Novel Square
Chapter 11
Hayley’s POV
“Aunt Jada…” Aiden started warily, positioning himself halfway in front of me protectively. “What’s going on here? What do you want?”
The formidable Russian mobster’s lip curled with distaste as she raked her eyes on us in contempt.
“Did you really think you could carry on this disgusting little affair without consequences, boy?”
A chill went down my spine as the gravity of the situation crystallized.
Somehow, Jada had discovered Aiden and I were more than just stepsiblings.
And from the look of pure, unhinged fury on her face, it was clear she wasn’t going to let that slide.
“It’s not what you think,” Aiden tried, holding up his hands in a pacifying gesture. “Hailey and I… it’s complicated.”
“Don’t give me that crap!” Jada spat, hefting the remains of the planter like a weapon. “I know exactly what’s been going on. How you’ve been defiling and tainting the family bloodline with your twisted, unnatural urges!”
Aiden tensed and I clutched his arm tightly, my heart pounding. Unnatural urges? What did that mean?
Before I could process it further, a sickening realization hit me – there was only one way Jada could have found out about Aiden and I being intimate. Someone had told her.
“Mom,” I breathed in horror, the word slipping out unbidden. “She must have figured it out and ratted us out to Jada!”
“Very perceptive, girl,” the mobster purred menacingly. “Your bitch mother did indeed come crying to the family about her darling princess daughter being seduced and corrupted by her own stepbrother.”
Rage and humiliation lashed through me, quickly chased by hurt.
My own mother had betrayed us like that? After everything? I felt like I’d been slapped across the face.
Aiden shook his head in disbelief. “Aunt Jada, please, just let us explain-”
“Enough talk!” she roared, raising the planter high in a burst of inhuman strength. “The only thing that awaits filth like you now is punishment!”
With a feral snarl, she launched the planter straight at us.
On pure instinct, I shoved Aiden aside just as the heavy ceramic projectile came whizzing by – and struck me directly in the face.
The impact was like a train had hit me at full force.
I crumpled instantly to the ground, everything going black and silent as unconsciousness swallowed me up.
“Hailey! No!” I heard Aiden’s scream of anguish as if from miles away before oblivion claimed me completely.
When my senses finally started rebooting, the first thing that hit me was the throbbing, blistering agony radiating from my skull.
I stifled a groan, blinking blearily as the dark shadows around me slowly coalesced into dim shapes and forms.
I seemed to be in some kind of dark, poorly lit chamber – a basement or cellar of some kind by the looks of it.
Heavy manacles encircled my wrists and ankles, chaining me down spread-eagled on a grimy mattress.
“Wh… where…?” I rasped out, my words slurring woozily.Owned by NôvelDrama.Org.
Movement in the corner of my vision made me flinch.
A shape detached itself from the shadows to loom over me menacingly.
It was Jada, eyes chips of cold onyx stone boring into me.
“Awake at last, I see,” she said flatly. “Good. The fun can really begin now.”
Dread pulsed through me as I struggled to make sense of the situation through the pounding in my skull and lingering disorientation.
“Where… Aiden…?” I forced out.
Jada’s expression twisted into something vicious and cruel.
“Your sick little forbidden lover won’t be joining us, I’m afraid. I made sure to have him… taken care of elsewhere. A far kinder fate than what awaits you, girl.”
She leaned in close, her rancid breath hot on my face. I recoiled instinctively, panic clawing at my insides.
“You see, in our world, there are rules that must be enforced,” Jada hissed in a deadly whisper. “Ancient laws older than humanity itself exist to maintain the natural order, no matter how ugly. And breaking those laws, as you and my misguided nephew have done, carries the direst punishments imaginable.”
My blood chilled at her ominous words.
What the hell was this lunatic raving about?
Before I could voice the question, Jada straightened back up, an eerie gleam entering her beady eyes.
“I’ll be generous and give you one chance, girl. Renounce whatever unholy bond you’ve formed with Aiden. Beg for forgiveness before the true retribution begins. This I vow.”
Confusion and fear warred within me.
Part of me wanted to comply, say anything to make her stop with these unhinged threats.
But the other part, the part that loved and ached for Aiden with every fiber of my being, rebelled against the mere thought of renouncing what we had.
So I lifted my chin defiantly and stayed silent, bracing for whatever fresh horrors Jada had in store.
The mobster’s face twisted into an ugly sneer at my refusal. “So be it. Don’t say I didn’t warn you, abomination.”
With a dizzying swiftness, her features started… shifting.
Her mouth elongated into a gaping maw of dagger fangs, leathery wings erupted from her back tearing through her clothes, vicious talons erupted from her fingertips.
I recoiled in shock and terror, sure that my battered brain was playing tricks on me.
But even as I watched on in mute horror, the full grotesque transformation completed – until the nightmarish beast now looming over me resembled nothing like a normal werewolf.
No, this was feral, too feral.
With a deafening, earth-shaking roar that vibrated across the very walls, the monster launched itself at me.
I didn’t even have a chance to scream before rows of slavering fangs closed around my body and the world exploded into a fiery maelstrom of ripping flesh and searing agony.
The last thing I remember before blessed blackness rushed in was a single, hysterical thought – that Aiden and I had wandered into a world of literal monsters beyond normal comprehension.
And now, I could only pray death would find me swiftly rather than whatever unholy fate awaited at this evil creature’s merciless claws…