Stolen Hearts: Book 1 (Grim's Labyrinth Series) (8 page)

The council members gathered together to huddle and whisper, each fighting for what was needed. Several of them had far too much at stake to let Faydra go, and they argued vehemently for her guilt. Each of them looked to Rageeb from time to time to make sure he took notice of their work on his behalf, eager to please him and get their loved ones back. He paid them no attention, his focus locked on watching Faydra’s face for any sign of remorse or—better yet—suffering and fear.

Watching her plead for her life would be the highlight of his crusade against her, leaving her actual sentencing to be almost anticlimactic in the face of enjoying her suffering. Her death would be a wonderful and well-deserved end to the pain and humiliation she’d cost him when she left, but these moments of uncertainty had to be almost as agonizing for her as actually dying. And he loved every minute of it.

The tenor of the discussion grew in intensity, rising like a tidal wave of mixed emotions. Those who heard the truth of Faydra’s words battled against those who had a vested interest in her demise, whether they meant to or not.

While the group debated and Rageeb looked on entertained, Faydra kept her head held high and her back straight, determined not to live her last few minutes on earth wringing her hands or hanging her head in shame. She had done what was required of her, and anyone who wanted to question her motives or her loyalty would think what he will. She was not going to let anyone have the satisfaction of seeing her in shame.

“We’ve reached a decision,” a council member said, stepping forward with a grim look on his face.

Chapter 13

Jessica froze after Conlan was hauled away, but she didn’t have enough time to process what had just happened before the door opened again and more armed guards entered the room that now seemed much too small. They grabbed her by the arms and began to half-carry, half-drag her towards the door. She fought as best she could, screaming pointlessly for someone to help her, and was only quieted by the full force of a guard’s baton taking out the back of her legs. She collapsed to the floor in a jumbled heap and was hauled back up beneath her arms and dragged towards the door, her legs following along behind her body limply.

They moved down the dark hallway, but it was too hard for Jessica to see anything other than the floor beneath her. A cold sensation that crept up from her ankles told her she’d been dragged through something wet, hopefully no more sinister than plain water.

A wet, stone hallway…

Jessica strained to lift her head to look forward, knowing in her gut what she’d see before she ever got there. The dot of white light ahead, growing larger as they raced towards it, mocked her hurt. She knew all too well what waited for her on the other side of that door… the woman on the table, the hisses urging her to finish it, the dead eyes that would fly open. It was the dream all over again, only she knew this time she was awake. And there was no one coming to save her.

She struggled to dig her toes into the stone floor and push away from her captors, but they were too strong for her. The ends of her shoes dug painfully into her toenails as she fought anyway.

Too soon, they halted in front of the door. Jessica almost fell on her face as they released their hold on her, clearly expecting her to move forward through her dream scenario on her own. She took her time standing up, knowing that as soon as she did they would force her to open the door. When she finally stood up, aided by their overeager efforts to get the job done, Jessica turned to face the guards.

“I’m not going in there,” she announced in a shaky voice that lacked any confidence.

“You don’t have a choice,” one faceless guard replied from inside his helmet. The other guard turned the doorknob and pushed the door open while the first one placed a hand on Jessica’s chest and shoved her inside. She fell to the floor and slid some distance but whirled back around to scramble for the door. Before she could reach it, the first guard reached into the room just long enough to grab the knob and pull the door shut, locking it behind him.

Jessica felt for the door and pressed her back against it, unwilling to move any further forward than she had to. This very room had been the stuff of her nightmares for as long as she could remember, and she couldn’t have forced her feet to move forward if she’d wanted to. She managed to stand still with her gaze averted to the floor, staring at the area just in front of her shoes. No blood yet, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t lingering elsewhere in the room.

