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“Yes, pater. I know. I am trying to protect you,” Ray said, cowering before his maker’s rage.
Gideon looked at the crying child before him whose grief was unrelatable to him but at least understandable, and over at Ray, who after tens of thousands of years should have known better.
“You are not trying to protect me. You are trying to protect yourself, because you are a sniveling babe who cannot imagine life without his daddy,” Gideon snarled, furious he had been denied a chance at experiencing pain yet again. He had been so very close, and now Candy was gone and clearly did not intend to return for the sorrows of her child.
He briefly considered forcing her to return by torturing Carter, but he truthfully was not interested in hurting the boy. He had been hurt many times already for reasons that had nothing to do with him whatsoever. So it was not Ray that Gideon went to. It was Carter who he scooped up from the ground, cradling the full-grown young man like a baby, and carrying him back home.
* * *
Candy fled through the night, knowing she could not return to Carter, knowing he was being used by Gideon, and knowing that in all likelihood she had just said her last words to her son. Her maternal rage and sorrow were the only things animating her now. She could feel herself being drawn down by a heavy, unseen weight. The grave was calling.
But there was one final task she yet had to do. One more son to find before she could rest with her daughter.
The sun rose, and Candy could be seen no more.
14
“What’s your plan?” Will’s smirk was arrogant and mocking, far too cocky for Maddox’s liking. “Keep me chained up here?” He was wearing the same jeans he’d put on when he was first brought in and nothing else. He refused to put any other piece of human attire on, and his attitude was starting to grate on every occupant of the place.
“Stop being such an intolerable little shit,” Henry growled. “You’ve sulked long enough. We’re not impressed that you murdered a series of innocent people just to make a point.”
“I didn’t realize you were in charge of how long someone got to be angry at a liar,” Will replied. “Just because you’re over Maddox getting us picked up and thrown in vampire jail for a year…”
“Maddox didn’t do that. Gideon did.”
Maddox was tired of the bickering. Will was comfortable being resistant and distant, now more than ever. He was not afraid anymore. He was not respectful anymore.
He turned to William, his posture erect, his expression grim and stern. The last vestiges of his patience had faded, and though Will no longer recognized the danger he was in, it made no difference to the fact that he was very close to the kind of trouble he did not want to be in.
“I didn’t tell you, because I thought you wouldn’t be able to handle it. I thought you might do something bitter and stupid. You have hardly proved me wrong. You delivered yourself to Gideon, you made a mockery of all the sacrifices made to keep you safe prior, and once freed from captivity, you set about becoming the nastiest, basest, most criminal version of yourself possible. I did not tell you about Lora Candy because you were not ready to hear it.”
“That wasn’t your decision to make!”
“Of course it was. All decisions regarding you are mine to make because You. Are. Mine.” Maddox punctuated the sentence by grabbing Will’s throat and drawing him close with that irresistible vampiric strength that was his to command.
Will grabbed at Maddox’s wrist in a helpless attempt to free his neck. “Let me fucking go.”
“No,” Maddox said firmly. “I am not going to let you go. Not ever. I took you from prison, and I made you my pet and then my lover. I let you experience yourself as a powerful creature, because that is what you are. But you are something else as well, first and foremost.You are mine.I will live longer than you. The entire span of your life, every single one of your days, you will belong to me. What happened with Gideon will not change that. Nothing will change it.”
“I don’t belong to you.”
“Yes. You do.”
“I don’t want to belong to you.”
“That, my dear boy, is your problem.” Maddox kept his grip on Will’s throat. “It changes nothing. I tried respecting you as an independent person with the right to choose his destiny, and you acted out until I was forced to come for you. You would rather kill others than admit to yourself that you want to be here, with me, kneeling at my feet, submitting to me in the way you know calms that vicious beast who lives inside you.”
He pushed Will down onto his knees, giving him no choice in the position. Will pretended to loathe captivity, but the truth was, captivity was the only place he felt safe. The wild behavior, the murderous rages, they were all symptoms of the fear of freedom.
Will snarled and growled, but he did not make the mistake of taking his wolf form. Perhaps he was starting to remember his place after all.
“I have not said this to you before, because there is so little point in speaking to you, William. You do not respond well to reason, nor to statements of emotion. But given all you have done of late, I feel there is something I must say.”
Will visibly braced himself for what he understandably anticipated would be another lecture.
Instead, Maddox spoke more softly than he had before, and with more intensity and care. It was not a tone he had often used with anybody, and never when Will was in a state of disobedient rebellion.
“There is nothing you can do in this world that would make me stop loving you. Nothing.”
