Mama lifted her hands into the air and called to her goddess. “What say you, Great Mother? Should she live, or pay for her crimes with her life?”
The next thing I knew, the barbs of the choker were back. Pain lanced through me, and warmth began trickling down myneck. I had anticipated this. I knew I was nothing more than a prop in her story. But I’d experienced this pain. I’d known what it was like to smell my own blood and feel it drain from my body. It didn’t cause the blinding panic that it had that night on the balcony.
The blisters broke out across her brow first. Angry pustules that popped and leaked black blood. Mama reached to touch one, and a sneer formed on her face.
She grabbed my arm and yanked me to my feet, determined to make a show of my death. I faced the crowd of weres with tears in my eyes. “The goddess has spoken! This is what happens to those who disobey!”
But it wasn’t just me they were watching. No. They saw the way the rot was eating their leaders from the inside out.
Dizziness from the blood loss set in, but I battled through it, reaching for every drop of dark magick inside my body to push back against the barbs. It came in a rush of heat and power that made me feel alive.
Mama’s grip on my arm slackened, and when it did, I reached behind me and snatched my husband’s dagger from her belt and slashed it upward in a vicious line, hoping to slice through her arm. My cut met resistance, and Mama screamed. Her grip on me slackened.
Justice.
There was only one thing left to do. I lifted the blade to my lips, but Shayla grabbed my wrist before I could collect what I needed. Her golden eyes flashed with light, and she bared her teeth at me. A trail of liquid black rot dribbled between her lips and down her chin. “Stop this, and I’ll let you live.”
I narrowed my eyes. The pain in my throat made it difficult to speak, but somehow I found the words. “The God of the Underworld has spoken. And he says you will pay for your crimes with your life.”
Chapter 40
Arracher
BASTIEN
What I had wasn’t bloodlust. It was bloodrage. The scent of my wife’s blood unleashed the monster inside of me. The indiscriminate reaper. We’d cut down every guard outside the fort with little resistance. Now it was time to break through the gate.
“Uncle?” Tyson asked. “Is there a plan?”
I wiped a spray of blood from my face. “The plan is to kill anyone who gets in our way.”
“So we’re ignoring what Sera said and walking straight into a trap?”
I shook my head. “I already told you. The only thing I came for was my wife. And if you’re too scared to stand behind me, then go. I don’t need you.”
Tyson narrowed his eyes in a way that mimicked his cousin, Natalia. “I am a man of Roselyn.” He banged his fist against his chest. “And I will not leave one of my own to die.”
I clapped a hand on his shoulder and squeezed.
“Let’s get this door down,” Tyson said. “You get Claire. The wolves will take care ofthe rest.”
Together, we dropped our shoulders and slammed into the wooden gate, expecting it to buckle beneath our combined strength. I was angry enough to knock down a castle wall. Wood was child’s play. But the gate had been properly reinforced, as if they’d been expecting us.
A fine strategy. However, I’d been tearing into forts long before anyone here had been born. The weakest points of these gates were the hinges. I drove my hand into the narrow seam beside the hinge post and wrenched it to the side, trying to rip them from the wood. Tyson saw what I was doing and joined me. With one more shove, the door snapped free.
We tossed it toward the woods. I drew my blade as an army of weres barreled toward us. Behind their half-transformed limbs, I saw my wife in a crumpled heap on the ground, lying in a puddle of her own blood. Her heart was still faintly beating, and that was all the hope I needed.
I set my teeth. Let them come. There was no army that could keep me from her.
Sword raised, I tore through the yard at a sprint. Claws tore at my sleeves, teeth snapped at my neck, but I did not slow. They were only obstacles. Only distance. Only the last cruel seconds between my wife and me.
But when I cleared the mob, and I saw the true horror before me, I collapsed onto my knees. “No,” I breathed, though the word had no power here. Pain lanced through my heart, like I’d been struck by an arrow. It was so sharp, so horrible, I thought I might die from the agony. Unable to stand, I crawled to her on hands and knees, through the thick mud and blood that surrounded her lifeless body.
I touched her neck, which was slick with blood, knowing I couldn’t even apply pressure to her wounds, because it would make the barbs sinkin harder. There was nothing to do but watch the life drain from her, while magick I could not break stole her from me. And all I could think was how this was my fault. I should have made the deal with Gorrath as soon as he offered it. I should have fallen to my knees and agreed to anything. Anything.
Had it not been for my jealousy, my possessiveness of her, she could be immortal and alive. I had failed her.
Tears fell down my face as I wept for her, and for the child we were supposed to have. The one I promised to protect. The one I barely dared to believe I was strong enough to have. It was all slipping away from me.
