I chuckle, pushing past the need to shoot that tongue from her mouth for speaking on my mother like that.
Abena’s pathetic, desperate. Either that or cracked, because there’s no way she can actually believe there’s a way out of this. No way she can spin that video on the flash drive given to Zuri by the informant she and my mother found.
“A koju’s been issued, and either the reigning oba accepts it or rejects it. And if she rejects it, she’s conceding defeat and abdicating the crown. That is Mwuaji law,” Tera states from my side.
“I don’t need you to quote the law to me,” Abena snarls. “My family wrote it. Yours just serves it.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,Abena.” Tera stalks forward several steps, her lip curled in an ugly sneer as she looks my aunt up and down. “I only serve the rightful Mwuaji oba. And that’s not you. But since you know the law so well, you also know you must accept or reject the koju issued by the challenger, who is your niece. The daughter of the woman, our queen, who you had killed.” With every word, Tera’s voice hardens, becomes darker, lower. “Do you have an answer, traitor?”
Bisa and Taraji step forward. And on my left, Richter and Moorehead follow suit.
“You either accept, Abena,” Bisa says in his rumbling, raspy bass that rolls like ominous thunder through the room, “or we kill you ourselves for treason. Which hand do you want to die by?”
“Please say mine, Auntie,” I taunt.
“You—you can’t—” Her lips part as she stares first at Bisa, then the other kapteni. She surveys the room, but her loyalists are condemning in their silence. None of them move forward to aid her, to defend her. Her gaze, bright and liquid hot withhatred, swings to me. I read her capitulation there, and triumph streams through me as she stalks down off the dais.
This is it.
This is fucking it.
Not once does it occur to me that I’ll lose this challenge. Not when I’ve dreamed of the scent and texture of her blood on my skin for years. Pictured what her death mask will look like as I witness the last flames of life flicker from her eyes.
No.
Losing isn’t even a possibility.
In moments, the circle around us widens, and I note the strategic points my Seven and Miriam take up. My eyes clash with Malachi’s, and I allow myself to feel that second of relief that he’s safe. He nods, and I return the gesture, reading the message there.
Take care of business.
Get my revenge.
In my head, I still hear the faint echo of hismine. I tuck that into the corner of his mind, carrying it with me as I turn to face Abena.
She shrugs out of her long, white fur robe, leaving her in a white bodysuit and leather pants. Accepting the dagger Richter passes her, she faces me, her teeth bared in a snarl.
I smile.
“The rules are,” Tera announces, “no one from the outside can assist or interfere. And this koju is to the death. No mercy. Do you both understand?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s get this shit over with,” Abena spits.
Rage swirls in me, but instead of flowing crimson and burning hot within me, it’s cold, focused.
I noticed every cut, every bruise on Malachi. I noticed his missing finger.
Oh, she about to pay for old and new.
Palming my bowie knife, I deliberately run up on her, not giving Abena the opportunity to advance on me. The glitter ofuncertainty in her eyes feeds my soul, and I’m going to be gorging on that shit by the time I’m finished with her.
Abena swings at me. I duck, spinning low. Her blade whistles above my head, and I swipe my knife through her top to slice through the skin just beneath her breast, drawing first blood. She whirls around, and I crouch, waiting, anticipation humming through me like a berserker’s battle cry.
Pain saturates her features. Good.
In seconds, rage overtakes the pain, and she comes for me, bending low, knife aiming for my stomach. I grab her wrist and take the cut to my upper arm when she yanks her hand away. Gritting my teeth, I flick my dagger, slicing her across her breast, shoulder, ribs. She stumbles back, crimson seeping into her clothes, looking like a slasher-film victim.