As she slowly willed herself to look forward, her eyes took in the rest of the stone floor. There was no blood, no signs of carnage, but of course there wouldn’t be. She hadn’t gotten to her task of destruction yet. She looked to the bottom of the table in the middle, eyeing the bolts that kept it firmly in place. Up the single wide shaft of the table, up to the cloth that draped down the sides, up to the raised mound of a body beneath a thin sheet, the straps of the shackles at the corners of the table disappearing as they snaked their way beneath the white cloth.

Jessica squeezed her eyes tightly shut as she raised her face to look at the body on the table. She had memorized every feature of the woman over the years, seeing her face in her sleep and learning to recognize every single line and wrinkle in her pale skin. Before she could open her eyes and confirm the woman’s presence in the room with her, she heard her name spoken aloud.

“Jessica!” a woman’s voice said imploringly. “Help me!”

She snapped her eyes open at the sound of Faydra’s voice calling her name. On the table, bound by the shackles, her stepmother lay fighting against the restraints, hopeful for a moment now that Jessica was in the room with her.

“Help me out of here,” she begged. “Please. Undo these straps, I know how to get us both out of here.”

This was new. Even when the dream had suddenly shifted on her—had it really only been a day or two ago?—Faydra had certainly not been allowed to speak or beg for her life. Jessica was conflicted. She didn’t want to face the prospect of ripping Faydra’s heart out and eating it again, but at the same time, there was something so tempting about it, too. The more she let herself be pulled into the rhythm of her dream, the more she wanted to finish the task, evil stepmother or not. Faydra’s heart called out to her, every bit as much as the woman’s pleading voice grated her last nerve.

This was the woman who had tormented her for so long, who’d caused every single hurt Jessica had felt in the past ten years. Blood lust or not, revenge would be almost too easy, too natural.

“Don’t do it, Jessica,” Conlan’s voice said too close to her ear. She whirled around and came face to face with him, knowing it was impossible for him to still be here. Was he asleep somewhere, and had managed to work his way into her dream? No, that was impossible. That would only work if she was dreaming, but Jessica had already confirmed that this was all too real.

“This is a trap,” he pressed. “You can’t do this.”

Jessica rolled her eyes at his urgency. He wasn’t even really here, so why should she listen to Dream Conlan, especially when Faydra’s heartbeat called out to her? She took a step forward towards the table, noting the triumphant smile on her stepmother’s face when the woman clearly thought she had commanded her teenaged stepdaughter to unleash her. Conlan hissed nearby.

“Jessica, stop it! Don’t let them use you! They just want you to take the blame for killing her! They’re trying to kill two birds with one stone!” He grabbed Jessica’s arm and tried to turn her around to face him, to look into his eyes and see that he was telling the truth. Instead, her protective instincts kicked in, first ignited by having to flee from her stepmother’s house but fully engaged now that a pitifully weak stranger stood between her and the satisfaction that could only come from warm blood. She swung at him in the same motion that carried her around, letting the momentum of his pull add force behind her punch. Conlan stumbled backwards, clutching his face. The blood that seeped out from between his clenched fingers only spurred Jessica onward in her quest for flesh.

Holy hell, what am I doing? she thought to herself, watching from somewhere above herself as her feet carried her forward. This isn’t the dream, so why am I being gross? And why can I see myself?

Her vantage point overhead gave her one advantage she’d never had before: sight. From this view she could finally see the faces Conlan had talked about, and she watched them as they eagerly watched her. The expressions on their cold faces told her that Conlan was right, they were out for blood. They were going to let her do her worst to Faydra to rid them of her, then they were going to pounce on Jessica.

The sacrifice, they had called her. You must sacrifice yourself. This is what it has always been about, a plan set in motion from even before she was born. She would kill Faydra and destroy the person they wanted to remove, then they would return the favor by using her own kill instincts against her.

Even knowing this, Jessica was powerless to stop herself. She had become the creature the others had feared, and once this horrific act was over they would destroy her.

But I’m not evil! I’m not a killer! she protested silently, begging them to hear her even though she knew they could not. Even if they could hear her, they would never listen.

