante to them.
‘No, you won’t,’ Maddox says, and I think he sees right through me until he continues. ‘Because if you do, I’ll make sure Dante knows about your pet arania, where she is, and how much help she was to you while you were hiding from him.’
He winks at me.
He knows he’s got me between a rock and a hard place. Dante won’t let that stand. Those who work against the demon king are punished. He’ll target her and no one unlucky enough to be in his sights ever survives. No one and nothing.
My gasp is small but he hears it and grins like he isn’t about to send me to a very nasty end.
