Pure Blood_ A Nocturne City Novel - Caitlin Kittredge [86]
I beat on the walls of the working Seamus had put me under. I knew what was going to happen, but I couldn’t move, could only stare blindly ahead while Joshua put a finger under my chin and commanded, “Stay.”
At that moment, I wanted to die. Just go to nothing so I wouldn’t have to live what Joshua was going to do to me over and over in my mind, like I’d lived with the presence of his bite for fifteen years. But I didn’t die; I stood like a department-store dummy while Joshua disarmed me and tossed my badge into the trash.
“Too bad things turned out this way,” he muttered. “You would have made one hell of a Serpent Eye. Armed and vicious, just the way I like ‘em.”
No. No. I had escaped him once before. This wouldn’t happen. Someone would come, I’d break Seamus’s working…
“Unfortunately,” Joshua sighed, “I have to exercise pack law instead of what I’d really prefer to do.” He looked me over, head to toe, and if I could have screamed, I would have been breaking glass.
Then Joshua reared back and hit me, hard in the face. I went sideways into a wall, falling like a human-sized board.
“You wouldn’t know about pack law,” said Joshua, cracking his knuckles. “Our pack law, since you deserted me. But the gist is, you humiliated me. And now I’m allowed to punish you.” His foot connected with my midsection and I groaned, curling into a ball.
“No,” said Joshua calmly. “No defending yourself. You’re going to lie there and you’re going to take it. It’s a small thing compared to what I had to deal with when you ran off.” He kicked me again and then I really wished I was dead. My head was pounding and my body was aflame, but I couldn’t move. I stayed limp and unblinking as Joshua straddled me and picked my head up. “Seamus says that you’re still aware underneath those glassy eyes. Hope it’s true. I hope you feel this.”
He bent his head, and he kissed me, not in the way Dmitri kissed me but the way a were would. He scraped my lips with his teeth and violated my mouth with his tongue, snarling. I smelled his arousal, and then everything exploded as he slammed my head backward into the floor, rhythmically, the slightest smile on his face. Black starbursts appeared in my vision as Joshua hauled me to my feet. The back of my head was cold and wet and I smelled blood, which was merely unpleasant in my detached little space.
Joshua pinned me against the wall and examined my face. My head sagged to one side as dizziness took the reins. “No way, you’re not passing out,” he said. “Not until we’re through. As long as I don’t kill you, the pack says it’s fair play.” He stroked my cheek, from jaw to lips. “And I don’t want to kill you, Luna. You’re so much more useful alive.”
He kept beating me, holding me up with one ropy arm while the other delivered were-strength blows to my face, my torso, my stomach. Finally he hit me so hard that my breath wuffed out of me and spattered blood across his face from the cuts his kiss had opened. He reared back, smearing at his eyes. “Seven hells!” He looked down at the fine droplets on his shirt. “Well, that’s just fantastic. Six hundred bucks down the drain.” He let go of me and disappeared. I heard water running across the room and Joshua muttering curses.
I slid down the wall and welcomed the blackness that closed in. I was dropping fast over the edge of unconsciousness, and I probably wouldn’t wake up. The working didn’t let me be too bothered about that part. All my brain cared about was that the pain would stop soon. Below, in the deepest part of my unconscious, the were clawed and howled for life as I sank further and further into the black pool.
I slipped over onto my side and landed on something square and sharp. The fact that the pain penetrated my magick-induced state started a tiny flame in my animal brain, the ingrained instinct to live that every creature possesses. The square plastic shape was my cell phone. Using fingers made