As her feet continued forward across the dark gray floor, Conlan tried desperately to stop her again. He protected his face this time with an arm thrown out in front of him as he reached for her, but she easily threw him off again, not even turning around when she heard him hit the floor. The only thing she could see was her victim, the heartbeat actually visible through the woman’s skin as Jessica’s heightened senses took over. She moved until she stood next to Faydra, looking down at her hungrily.

Faydra realized too late what Jessica had become. She’d fought so long to keep the girl from ever knowing who she was or what she was capable of, but it was too late now.

“Jessica, before you continue, you have to know,” Faydra began, resigning herself to what was about to take place. “You have to know who you are.”

The girl’s eyes focused only briefly at the unheard-of softness in her stepmother’s tone. This wasn’t the woman who had kicked her down the stairs or let her starve for days at a time to punish her for some small childhood transgression. This was a woman on her deathbed, even if she herself could only barely acknowledge it. Her confessing tone told Jessica all she needed to hear.

“Jessica, I’m your real mother.”

Chapter 14

The girl’s eyes focused for only a brief flash, but it was long enough for Faydra to see that she’d broken through the killer’s exterior. She smiled apologetically, knowing that no simple and useless words could ever undo what had been done for so many years. But the truth was important, perhaps more now than ever before.

“I’m your mother,” she repeated, as if that explained it all. “I let you believe I was only your stepmother to protect you. Your father knew, and he agreed that it was best if everyone thought your mother and her powers were long gone. That’s why he would never talk about her, not because it was too painful, like he told you, but because it was simply a lie. I was right here the whole time.”

Jessica shook her head, unable to register how those two reasons lined up. How could a mother protect her child by practically casting her out? How could any human do that, let alone a mother?

“I had to save you from this, and in order to keep you from becoming who they wanted you to be, I had to be horrible to you. No mother could ever treat her daughter the way I did, so I lied to you. I killed your father to keep you from fulfilling their plans for you, plans to turn you into a violent weapon that could destroy whole masses of people.”

“What? But… why?” she managed to sputter. Years of empty hatred for her stepmother—or mother, if the woman was telling the truth for once and not just using this as another way to abuse Jessica—had poured out of this woman, the one who dared to look her in the face and claim to be her real mother. There was no way. It wasn’t possible.

“Our people, the Hirbadin, bred you to be a killer, Jessica, but I escaped. My former consort, Rageeb, knew his experiment could create a demon so powerful that our enemies, the Balkat, would even hand over their own children to be sacrificed in order to be spared. When I realized what his intentions were, I fled, carrying you inside of me. But giving you a perfect life, a perfect childhood, would only let you grow up to be the confident and determined creature that could one day unleash this kind of dark power. I had to destroy you little by little every day to keep you from becoming who they meant for you to be.”

Jessica’s mind was in total chaos. The most hated person in her life had not only explained away her years of tormented madness, but had also in the same breath begged her to understand that it was for her own good? Never mind about her thirsty task, it was clear that this woman had no heart for Jessica to take.

If only the aroma of her stepmother’s hot blood didn’t contradict her. She wanted Faydra’s heart now more than ever, fueled not only by her hunger for it but also her hatred of this bitter woman. Had Faydra dared to think that Jessica would help her? She’d taken Jessica from her home, killed her new father, and treated her so badly to keep her from growing up too confident, then had the nerve to hope Jessica wouldn’t kill her the first chance she got?

“Jessica, please. Listen to me,” Conlan called out as he tried to stand, clutching his ribs where he’d taken the worst of the hit. His words came out in broken rushes as he fought to breathe again. “They want you to kill her so they can kill you! Why can’t you understand that?”

She tuned out the sound of his voice as she reached her hand out and pressed her fingertips to Faydra’s sternum. She prepared to slip her fingers through the skin until she could fit them between the woman’s ribs and grip her breastbone in order to pull it away from her body, leaving her beating heart exposed and ready for her feast.