30. Bexley

30

BEXLEY

“Did you really think I wouldn’t know you were there?” Delilah snarled in my ear.

She wrenched me around, twisting me by my tendrils as I whipped around. Her balled-up fist wrapped up in my hair slammed into the back of my head, keeping me rooted to my position as she backed me into a wall.

“You’re lying to get them to agree,” I said with a shaky voice.

Goddamn it, I hated how afraid my voice sounded.

“Sometimes,” Delilah said as she held my hair tightly, pinning me to that wall, “people just need to hear what they want in order for them to do what’s best.”

I tried shoving Delilah away, but she didn’t even fucking flinch. She did giggle, though.

“Go on, try that again. It tickled a bit.”

I gnashed my teeth at her. “Fuck you, you bitch.”

In a flash, she yanked my hair, and the force spun me around. I felt her knee press into my lower back as she slammed my cheek against the wall.

“Ah!” I exclaimed.

She gripped my hair tightly, raking her long nails across my scalp. “You can fight all you want, Special Agent Anna. But I always get what I want in the end.”

“Bex?” Jacob called out in the distance.

I drew in a deep breath, ready to scream my fucking head off. “Jac—mph!”

Delilah released my hair and clamped her ice cold hand over my mouth.

“Jacooooooob!” I shrieked against her palm.

She giggled maniacally. “You can die if that’s what you want, that’s none of my concern. Just know that it’ll be a waste.”

“Bex! Where are you!?” Jacob called out.

His voice got closer. I bit down onto Delilah’s hand. She hissed as she yanked it away, but before I could even draw in a deep breath, she picked me up over her head and tossed me down the hallway.

“Ah!” I shrieked.

“Stupid… bitch!” Delilah exclaimed. “Where the hell do you get off biting me like that!?”

“Bexley!” Jacob bellowed.

My body crash-landed to the floor. The candlelight sconces on the walls illuminated as she tossed me down the hallway, as if to showcase and bring spotlight to the fact that I was sorely outnumbered.

“Bex!” Jacob barked. “This isn’t funny!”

I scrambled to get onto my feet. I had no idea where the hell Delilah had gone, but I needed to get the fuck back to my room, at the very least. As I scrambled to my feet, something knocked me off course again. Something slammed into my right side, throwing me into the wall to my left before my feet came out from beneath me again. I was tossed around like a goddamn ragdoll while my partner cried out for me, and before I knew it, Delilah had me pinned on my back.

With her legs straddling my body.

And her freezing cold hand wrapped around my fucking throat.

“Like I said,” Delilah said as she smiled. I watched her fangs protrude from her canine teeth, “you can die for all I care. But either way, you’re mine.”

“Bexleeeey!” Jacob cried out.

As Delilah’s head whipped down to my neck, she moved her hand long enough for me to cry out.

“JACOOOOOB! HELP ME! NOOOOO!”

I heard feet scrambling against the floor. The firelight from the sconces on the walls flickered all around me as something pierced the skin of my neck. And almost immediately, my body shook with pain.

Excruciating, unending pain.

“Aaaaaaaa-AAAAAAAAAH!” I bellowed.

“Yes,” Delilah groaned between her gulping. “Oh, yes. You taste fantastic.”

I tried to move my arms, but I couldn’t. I tried to buck my body, but I couldn’t. The pain harnessed me, as if attaching me to the floor, and all I could do was shiver. My back bowed and my bones felt as if they were breaking. My joints ignited with fire as Delilah kept a hold on me with her mouth against my neck. I felt her drinking. Swallowing. Chugging my very life force.

Then, I heard him.

I heard Jacob.

“Get off her, Delilah! You’re gonna kill her!”

In a flash, something whooshed across my body, and I felt the piercing pain of Delilah’s fangs fall away from my neck. Blood trickled down my skin as my eyes rolled into the back of my head, and I felt my body shaking uncontrollably.

Delilah cackled in the background.

“You should take a drink before it’s too late, Special Agent,” Delilah said. “She really does taste just as good as I figured.”

