Page 106 of Cryptic Dreams
It’s thicker and more potent and by all accounts it’s faster than what we’re used to, and whatever theXis seems to have made it far more dangerous.
I’ve injected the common UV serum directly into bodies before—in its many states of development over the years—and never once have I seen it do what it’s doing to Gwendolyn.
While one can watch it move through a body, the liquid darkening the veins and showing a clear path to the heart, it does not burn in this way.
Slow roasting versus charring, if you will.
XVS-3791 is a new development in the fight against our kind, and these two possessing it means my mate was right to some extent about the goings on within the coven.
Either my father has been secretly creating an improved version of the illegal substances in order to further keep us in line, or someone within his ranks is planning a mutiny so great it could cause another Species War with the potential to wipe all of us from the face of the planet.
And while I refuse to give merit to the myth surrounding The Hollow, the discovery of this serum, along with a new type of bullet casing we have yet to test out, it all has a niggling of doubt creeping into the back of my mind.
“Wow,” Declan whispers as Gwendolyn goes limp, as the skin of her left shoulder and chest fall to the ground.
I continue to watch with a morbid curiosity as her breast slides down the front of her body and plops onto the tarp, the flesh and muscle of Gwendolyn’s torso splitting and folding toward her right hip before joining the mess on the floor. Her heart is still beating, the sound so slow and faint that it’s only a matter of seconds before death takes the female but even so, the serum still courses through her veins and fries her internally.
“Now then,” I say as I watch XVS-3791 move up her bruised throat and into her blood and tear-stained cheeks. “You’ve nothing to live for, Wilfred. No young, no mate, no favor with whoever it is you work for since you’ve been caught out.” Gwendolyn’s eyes begin to blacken and crack, the whites turning to ash around the edges before they fall from her skull.Interesting.“With that said, we can do this one of two ways.”
When I pry my gaze away from the finally deceased female to focus on her mate, I hesitate for the first time in centuries of torturing those who pose a threat to me.
Wilfred is no longer fighting, no longer attempting to get to his mate. Her death is obvious on his face and though I’ve used similar methods of interrogation on countless mated couples before them, actually seeing his loss so clearly seconds after their bond is severed as a recently mated male myself, it’s an entirely different experience.
His mate is no more, and Wilfred is wearing their broken bond as a death shroud.
And though it has me hesitating for a split second, I feel no guilt. This couple means nothing to me in any way other than what they represent, and that was a threat. A threat tomymate andourbond, both more precious to me than anything else in the world, therefore the only things I’m focused on preserving.
“You can tell us who is responsible for creating such a powerful substance.” I nod to Declan, my friend reaching up to loosen the gag between the male’s split lips. “Tell us who created it, who commissioned it, and why you and Gwendolyn were crossing state lines with so much of it.” Wilfred flinches when I speak his mate’s name but otherwise shows no emotion and simply stares down at the hunks of her body on the floor. “And in doing so we will make your death quick and painless. You can be with your beloved fated one again, following on her heels and reunited in whatever waits for us in the next life. Or…”
Unbuttoning the cuffs of my shirt, I roll my sleeves to my elbows as I step over the pieces of Gwendolyn, her entire left leg separating at the hip and dropping to the tarp at my feet. “Or you can continue to hold your tongue, keep your secrets and say nothing, and my dear friend and I will make your death painstakingly slow by drawing it out over days, possibly weeks, if you last that long. Hell, maybe we won’t kill you at all, merely bring you to the edge over and over until the madness sets in then allow you to live out your nearly immortal days hanging from my ceiling.”
Wilfred still says nothing, does nothing, and doesn’t move at all as I stop in front of him. I duck my head to meet his eyes, the male looking through me rather than at me, even when I reach out and take his scruffy chin between my thumb and forefinger. I lift his head and search his face, my eyes raking over the grief and emotional pain painted in his expression.
This is sadness.
Heis sadness. A sadness so profound, so raw and deep, that nothing else seems to matter, and it is sitting right on the surface for all to see.
Even when Atticus killed my sister, when he murdered his own child in cold blood, I didn’t experience anything remotely close to what this male is now. All I felt was anger. An anger so intense over the loss of the only family I gave even half a shite about that it still resides somewhere inside me to this day, but it is nothing like the way Wilfred feels now.
His thoughts are no longer shielded from me—a tactic Hans has been teaching his soldiers for centuries—no longer quiet and revolve solely around Gwendolyn.
I am nothing without her.
She was my entire world.
I fought for her, for us, and without her there is nothing left to fight for.
“Then do not fight.” Wilfred finally meets my stare as I respond to his unspoken words. “If you have no purpose, no meaning behind your actions, give up and join her.”
His eyes bounce between mine, and though a look of curiosity passes briefly over his features, he still says nothing.
Tilting his face from side to side, I sigh. “You will most likely die either way, old chap, it’s merely up to you to determine how quickly. Just tell me what I want to—”
“I… will not… betray her,” Wilfred whispers.
“Pardon?”
“I will not betray my mate.”
