Total pages in book: 122
Estimated words: 116098 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 580(@200wpm)___ 464(@250wpm)___ 387(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116098 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 580(@200wpm)___ 464(@250wpm)___ 387(@300wpm)
Deciding he’d allowed Jolene enough time with the harbinger, Maddox stepped out of the shadows and sidled up to her. His inner entity smirked when Terrence went utterly still and fear flickered across his face. The harbinger would know that, if the rumors were to be believed, Maddox could invade his mind, fuck with his thoughts, snatch every secret out of his head, intensify his pain threshold, make him do any number of things—hell, Maddox could even make him like the pain.
Torture was one thing—people tended to believe they could hold out; that they could withdraw inside their head and shut themselves off from the pain; that they could hold onto their dignity as one last act of defiance. But having your mind fucked with as part of that torture? No one would want that. No one would want every part of them to be invaded.
“I’m not here to question you,” Maddox said to him. “I’m here to hurt you. A lot. In whatever ways I choose. But, naturally, I want my answers first.” He made a move toward the forcefield, intending to step through it—as its creator, he was the only person who could.
Terrence raised a hand and backed up. “Wait, wait, wait! I’ll tell you, all right? I’ll tell you about the succubus. I received a phone call through a spoofing site—someone wanted her stripped of power; they paid me to make it happen.”
Anger pulsed through both Maddox and his demon. They’d expected that answer.
“Who is ‘they’?” Raini asked their prisoner as she moved to stand near Jolene.
“I don’t know,” replied Terrence, shaking his head. “The voice was male. They didn’t give me their name. They only gave me yours.”
Raini narrowed her eyes. “What happened when you failed to deliver?”
“Nothing,” he told her. “No one called me. No one asked me to try again.” Terrence shrugged. “There’s nothing else I can tell you.”
“How disappointing.” Maddox swiped his tongue over his front teeth. “Now, back to what I was doing before you so rudely interrupted me.” He stepped through the forcefield.
Terrence’s eyes widened. “I told you everything!”
“So you say. I’m not so sure I believe you.” Even if Maddox had, he’d have still invaded the harbinger’s mind, intent on making him feel the epitome of helpless.
“I’m telling the truth, dammit!”
“You know … I can rummage through a person’s mind without causing them pain,” Maddox told him, his tone conversational. “But I won’t spare you any—my demon wouldn’t allow it anyway. You didn’t spare Raini. She was brought to me injured, bleeding, in pain, and weak from expending a lot of psychic energy. You were the cause of that. You can imagine how much I long to return the favor.”
“I was only doing my job,” Terrence defended. “Just like you’re doing yours when you broker all kinds of shady deals. How is that different?”
“It isn’t. But I don’t care. You hurt someone who belongs to me. Someone I don’t plan to live without. Someone I just last night claimed as my mate.”
That garnered her a few looks from her relatives, but they didn’t comment. None seemed surprised.
“You might have even killed her, Terrence,” Maddox went on. “The fact is … you were dead the moment you accepted the offer to strip her of power; you just hadn’t realized that until now.”
Raini winced as the harbinger’s back arched and an animal-like cry of pain seemed to be torn out of him. He dropped to his knees, slapping his hands to his head, keening and moaning and begging for Maddox to stop.
Her anchor didn’t stop. He stared down at the harbinger, his expression vacant, his eyes narrowed in concentration, completely unmoved by the cries for mercy that echoed off the walls.
Her demon was equally unmoved. Terrence hadn’t had a sliver of an issue with stripping her of power. And if he’d succeeded, the halo-bearers who came to Raini’s house probably would have killed her. If they hadn’t, Gunther most likely would have. Her death would have, essentially, been on the head of Terrence here. So, no, neither Raini nor her demon felt any pity for him.
Finally, he slumped to the floor—maybe in relief, maybe because Maddox’s mental invasion had sucked the energy out of him. And then … wait, was he sobbing? Oh, good Lord. If he hadn’t been able to hack that, he wouldn’t do well against the pain her family meant to deliver. Which made her demon clap in delight.
“You were telling the truth,” Maddox said to him. “You truly know nothing that can help us. There were some other things I learned while traipsing through your mind. The location of your business, the names and addresses of your work associates, the identity of the incantor who put the runes on the daggers you keep to rob people of power.”
Feeling Maddox’s rage flutter against the edges of her consciousness thanks to their anchor bond, Raini knew that not one of those people would live through the night.