Tiger, Tiger

Tiger, Tiger: Chapter 26

When I arrived at home I set about preparing everything for Mum. I turned on the heating to warm the freezing rooms, put Rose’s package safely in the fridge and grabbed piles of blankets and throws to cover Mum’s bed with. Unsteady with everything in my arms, I tottered upstairs and into Mum’s silent room, peeking over the pile to see my way.

After drawing the curtains and covering the bed, I continued to flutter around the room, fluffing pillows and rearranging a vase of pastel flowers that I hadn’t noticed when I first came home. When I stood straight again there was someone behind me. My blood turned to ice shards in my veins and despite myself I released the most bloodcurdling scream that had ever left my lips.

Sole slammed his hand around my throat to choke off the scream into a squeak, in the process smashing my head against the wall behind. Three sharks with dead black eyes danced translucently in front of me as the impact spread around my skull as white hot heat. What had I been thinking? Of course it had been too easy to just wave goodbye to Sole like he would listen to us. He always had to have the last word, maybe even my blood.

“My, my,” he purred in a tone that was like nails on a chalkboard, “The brave Alpha female is nothing more than a terrified little mouse when nobody’s looking. Just like your pathetic excuse for a mother. I was hoping to get a good fight out of you before I killed you, but it’d be no fun fighting a rodent.”

“That’s rich coming from a rat,” I spat, my voice hoarse around the depression on my windpipe. I tried to free myself from his grip, but he only grinned wider watching me struggle.

“Witty till the end,” he said with a hateful smirk, “Would you like that on your gravestone?”

"Get your filthy hands off me Sole,” I snarled. The pressure of his grip was causing the skin to prickle as blood vessels burst and then healed again. It was becoming increasingly hard to breathe.

He ignored me and continued on. “So, not only did you have to take my title, but also my son it seems. How would Aaron feel to know that his precious little girl was a whore? That she charmed boys to do whatever she wanted?”

“I wouldn’t know. You killed him,” I spat, tearing at his exposed arm with my fingernails. Anger rose up in my chest trying to fuel my fight. I drew long, jagged scratches along his forearm but it didn’t loosen his chokehold in the slightest. “Alexander is my mate, I didn’t charm him. I love him.”

His face contorted with rage and he smashed my head back against the wall. There was a crack, either from my skull or the wall, it was hard to tell. “It’s not love, he’s bewitched,” he snarled, “It will pass. Especially when he finds out that you’re dead.”

“Don’t talk about love like you understand what it means. Alexander chose me because I didn’t lie to him, didn’t pretend that I had a lineage of leaders that didn’t exist.” My lungs were burning now. If I died of asphyxiation, that was it. No shifter could heal from death.

"Those lies made him strong. They made him the person he is today. I made him the person he is today,” Sole proclaimed, lifting me higher until only my toes brushed the floor. The air was set alight in my lungs, sharp and burning.

"Thank God that that’s not true,” I choked, “or we’d have one more cruel, idiotic, egotistic moron in the world. I hope you rot in hell Marcus.”

“You’ll see it first.”

His eyes lit with animal savagery and he thrust both hands up around my throat, squeezing as tight as possible until my air was cut off completely. There was a terrible pounding inside my head that made me feel as if I were about to explode. My heart gave a panicked kick and I tugged uselessly at his hands and arms, legs flailing wildly. As I did so, my calf brushed the vase of flowers on the table beside us and I was struck by my only chance to save myself.