Chapter Thirty-Seven
MELANIE
I had never seen him weakened before, so it was freakish to hear heavy breathing coming from Master, along with the constant downpour of blood from his eye socket. The blade was still jammed inside of his eyeball when he grabbed me by the upper arm and dragged me through the snow and toward his castle. Dana had done this to him…for me. But I couldn’t feel gratitude or happiness over her act of courage, because she wasn’t here. She was somewhere, out of my line of sight, knocked out and hurt. I agonized over it.
Please be alive, I thought. Please, please be alive.
Poor Cora was screaming, and I knew I had to do something to protect her from them. I saw what Veronica and Molly were like when they had their sights set on feasting and getting a kill, and that’s a fate no one deserved, especially not someone like Cora. I wiggled my arm free from Master’s weak, slippery grasp, and I leaped toward him with my fangs out. I was immediately knocked on my ass by Molly. “I don’t think so, you stupid bitch,” she hissed as she pressed the heel of her shoe against my chest, keeping me pinned to the cold ground. She had a hold of Cora by the wrist, and Cora was in agony over how tightly she was hanging onto her.
Veronica cupped her hands around Master’s hollowed cheeks, checking on him like he was a five-year-old who was hurt on the playground. She asked, “Are you all right?”
Master ripped the blade out of his eye, shoved Veronica away, and growled, “I’m fine! Do something about those parasites while I deal with Melanie.”
Deal with me? I wasn’t going to give him the chance.
I tried to get to my feet but was startled when I saw him reach out to Cora. He wrapped his hands around her neck and pulled her face close to his, and then his voice purred, “If Melanie escapes from my clutches, attempts to end my life, or even fights back, I want you to find the nearest sharp object and slit your throat with it.”
A disconnected, dizzy expression took over Cora, and I knew his hypnosis had been successful. I could taste the vomit on my tongue already.
I now had no choice but to obey him, to surrender, to let myself die. I’d been prepared for it before, accepted it even, but that was when I thought I’d be the only one losing their life. If I fought him, Cora would die. If I didn’t fight him, Cora would die. What the fuck was I supposed to do?
A loud crash of metal clanging and cinder blocks smashing onto the ground rang off, and we all turned and saw that the gate had been broken down. Daggett and Priscilla were on the other side reluctantly staring in, but Max was nowhere in sight.
Master wiped away the long trail of blood from his face and ordered Veronica. “Take care of them.” His eye was a mess of busted meat and dripping blood. Master was keeping it together, but he had to be in a world of pain. With the one good eye he had, he looked at Molly and said, “You too.”
Molly looked offended that he was ordering her around, and she tightly grasped Cora’s arm. “What about her?” she asked.
“She’s not an issue,” he answered. His hypnosis made sure of that.
“The hell she’s not! You said if I brought her to you, I would get to decide what we do with her.”
“Silence!” he roared, and Molly shrunk into herself, prepared to feel the wrath of the back of his hand. Her submission was enough for him, so he didn’t strike her. “Leave. Her. Be,” he warned one final time.
Molly’s bottom lip quivered, and like a spoiled brat, she dropped Cora’s arm in one violent jerk. Any harder and Cora’s shoulder would have dislocated.
“Veronica, patrol the perimeter of the property,” he ordered.
Veronica nodded. “Yes, Master.”
“And you,” he began as he shifted to a pouting Molly. “Guard this front door so no one intervenes.” We were only a few feet from the castle’s main entrance, and my stomach turned upside down thinking about what would happen once we were beyond that entryway. “I cannot be interrupted, under any circumstances. You understand me?”
Even though she was still seething, Molly managed to reply with a, “Yes.” She knew better than to speak against him again. There’d be consequences. There always was.
Veronica headed toward the broken down gate, to patrol as Master had wanted, while Molly backed away a few steps from us and waited for Master to take me into the castle. A couple of feet over, Cora was frozen in place, partially from fear and partially because the hypnosis was doing something to her brain. I had never been under the spell before, but you always knew when someone else was. They looked and felt off. Cora just stood there, her body trembling from the cold, her upper body slightly hunched, and she never looked at any of us. Her eyes kept to the snow on the ground.
I didn’t want to leave her with Molly. It didn’t matter what Master told her or what she told him. If Molly had an itch to kill her, she was going to kill her. My only hope was that Max would get to her before Molly did.
My feet slid across the ice and snow as Master dragged me back to his castle. To hell. To my death.
I was already dead, so why did I dread definitive death so much? I guess I answered my question there. I dreaded it because it was, in fact, definitive. You only get one second chance, and I used mine up already.
The closer I was pulled
