Twist My Heart by Brooke Taylor (ebook audio reader .txt) 📕

a desperate cry for attention? All a joke? I don’t think they’ll find it humorous.”

As Clay grabbed the remote control, she flinched. He powered the TV on, navigating to the correct channel. He’d kept the show in the back of his mind to ensure she wouldn’t stumble upon it. But now he needed to remind her where she came from. Or, more aptly, what she’d be returning to.

College pictures from Rebecca Meade’s social media pages flickered on the screen right on cue. Harrison Sharpe’s familiar voice-over provided chilling recollections of the fateful day last year. The leading network journalist on unsolved mysteries then cut to her tearful father—an upstanding citizen, pillar of the community, begging for his baby girl’s safe return. The very daughter he had tortured all those years.

Clay gave a short grunt. “Well, I’m sure at least one person will welcome you back with open arms. Or maybe not. Would it shock you to know he’s been a lucrative donor to our organization? He’s highly motivated to keep you missing. How does the saying go? Dead girls tell no tales.”

“Turn it off! Rebecca is dead. I’m Aimee now. We had the ceremony.” Her terse voice held more confidence than her trembling body. He clicked the TV off, silencing her father’s dramatic performance and allowing her the smallest of victories. It would be the last he’d give her for a while.

Clay crossed the room in two strides. “Yes, we did have the ceremony. It’s a good thing we have the video. Should we watch it again? Those who still think Rebecca is alive might like to see it. What do you think those people will say once they learn you weren’t abducted—you left eagerly, you joined us freely, and you let me do whatever I wanted to your body? So many things…”

The scar from branding her still fresh over her heart. No doubt the nature of last night’s ceremony had been nothing like what she’d expected. Without all the ritualistic bullshit Sera loved so much, the newly risen Phoenix didn’t even have the fantasy of last night’s ceremonial rise from the ashes being more than just a special outlet they’d created for Clay’s more deviant desires. The poor little lamb had thought it’d be like a wedding, not her slaughter.

Aimee’s thumb stroked circles around the tattoo on the underside of her wrist.

Clay chuffed at her attempt to soothe herself. Lord knows he wasn’t going to do shit to ease her fears. But he needed her help and this was not the way to keep her in check.

Sera had always been there to soothe the newly risen Phoenixes after the shock of the fire ceremony, telling them loving praises and sweet lies until they believed again. He wasn’t nearly as bewitching as Sera, but he’d heard her spiels enough to know what this girl needed to hear to get her compliant again. “Don’t worry, my dear, we’ll add the color to your tattoo as soon as we get back home. Everyone will know with one look—you’ve risen and are one of the Six.”

Pathetic how happy this always made them. As if they couldn’t walk into any tattoo shop in the world and have the bright orange flames added to the black phoenix outlines. No, they wanted the ceremony with all its pomp and circumstance to hide what it really was—reliving the very things which had crippled them into seeking out the Ring in the first place. But most of all, they desperately wanted to be special. Chosen. And they’d endure damn near anything to be.

“You still look shaken, my pretty. Like a ruffled little bird with wet wings. Are you not ready to rise and fly? Because if you aren’t truly ready to be Aimee then you must still be Rebecca. Are you still Rebecca? Still afraid and scared? Weak and a victim? Did I not prove to you how strong you are? How much you could possibly withstand? Endure? Rebecca let those things cripple her, paralyze her. Not Aimee. Aimee proved how strong she could be to survive them. I was so proud of you last night. Sera will be too when I tell her how valiant you were to let go of all your wicked fears. But, my sweet bird, if you’re not ready to fly it means I did not do my job… I did not free you from your past and Rebecca’s vulnerabilities. If I was not successful in forging you a new life as someone as strong and confident as the former Aimee, you must tell your magister.”

Because we could do it all again if you need more.

Terror turned her face stony as she steeled herself from the silent implication. The quiver in her spine was gone, along with the life from her eyes. “Rebecca is dead, Magister.”

“Good. Because you’re going to help me get my fiancée back.”

 

Chapter Twenty-Nine

A tickling skitter brushed my leg, waking me with a start to a pitch-black room. The last thing I remembered was being in Nik’s bathroom and trying the Ardent Oil Aimee had given me. I must’ve come into the bedroom and dozed off afterward. Dryness in my mouth swelled my tongue. I swallowed painfully and moved to sit up but my legs were bound. I thrashed in a panic. Shit. I took a deep breath. Only the sheet.

A deep masculine groan erupted, followed by an airy yet explosive noise I couldn’t place. My eyes adjusted to the lack of light. Nik’s room took shape as a waft of rancid odor assaulted my nose. Oh God, please don’t let the smell have come from Nik. My fingers felt the bed, empty except for one very large, hairy beast with horrendously stanky breath. It probably felt and smelled the same, but at least it wasn’t Coop.

“I see you left the boys, Titan. I guess Nik’s still with them, huh?”

Titan grumble-growled as he rolled over, covering his eyes with his paw.

“If those boys got you drunk, I’ll kill ‘em.”

I fumbled