Read Online Broken: Hidden Book Two by Colleen Vanderlinden - Free Book Online Page B

the stomach again, kneed him in the groin, and he whimpered and bent over in anguish. His pain fed me now, as much as his fear. I felt myself strengthening with it.
    “Tell me.” I grabbed his throat again, made him look at me. Looking at me scared him even more. “You lured me there. Tried to make damn sure I died. Why?” I accented the question by bashing his head back into the concrete pillar behind him.
    Demonic fear, anger, pain. I felt my power singing through me, exalting in being fed.
    We circled each other, and I knew he was looking for a weakness. Good luck with that. “Tell me, and I will end this quickly. I try not to be cruel, but I am more than happy to be, in your case. Please. Make me drag this out,” I said, and I heard the feral snarl in my voice.
    He spat at me, tried to grab my arm, and I punched him in the face. His nose shattered under my fist, and his pain washed over me. He lunged for me again, grabbed my hair. I wrenched it free, lunged back, and kicked him hard in the stomach. He fell, clutching his gut.
    I stalked back over to him, hauled him up by his throat as if he weighed nothing. “I can do this all night,” I growled up into his face, then I tossed him back into a pillar and hauled him up again. “I can make you feel what I felt. Wanna know what it feels like to have all the bones in your hands break at once?” I broke into his mind, manipulated his thoughts, made him feel what I’d felt in the basement, and he screamed. I shoved him away from me and he fell at my feet, cowering.
    “Too easy. I don’t even need to touch you to hurt you,” I snarled. “Any answers yet?” I stalked back and forth, and he watched me warily, but clamped his mouth shut. “All right. How about having your skin burned off your body?”
    I forced the thought into his mind, and his screams echoed throughout the garage. Damn, it was good. I let my head fall back as I fed off his terror, let it fill me. After a few minutes, I let up, pulled the thoughts back.
    He was terrified now, sweating, trying to get away from me. I picked up a length of extra chain Stone had left on the floor, wrapped it around his neck, pulled it tight, forced him to stand up and look at me.
    “Or. I can end this now, quickly.” I felt Eunomia land behind me, near Brennan. Knew he would give in, then.
    “Bitch,” he muttered, trembling in fear and rage.
    “You tried to blow me up. I’m pretty sure I have the moral high ground here, asshole.”
    “What are you?”
    I just smiled, pulled the chain again. “Answer me. Why?”
    “I’ve been trying to get things going for myself here. Have what Astaroth had. And every goddamn time I grow my organization, you come barging in and destroying it. I figured, the Nain Rouge is gone. Get rid of you, and everything else was easy. It would have been mine.”
    “So, greed? You seriously blew me up, kidnapped almost twenty women, set all this shit up, because I was messing up your Don Corleone fantasies?”
    “No one can do anything in this dump of a city without you ending up on their ass,” he said.
    I leaned in, close enough to kiss him, smiled. “Exactly.” I broke into his mind, saw the hundreds of murders, tortures he’d caused in his long existence, and knew it was my duty to end him, completely. I found his power, tore into it like a wild animal, devoured it as he screamed. Then everything went silent as his life force left him along with the power I’d taken. He fell to my feet, an empty husk.
    I turned to Brennan and Eunomia. They were both watching me. Eunomia smiled one of her knowing little smiles, walked over to Branford’s body as she waited for her sisters.
    “Better now?” Brennan asked, his voice low and hoarse. I sensed for him. Contentment. Love. Roaring need, desire that made me blush.
    “Why aren’t you disgusted? I hurt him, and I liked it. That’s sick.”
    “Like you said. You had the moral high ground. And you were still nicer about it than I would