“Bex,” Jacob said as he hovered over me, tapping my cheek with his hand. “Bex, can you hear me?”

Tears poured down my cheeks. My arms flexed at an unnatural angle as my jaw unhinged. I wanted to scream out in pain. I wanted to cry out for my boys. I wanted someone to chisel my fucking heart out and stab it before I turned into a goddamn monster.

But all I saw were Jacob’s panicked eyes as he cupped my face and gazed down at me.

“Just agree,” he whispered. “Agree, and it won’t kill you.”

I grunted and groaned with pain. I ground my teeth together. I bit down onto my own tongue until it fucking bled, but it did nothing to calm the raging storm inside of me. Searing hot pain buried its way into the marrow of my bones. Joints popped out and snapped back in, pulling pained whimpers and hisses from my chapped lips. Oh, God, it was worse. It was worse than any torture I ever endured on the job. I wanted to be waterboarded. I wanted to be chained up and beaten. Anything other than this.

Anything other than the agony I was in.

“Bexley, please,” Jacob begged, “don’t make me bury you. I’m not as strong as you. I-I-I—I can’t do that.”

Delilah clapped with delight. “Begging! Oh, I love a good spot of begging. Do it again.”

“Shut up, Delilah,” Jacob snarled.

Delilah’s voice became hardened in an instant. “I said, do it again.”

Jacob placed his forehead on mine. His skin didn’t feel as cold any longer, and I knew that wasn’t good.

“I’ll do anything,” he whispered, “just please, just accept it. Don’t make me bury you. I won’t be able to stand it.”

My lower lip quivered as the ceiling above me tilted. My toes flexed, as if they were about to break, and I convulsed with the hypnotic pain tearing its way through my muscles. It felt like the venom was breaking me down. Just dissolving my bones and sucking the marrow right out of them. My back arched. My toes curled. The only sound I made was that same fucking gurgling sound as saliva filled my mouth. I pushed it out with my tongue, just so I wouldn’t choke. I felt Jacob slide his finger into my mouth, scooping out as much of it as he possibly could.

“That’s it,” he said breathlessly, “just breathe through it. It’ll be over soon, I promise.”

As I closed my eyes, I conjured the only thing that I knew would give me peace. I conjured their faces: Voss, Ronyn, and Dom. I saw Dom’s comforting ocean blue eyes and Voss’s cheeky smile. I recalled Ronyn’s voice, soothing and deep, as I did my best to dissociate away from the pain. I hoped they would forgive me. I hoped they’d understand that, in order to do this, I had to survive. No matter what surviving turned me into. So, after making up my mind, I nodded my head.

I’m so sorry, my mates. I hope you can forgive me.

“Oh—kay,” I choked out.

Jacob’s eyes widened. “Okay? You agree?”

I coughed and sputtered with the pain sizzling through my veins. “Y-y-y—yes. I—I agree.”

As Delilah’s cackling filled the air around us, Jacob pinned me to the floor. He flattened out my body, giving my crooked bones a rest as I quaked and convulsed beneath him. My eyes rolled back. I felt foam gathering at my lips. I allowed the pain to pull me under, sweeping over me as the ice-cold transformation started at my toes. I felt the cold feeling of death consuming me. I felt it trickle up to my knees. Up to my hips. Up to my belly button.

And the entire time, I kept my mind focused on my boys.

My men.

My mates.

I love you guys so much. Please, forgive me.

Because the truth of the matter was that I couldn’t help them if I was dead. I couldn’t help my pack that came to trust me, nor could I even help myself. If I was going to take down Delilah, maybe that meant I had to understand her. Maybe that meant I had to be like her. And as Jacob pinned me to the floor, I recalled their kisses. Dom’s languid tongue and Ronyn’s forceful lips. Voss’s whispered breath against my mouth before he claimed it. I locked onto my memories with them and allowed it all to pull me away from the pain. Because once this transformation was done, I wasn’t just coming for Delilah. I was coming for her entire fucking empire.

And I wouldn’t stop until I stood upon her corpse with her castle all around us burned to the fucking ground.