The wipe brushed over my lips, smearing away the remnants of Kaius’s mouth, and something inside me ached. My reflection stared back at me, fractured by the faint light, as though she wasn’t sure who she was anymore. Acelynn. Emersyn. The liar. The traitor. The girl who had kissed her enemy like he was salvation. I pressed harder, trying to scrub myself clean.
And then the world shattered.
A violent crack exploded through the mirror as my forehead slammed into it, spiderwebs of broken glass splintering around my reflection. My breath caught, a scream choking in my throat as shards cascaded into the sink. Hot pain bloomed across my skin, followed by the slow slide of blood down my temple. Before I could stagger back, a hand fisted in my hair and yanked meaway from the sink so hard my spine arched. My body collided with the bathroom counter, the edge biting cruelly into my ribs.
“It’s been too long since I’ve heard that sweet scream.”
The sound of his voice froze my blood.
Logan.
I thrashed, but his grip only tightened, dragging me backward, out of the bathroom, and into the bedroom where the golden morning had suddenly turned suffocating. His strength hadn’t faded with time. If anything, he was harder, crueler than before. He threw me onto the bed, the mattress caving beneath the impact, and his weight followed instantly, crushing me. His knees pinned my hips, one hand capturing both my wrists above my head with ease. I writhed, kicking, but he only laughed, leaning over me like a nightmare made flesh.
My heart screamed inside my chest, beating so fast I thought it might break free. “Logan…please?—”
He pressed a finger to my lips mockingly, smearing my blood there as though silencing me was some kind of game. His hair was buzzed close now, his scar deeper in the daylight, twisting around his eye until he looked more beast than man.
“God, you’ve been busy,” he sneered, eyes darting to the bruises on my throat. His grip tightened painfully on my wrists. “Didn’t take you long to find someone else to keep your bed warm. Thought of me at all while you spread your legs for the King of Lovelen?”
My stomach knotted, shame and fury clashing in equal measure. “You don’t get to ask me that. You don’t own me, Logan. You never did.”
The slap came so fast I barely saw it. My cheek split with pain, the metallic taste of blood blooming across my tongue. He tilted his head, almost admiring his work, before dragging his thumb down the mark he’d left.
“Still got that fire,” he murmured darkly. “That’s why I picked you in the first place. That’s why you’ll always be mine, Emersyn.”
That name. It cut deeper than the slap. My chest squeezed, every breath sharp and burning.
“That girl is dead,” I rasped, teeth gritted against the tears threatening to break. “She died in that fire with her family. You killed her.”
His laughter filled the room, cruel and endless. “You think flames can erase what you are? What you owe me?”
He leaned closer, lips grazing my ear. “You were supposed to bring me something real. Something I could use to tear those bastards down. Instead, you’re in their king’s bed. Are you really that stupid?”
“I wasn’t supposed to bring you shit. I don’t work for you,” I hissed, spit flying onto Logan’s face through my clenched teeth.
Logan raised an eyebrow at me. “But you work for Parsons, right? And Parsons works for my boss, so by association, you do work for me.”
Anger flared even through the terror, reckless and wild. “I’d rather burn with Kaius than rot with you.”
His hand slammed down against the pillow beside my head, making me flinch. His eyes blazed with something unhinged, his grin crazed.
“Careful, doll. I’ll start thinking you’ve forgotten who holds the strings.” His voice dropped lower, more venomous. “You bring me something on the Knights. Soon. Or I’ll carve reminders into that pretty skin of yours that even your king won’t want to touch.”
A sob shook free of my chest, half terror, half fury. He pressed a mocking kiss to my temple, soft, revolting. “Remember, betrayal is punished by death. I’ll be watching, little Spade.”
And then he was gone.
The silence he left behind was deafening. My body curled in on itself instinctively, arms wrapping tight around my stomach, as if I could hold myself together by force alone. The sheets beneath me were tangled, stained with blood from my brow, my cheek burning where he’d struck me. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. For one night, I’d felt bliss. For one night, Kaius’s arms had made me believe I could be something more than my past, more than Logan’s puppet. Now the illusion had shattered because Logan was right about one thing.
He wasn’t going to stop watching me. And sooner or later, I was going to have to choose—betray Kaius or burn for him.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
acelynn
The kitchen smelled faintlyof garlic and roasted chicken, the leftovers of dinner clinging to the air. A single bulb flickered above the table, its yellow light casting sickly shadows over the linoleum floor. I sat with my elbows braced against the wood, pencil in hand, trying to focus on the half-finished homework in front of me. The numbers swam, my handwriting uneven from how tightly I was gripping the pencil. All I could think about was the folded paper burning a hole in the bottom of my backpack.
A history test that had a huge sixty-four written out on the top.
