“I told you. I want to breed with you, Celia. And your sisters.” Matar’s voice reverberated with desire. His clawed fingers tugged the waistband of my jeans. “The problem was stealing you from those who guard you. I tired of waiting and ordered my tribe to take you yesterday. No matter the price.” Matar’s face twisted into a gruesome smile. “I’m only disappointed they failed to obtain your other sister. She sounds delicious.”
Matar’s sentence structure was casual, very unlike the sinister tone of his voice, which rumbled as if he gargled with broken glass. God, he literally looked and sounded like hell.
I tried to squirm, but couldn’t budge under the weight of his foot. “Why us?” I choked.
The claw on Matar’s big toe poked my already injured shoulder. I gasped, biting back a scream. He frowned, displeased by my lack of suffering. “Like all my brothers, I am the product of a demon father and a witch mother. Our mothers’ magical strength makes us indestructible and allows us to spend unlimited time on earth.”
Matar’s head tilted to the side as his toe dug deeper into my flesh. This time I couldn’t squash my shriek. Matar smiled, satisfied. “Powerful magic wielders are scarce, Celia. We’ve fertilized mostly humans, giving us spawn, but none that matched our power. Then you and your sisters came to my attention.” His body shuddered with obvious arousal. “With your magic, and my spores, the unimaginable will rise from your wombs.”
“Oh my God,” Emme whimpered behind me.
I knew how she felt. Every hair on my body stood at attention and begged for a quick death. “Why destroy the weres and the vamps?” I asked in hope of distracting him from our apparently enticing wombs. It didn’t work. The scent of his increasing arousal reached my human nose and clenched my bowels.
“We can’t conquer the world without killing those who guard it. And the vampires will never bow down to us.” He let out a ghostly eerie cackle, flapping his wings with apparent delight. “Ironic, isn’t it? Their own outcasts will aid us in their destruction.”
“Excuse me for interrupting, Tribemaster.” A trembling vampire knelt beside Matar, his head bowed low enough to touch the ground. I recognized him as one of the vampires guarding the entrance to death row.
Matar licked his fangs, refusing to turn from me. “What is it?”
“The escape of these women cost us.”
Matar growled. “How many Tribesmen did we lose?”
Rivers of sweat drenched his flimsy white shirt. “Including half the bloodlust population we were forced to kill? Ah, over two hundred, sire.”
“I see.” With a flick of his tail, Matar decapitated the vampire. Blood and ash spewed across Matar’s back, but he didn’t appear to mind. He slid his giant tail across the grass, wiping off the excess goo. “Celia, in the past two days, you and your allies have destroyed more than a third of my Tribesmen. While your cunning demonstrates potential for our offspring, you will be punished.” Matar motioned another vampire forward. “Take them back to their cell.”
Matar licked my face with a tongue that slithered out of his tail. At least, that’s what I hoped it was. You know things are bad when you’re praying a demon tongue is the only thing touching you.
The vamps dragged us back to death row. This time, they didn’t abandon us to our cell. Nor did they bind our limbs. After all, there was no place to run, and our weakened and terrified states rendered us powerless. My only sparkle of hope remained in Matar’s words. “Powerful magic wielders are scarce,” he’d said. That meant there couldn’t be many of him in existence. In time, maybe the Alliance would destroy them all.
Emme and Shayna cried. We slumped on the floor, speaking only to pray and comfort one another. Night draped the horizon. That’s when Matar appeared. My heartbeat raced into my throat at the sight of him. God, I was so scared, but I rose to stand in front of my sisters.
Matar loomed over me. “I’ve decided how to punish you.”
I dodged his tail when it reached for my face, believing he meant to strike. He laughed at my trembling form. “Physical torture alone won’t satisfy my vengeance, my pet.” He shook his head almost regrettably. “You’re just too strong. Your heart, however, is easily crippled.”
His gaze leered behind me and still I flinched from its pure viciousness. “It’s time to destroy your spirit, Celia. Your sister Shayna will make a delightful meal for my hungry children. Tribesmen, take her.”
Tribesmen piled on me and Emme, hog-tying our wrists and ankles. Two more dove for Shayna. I thrashed and roared, lashing out brutally and throwing most of them off me. “No! Don’t touch her! Get off her, get off her!”