“He’s right. Let her go. This is between you and me.” Her voice slapped against my ears.
Ethan stepped between me and Sarah, as everyone swung around in unison.
Marg lifted her head, tears streaming down her face. “No, honey, no.”
Sarah stood on the other side of the room, her auburn hair cascading down her back. Her usually crystal-blue eyes glittered obsidian, a cold smirk tugging at her lips as she noted the way Ethan was sheltering me.
Marg’s bottom lip trembled. “Sarah, no, run, please run.”
Run, Amelia, run.The past blurred with the present. Thetick, tickof blood dripping. My heart clenched, my body feeling hot and cold at the same time.Was it a memory?
“It’s alright, Mama.” Sarah’s voice was soft, her eyes still dark but glistening with pain as she registered her mother’s battered body.
“You touch Amelia, Sarah,” Karson snarled, his fangs shimmering against the pale light. “You even breathe in her direction, and I will tear your mother’s heart out and hunt down your father and make him suffer in unimaginable ways.”
Sarah’s lips pulled back in disgust. “I’m here, you sick bastard. I could have killed her when I arrived, if that’s what I wanted to do. Now let my mother go.”
Did she mean when she arrived here or in Portland? I wasn’t sure, and it didn’t matter. She probably did have an opportunity, but she’d targeted Mary instead. An old, weak woman. Why? It didn’t make sense.
Karson growled, “I will release her once you have the bone-ash dagger in your chest. Your life for hers.”
Sarah snorted a bitter laugh. “How you underestimate me. You forget I have the one thing you need to keep her safe, and if anything happens to me, or to my parents, then the grimoire will be in the hands of witches who despise you, who will do anything to destroy you, and you will rue the day you messed with me.”
Karson smiled. “You think I will spare your life after what you have done? You think I care about a book?”
“Yes, I do,” Sarah hissed. “I think you care very much.”
Hesitation flickered over Karson’s features, but his voice came out casually. “Youunderestimateme, Sarah. I will destroy anyone who dares to go up against me.”
“You destroy everything you touch, Karson Worthington. You will destroy her.” Her obsidian eyes fell on me fleetingly. “Just like you destroyed my brother. He was a good man, a kind man. He did nothing to harm you.”
“Your life for your mother’s, Sarah, this is my final offer.” He took one step forward, his voice roughening. “Kneel and submit.”
Sarah didn’t move, didn’t bat an eyelid. Only her chin lifted. There was no way she’d submit to him.
“Surely, we can talk about this.” I shuffled out from behind Ethan, desperate to get Marg out of chains. “We can find a way without anyone else getting hurt.”
Sarah snapped her head to me. Those eyes—those eyes were darker than the space between the stars. “You think the thing you lie down next to is capable of negotiating without violence? It’s all he knows.”
“Karson is not the monster you think he is.”
She laughed softly. “You poor, gullible little human. You have no idea what he’s done.”
He was violent, protective, but he was so much more than he showed the world. I’d seen it—felt it. I remained silent, not wanting to tip her over an irrevocable edge.
“Sarah,” Ethan said gently. “We can talk this out, find a way forward, one where we all get to go home.”
“What about Nathan, did he get to go home?” she screeched, fire fluttering through her eyes and dying again. If the burning took hold, Sarah would erupt.
Georgie gasped, her fear palpable.
Sarah watched her, a cruel smirk edging her lips. “Do you think?—”
A scream cut off her sentence, coming from outside. We all tensed. There were two ways in, the way we entered and the other end of the hallway. Unless a vampire tore out the bars on the small windows?
The air tensed and grew ice cold. Vampires. I twisted my head, my hand on a blade. Ethan half turned, keeping one eye on Sarah.
“Well, well, well,” Rodney purred as he came into sight, followed by Kenneth, Monique, and Janice. “This is quite the party.”
