chapter FIFTY-TWO
Again, I woke to feel my wrists and ankles restrained. This was rapidly growing old. This time, however, they had put gloves on my hands so I couldn’t fiddle with the ropes. The amulet almost choked me. I could not see Vittorio, and shouted out for him. I was in shock from Jonah’s power attack, frantic, panicked.
“Your precious love cannot help you, so shut your mouth, bitch,” Elizabeth said, kicking me in the side. I was on my back on the floor of the plane. I cried, terrified of the fire. It was gone now, but my mind wouldn’t believe that it wouldn’t return. I knew I was in trouble, and though Jonah hadn’t completely broken my mind yet, I felt on the verge of a panic attack. I needed Vittorio’s comfort, and screamed.
“What are you screaming about?” Elizabeth asked as she kicked me again.
I shook my head back and forth and cried, my body shaking.
“Are you cold? Jonah could remedy that.”
“No!” I screamed, terrified the fire would return. “Vittorio!”
“I told you, he can’t help you. Samuel is having a chat with him.” As she said that, I heard Vittorio call out my name. I remembered what Samuel had done to him before.
“Vittorio, I’m okay. Don’t believe whatever Samuel is showing you,” I called out. I was far from okay, but the lie seemed acceptable considering the consequences.
“Jonah, maybe you can make Clavius’ little angel shut up, because she won’t listen to me.”
“No, no, no,” I cried when I saw Jonah standing above me. His power was gentle at first, mere warmth over my body. Slowly, the heat grew until I thought my skin would melt. I tried to tell myself it wasn’t real, but the fear of fire deeply embedded in my mind would not listen. He sent the heat in waves, backing off every few minutes so I wouldn’t lose consciousness, laughing the whole time as I screamed.
“Stop!” I never thought I would be so happy to hear Clavius’ voice in my life.
“We’re just having some fun,” Elizabeth whined.
“I said stop. I want her mind whole so she will fully understand what we are going to do to those she holds dear. Then we will decide her fate.”
That didn’t sound good, but I was too busy crying and shaking to grasp what he meant.
“You didn’t break her already, did you, Jonah? I will be very unhappy if you did.” Clavius probed at my mind with his power, and I shuddered. “Nothing I can’t fix. But next time, be more careful.” His power embraced me, comforting, taking away the fear in my mind.
I stopped crying, but still shook as my body tried helplessly to reject his power.
“Leave us.”
Clavius knelt on the floor next to me and wrapped his arms around me in a gesture that would have been comforting had it come from Vittorio, but was disturbing from Clavius.
I tried in vain to move away.
“It’s okay, my little angel. They won’t hurt you anymore. I won’t let them. You’re mine now.”
“I’ll never be yours.” I struggled weakly against his arms.
“Oh, you will be.”
“I am Vittorio’s.”
“Vittorio will not live much longer. Then, you will most certainly be mine.” He caressed my face, ran his hands over my body and kissed me.
“What about Aerin? What would she think of this?”
Clavius paused; his power lessened. “She would understand.”
“She’d understand you molesting another woman?”
“I love her. I do not love you. And I believe you will make my power stronger, as you have Vittorio’s.”
Vittorio’s power had become stronger because of me?
Clavius watched the thoughts cross my face. “He hasn’t told you? How selfish of him. His power is noticeably stronger since he met you.”
I couldn’t risk thinking about that right now, so pushed it aside. “I would not be okay with Vittorio f*cking another woman just to gain more power.”
“And that is where you and Aerin differ. Not that you have much of anything in common with my sweet Aerin. But she understood that we must sometimes do unappealing things to strengthen our power. She and I accept that harsh reality.”
I struggled uselessly against my bonds.
Clavius enjoyed every minute of my torture. “Ah, my little angel, in time you will not be so repulsed by me.”
I screamed in wordless frustration.
“What did you do to her?” Vittorio growled as Samuel led him, still restrained, into the room.
“Nothing you have not already done.”
“You bastard.” Vittorio struggled to get to Clavius, but Samuel had too strong of a grip on him.
“Your little slut may have healed you once, but that just makes it more fun for us. We get to damage you all over again,” Elizabeth purred.
“If you kill us, we won’t be able to help you.”
“Obviously, we won’t kill you until we have what we need. And you will help us. You see, Samuel took Jonah’s car and followed you to your dear doctor after you escaped. With a little persuasion, Julian told us where you were hiding. So while you so stupidly met me at the restaurant, Samuel went to your hotel and found your slut’s friend. It seems we didn’t scare him badly enough the last time.”
“Leave him alone!” I shouted.
Jonah returned with Kevin, who had been beaten again. As much as I hated his involvement, though, I was relieved they hadn’t found Courtney.
“Help us, and we will.”
“Vittorio, please, we can’t let them hurt Kevin anymore. We have to do what they want.”
Vittorio nodded once, and sighed, clearly not happy with the decision, but he knew what Kevin meant to me. And he was too good of a person to let someone be tortured if he could stop it.
“I knew you’d see it my way,” Clavius said.