I growled in the guards’ direction, my mind vaguely recognizing them from my days at the princess’s side. I didn’t care for them or the fear they were showing as they took in my changed form. They were just that bastard’s lackeys with no brain of their own.
All I wanted was her.Aurelia.How dare she say those things? How dare she make us look like the bad guys? How dare she let us leave without her?
And willingly.She stood back and watched as the guards took us. She was the one that called them on us. It was a betrayalas hot as the sword I shoved through her chest all those months ago.
Was this payback? Did she do it to get back at me for that night? I thought I had shown her why I did it. I thought I had apologized enough.
I thought I was enough.
Why did she do this? Who was that man? Was she with him now? Was she with him while they kept me in the dungeons? While I was in forced servitude?
She didn’t even try to save me.
The entire time, all I thought about was her and Cedar. I cuddled up to the vampires. I did as I was told. Played the perfect pet. All for a chance to meet her again.
But the entire time she wasn’t thinking about us. She was there, orchestrating her own marriage like she hadn’t begged for me to save her from her last one.
It didn’t even register that the magic was burning me until the scent of my flesh hit my overly sensitive nose and Atlas appeared in front of me. Her angered expression only added to my annoyance.
She brought her hand up and delivered a stinging slap to my face, the vine wrapped too tightly around my body for me to stop it.
“Hey! Watch yourself with her,” Cedar spat.
“Snap out of it!” Atlas growled. “Act like a blood-crazed newborn, and we’re never going to get invited back in.”
The magic was starting to really hurt now, but I was far too angry to care about it. If anything, I wanted more of it so that the physical pain would match the emotional one inside me.
“Don’t you get it?” I bared my teeth at her. “We won’t be getting invited back because she’s gettingmarried! We were supposed to stop this! This was supposed to be an engagement dinner, not her wedding, and I am missing it?—”
The vines let me go, and I lurched at her. We fell to the ground in a heap.
“It was supposed to be me! I don’t know how you did it, but you messed it all up! If you hadn’t come and ruined it all, I would be getting married to her!”
My hands shot to her throat. My gaze was covered in a red haze, my fangs aching to tear out her throat as Atlas’s hands clawed at my wrists. But her attempts to force me off her were futile.
“She’smine,” I spat. “You thought you were going to take her from me?”
Atlas’s eyes were red, her growls mixing with mine.
Suddenly, Cedar’s hands were on me, caressing my arms, my neck, my back. So gentle. So soft. More than the monster I’d become deserved.
My mind stuttered. The rage lifted just for a moment so I could turn, and Cedar’s face entered my mind.
There she was.
She had always been there. Even when I knew nothing about her, on the sidelines, watching and guiding me. Whether that was to fulfill the prophecy or now, when I was losing my mind, she had been a constant force trying to push me in the right direction.
Guilt shot through me. She was here, yet I had been ignoring her, too blinded by rage.
“Ours,” she corrected with a soft smile. “And no one will take her from us, marriage be damned. Now… We need to get out of here.”
Her eyes shifted, and as I followed her gaze, I saw that the guards were slowly backing away, seemingly not wanting to get caught in my grasp.
Good.At least someone could see the true monster I had been made into.
“My poor hunter, eyes on me.”
Even if Cedar couldn’t.
