A faint glow pulsed from somewhere below. My heart kicked. Light meant activity. Activity meant Vex. And wherever Vex was, Selena would be.
Something sticky caught me mid-stride — thick, invisible strands stretched across the stairwell like razor-sharp spiderwebs. They sliced through my clothes and into my skin as I pushed through them, each one biting deeper than the last. Beside me, Lucien snarled, blood streaking down his arms, but he didn’t slow. Neither did I.
Our mates were down there. About to be sacrificed by a demon who fed on suffering. If we stopped now, everything was lost — Selena, Raven, the shard, all of it.
I fought through the pain. Blood seeped down my shirt and soaked into my jeans. I didn’t care. Every cut was one step closer to Selena.
And she was worth every single one.
I stumbled off the last step and fell to my knees, panting. My clothes were shredded, blood dripping from a dozen cuts. Ahead — a door. Faint light glowed beneath it, and something else seeped through the cracks. Chanting. Low, rhythmic, guttural — words I couldn’t make out but could feel in my teeth. Every syllable dripped with something ancient and wrong.
Lucien collapsed beside me, gasping. He looked as bad as I felt. His eyes met mine and he nodded.
I forced one knee up, then the other. Together we staggered toward the door.
The chanting grew louder. Every hair on the back of my neck stood straight up.
I drove my shoulder into the door and bounced off, paint shooting down my arm. Red hot. The heat seared through my skin instantly, blisters erupting across my knuckles before I could even register the pain.
“Damn it.” I shook my hand, the blisters screaming.
Lucien studied the door. “We ram it. Together.”
“On three.” I braced myself. “One. Two. Three.”
We drove our shoulders into the door. The heat seared through my shirt and into my skin. An evil laugh echoed from the other side — low, delighted, as if our pain was entertainment.
I didn’t care. We hit it again. And again. Harder each time, the impact rattling through my bones, the burn spreading across my shoulder. The door didn’t budge. Not an inch. Our supernatural strength meant nothing against whatever magic held it shut.
But we didn’t stop.
Again. Again. Again.
Then something cracked—not the door, but whatever spell had been holding it. The door flew open and I crashed to the ground, skidding across cold stone.
Vex towered over us. Every nightmare I'd had for two years stood in front of me wearing a tired smile.
“I can’t concentrate with you idiots pounding on my door.” He sounded more amused than angry. That was worse.
I staggered to my feet. We were in a cellar — stone walls painted with black symbols I didn’t recognize. Probably straight from hell.
Torches guttered in iron brackets around the room.
Then I saw the altar. Selena was stretched across it side by side, just like the baby had been. Her body limp. Her eyes closed. Her chest barely rising. She looked like a corpse laid out for burial, and something inside me snapped—a sound like a wire pulled too tight, vibrating through my entire body.
I took a step forward. Lucien grabbed my arm.
Raven was stretched out beside her. Black candles burned on either side, their flames flickering violet. And at the far end sat that same gold vase with a lid, etched with writhing symbols.
There had to be something important about that vase.
“You’re too late,” Vex said, strolling behind the altar like a man with all the time in the world. He picked up the black blade—the same one he’d held over the baby—and turned it slowly in his hands.
“In five minutes, the shard will be destroyed and I will not only kill Raven, but I’ll take Noelle too.” His golden eyes found mine, and the malice in them was absolute—no posturing, no bluffing, just the same cold certainity of a creature that had already decided how this ended. . “Killing Selena will just be to punish you—Prince.”
The word dripped with contempt. He said it the way you’d spit out something rotten.
Every muscle in my body coiled. My fangs punched through my gums. A rage so absolute it blotted out thought, pain, fear—everything—roared through me like wildfire.
