With the chilling water also comes my silky black magick, snaking my neck and wrists, visible only for me.
More,it demands, which I ignore. Feeding Darkness is what Sloane wants, not me.
Even if the little voice inside my head begs otherwise.
No matter what Sloane claims, there is no balance to magick. There can’t be, or else my current Darkness would be content with not drowning out the Light.
After Archer tells me about their plan to snatch Wynter and what it’ll mean for the future, he retreats back to his wall and adopts the same guise from earlier just as Sloane and Adalyn re-enter. Both glance at Archer, who shrugs.
Adalyn takes up her place by the door, and Sloane continues towards the cells, the bars sucking her inside to stand beside me once more. “Have you chosen?”
“Fuck you.” Over her shoulder, I subtly meet Archer’s gaze.
“If that’s how it is.” In a cloud of black and green smoke, she conjures a knife and hands it over. “Pick one.”
The blade is a gleaming silver as bright as it is deadly, about the length of my hand, and my finger drags lightly over the sharp tip. My hand molds to the dark green hilt that’s littered with cutout shapes, my fingers resting within the cavities.
Xander visibly tenses. Holly and Conan share a glance. Ryder glares at Sloane.
My stomach jolts with faint pangs and uncertainty as I turn the knife around in my hand. With enough speed, I could stab it into her chest and end all of this.
Do it,Darkness murmurs.Kill her, save your wolf and yourself. Become stronger.
Killing her means I’d become Dark.
Killing her means it’ll matter less. I, like Harlow, will learn to live with it.
“You choose or I choose for you.” She stops in front of Holly, tilting the shifter’s face side to side, who growls and snaps her jaws—mortal teeth only.
“I’ll kill you. I’ll rip out your throat and feed it to your fucking children.”
“Shifters. Always so dramatic.” Sloane releases Holly’s cheek with a tap and faces me. “That one. Unless you pick another one more suitable.”
“No,” Conan chokes out, ripping into his vines. His eyes flash silver as he glowers at Sloane, then Ryder. Finally, his broken heart finds me with a shake of his head. “Carina, please, not her. Pick me.”
None of them will die, I swear to Hecate.
Turning the knife around in my hand, I repeat, “Find me someone else. A mortal, if you must. The wolves have done nothing wrong.”
“Except encroached on my territory and gave attitude. Carina, understand that a lot of people will die in this war—shifters included. We can’t save everyone, only the majority. Who you choose today will be the first of many—but the most noble of them. They’ll be a sacrifice to help you reach your potential.”
She’s gaslighting me, right down to the soft croon in her tone.
Although it’s Ryder who my heart is drawn to, Archer’s who I look at, silently pleading for him to help—to give me a sign. If I attack outright, he’ll be forced to take his mother’s side, as will Adalyn. Three against one, while the shifters are strung up and unable to turn, are not good odds. If I free the pack, then perhaps—but it’d be magick versus magick.
But my cuffs are fake. I can free the shifters…
“Him.”
The room falls silent as I point the knife in Conan’s direction.
Sloane grins and waves her hand, releasing the vines until his feet touch the ground while the ones around his wrists remain—a useful start nonetheless.
He meets my gaze over her shoulder and blinks in acknowledgement.
As I exchange the knife from one hand to the next, I throw up my free hand, sending a blast to release the vines holding him. Conan immediately leaps into action and morphs from man to wolf, his clothes tearing—a precursor to the shouts.
Adalyn’s yell is drowned out by the snarling wolf who lunges for Sloane. Sloane curses, realizing I have access to my powers, and immediately blocks Conan’s attack with a barrier that tosses him back a couple feet. Adalyn rushes to help her mother, and Archer doesn’t budge.
