I couldn’t move. Couldn’t lunge. Couldn’t throw myself between Selena and the blade.
I was frozen. Every muscle screaming against invisible chains while the black some curled closer.
Just like before. Trapped inside my own body. Helpless. Watching.
“Don’t.” My voice was the only part of me Vex hadn’t frozen. “Kill me. Send me to hell. I’ll go willingly. But don’t make me hurt her. Please.”
The words tasted bitter. I’d never begged. Not when I lost everything. Not when Balthazar had me in hell. Not once in my miserable life.
I begged now.
Vex studied me the way a cat studies a mouse it’s already caught. “You know what I love about you, Prince?” He leaned close enough that I could smell the sulfur on his breath. “You think begging still matters.”
The smoke wrapped around my ankles. Cold. Patient. Hungry. It was already reaching for my mind—I could feel it pressing at the edges, looking for a way in.
I had seconds. Maybe less.
I did the only thing I could. I screamed her name with everything I had left — every shred of love, every ounce of desperation, every broken piece of my soul poured into one word.
“SELENA!”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Selena
Rocco.
My eyes flew open. My heart slammed against my ribs so hard I thought it would crack through bone. The fog that had swallowed my mind was gone — burned away by the sound of his voice, raw and desperate, still echoing off the stone walls.
I turned my head.
Black smoke poured into Rocco's mouth, his nostrils, his eyes — forcing its way inside him like a living thing burrowing into flesh. His dark eyes bled to red. His face twisted, the muscles contorting into something that wasn't him. Something wearing his skin.
No. No, no, no.
I remembered that look. The same dead red eyes. The same wrongness in every line of his face. I'd seen it in court two years ago when his fists had shattered his mother's cheekbone while something monstrous laughed behind his eyes.
He was possessed.
Vex strolled between the altar and Rocco like a conductor admiring his orchestra. "Kill Lucien."
Rocco's body turned toward Lucien — stiff, mechanical, a puppet jerking on invisible strings.
"No!" I screamed. "Rocco, stop! It's me! Listen to my voice!"
Nothing. Not a flicker of recognition.
Vex glanced down at me, his golden eyes bright with delight. "He won't listen, girl. And you know it. Lucien is as good as dead." He tilted his head. "Oh, you're awake. Just in time to watch Raven Acosta die. The strongest supernatural in the world will soon be dancing the rumba down in hell."
I tried to move. My arms, my legs — nothing responded. As if my body had been nailed to the stone.
Think. Think of something. Anything.
Rocco stalked toward Lucien, his fangs extended, his red eyes empty of everything that made him Rocco. He was going to drain him. A Golden Demo—drained by the man who'd had just fought by his side.
Balthazar!I screamed it inside my mind.Help us!
Silence. Nothing.
