BLACKMAILED BY THE INCUBUS - Chapter 10 - Warrick
TW: Graphic language, blood, murder,
(not edited. Please read the TW above)
The trailer door clicks shut behind Seraphine, a bomb detonating in the silence that follows her departure. I stay rooted to the tacky linoleum, listening to her footsteps disappear around the side of the RV and into the carnival.
My Seraphine. My mate. My reason for existing. And this rotting, excuse for a woman dares to disrespect her. Dares to think she is somehow above my wrath, and for what? She didn’t give birth to Seraphine, or Aiden. There is no blood to atone for. She has not suffered for them. Instead, they have suffered because of her.
No more.
I may not like Aiden. His existence may be in inconvenience, but he is dear to my mate. So, because of her and my love for her, I will accept him, but Bloom … she cannot be allowed to live any longer.
Bloom sways on her feet, her cigarette trembling between gnarled fingers. The last wisps of defiance bleed out of her as I take a step forward. Her confidence is as shriveled and wasted as she is. Still, she remains firm, despite the oily stench of fear wafting off her leathery flesh.
“What do you think you can possibly do to me? You can’t hurt me. Seraphine would never allow it.”
Her audacity is laughable, but I’m having trouble finding humor through the haze of blood pounding between my ears.
“She is not here,” I remind her. “She left you … to me, and you are right, I won’t hurt you.” I wait and watch the relief and arrogance coil across her gaunt expression before adding, “I’m going to kill you.”
The cigarette drops from her fingers and rolls in a spiral of ashes across the floor. If not stomped out, it could start a fire, but this trailer and this woman are no longer my problem.
“Are you serious?” Aiden whispers in my head. “I can’t kill her.”
I ignore him. Ignore the fact that I am wearing his skin. His human flesh. The timing definitely isn’t ideal, but I’m not waiting until night. By the time I’m in my form, we will be in a new location and I will not allow this woman to come with us. So, I will have to make do with what I have.
I prowl closer. Slow. Deliberate.
“Tell me something, Mother.” I savor the word as it rots on my tongue. “Who do you see standing before you? Aiden or the creature you thought you could control?”
Bloom staggers back, her hands going to the drawer she’d rifled through earlier for a lighter. I let her. I want her to believe she has a chance.
“Now, Warrick—”
I move.
Her fingers barely graze the handle of a screwdriver before I slam her into the cupboards, rattling the rusted hinges. Her cry of pain chokes into a gasping wheeze as I dig my fingers into her windpipe and hold her in place.
“You know,” I murmur, dragging her limp form up the stained wood until we’re eyelevel. “I warned you what I would do if you ever hurt Seraphine again.”
“I didn’t—”
I squeeze. The brittle crack of bone is like music to my ears. Her wails of torment a symphony. She thrashes, but even as Aiden, I am stronger. Deadlier. Aiden may be human, but I am in control and it’s my rage and power holding her life in my clutches.
“How should you repay Seraphine? One finger at a time or should we see if your heart is as shriveled and black as it seems?”
Bloom squeaks something, but it’s intelligible around the hand I have cutting off her air. I could snap her neck. Quick and easy. I could drop her limp form to the ground and set the trailer ablaze. I could tear the useless lump off her shoulders. A little harder, but manageable.
Her pupils dilate, her lips trembling around a plea, but it dies in a wet gurgle as Aiden sinks his fingers into the saggy folds of her throat.
Bloom flails as nails cut into flesh and blood splatters down her collarbone. Weak fingers grasp and claw at my wrist, the useless movements growing weaker with each pulse of red spilling from her lips.
I tear my arm back. I close around her voice box and I ripe it free. Blood explodes from the hole, spraying hot across Aiden’s face and chest. He steps back as she slumps forward, her weight sagging against me. Her lips move, but no sound comes out.
“She died too easily,” he mutters, shoving her off us.
We let her crumple to the floor in a heap of tattered skirts and sticky crimson.
“That happens when you ripe someone’s throat out,” I mutter, mildly annoyed by the mercy she was given.
For a moment, the trailer is silent except for the slow, lazy drip of blood pooling against the warped linoleum. It trickles off my fingers curled loosely at my side. Off my top.
Such a mess.
I exhale and relent Aiden’s body back to him. “We better clean up before we find Seraphine.”
Aiden doesn’t speak but moves to the bathroom for a hurried shower and a fresh change of clothing.
We pack what little we had stuffed up in the crawlspace, do a quick scan for anything Seraphine might have missed before stepping out of that shit hole for the final time.
It will stay there. Without a living soul to anchor the RV to the carnival, it will remain behind with Bloom’s mutilated body inside. We will never see it again because the carnival doesn’t return to the same place twice. Those are the rules. Just like not having an RV to tether ourselves to, we will also get left behind.
“Let’s find Sera,” Aiden says, interrupting my thoughts. “We need to anchor her to a trailer before the move.”
I am indifferent to the carnival and those who reside within its fabric walls, but the idea of living deep in the mountains, away from humans and creatures alike with our human and our babies has become a thorn deep in my heart. I understand Seraphine has affections for the people here and I would never deprive her of anything, but I look forward to the day she decides it’s enough to live on our own.
“That might be a while,” Aiden murmurs as we follow Serpahine’s pull in the direction of the kitchens, her anxious pulse.
“We have eternity,” I remind him, quickening our strides.
I’m glad Bloom finally got what was coming to her and Seraphine will get her crown made from her bones.
YES! I'm so happy we finally got to know what happened in that trailer! It was one part that nagged at me far too much 😅😂 I agree, rhe death was too quick but it was perfect for the setting. Can't wait to read the next chapter 🫶🏽🖤