Erasing Alyona never brought me peace. Perhaps because a part of me believed that I could, in time, have guided her back toward the righteous path. But I hadn’t had a choice back then. She’d murdered our father, the king, signing her own death warrant.
I have a choice now, though.
“You said you didn’t want me dead, Ksen, but your admirer did.” I gesture to what’s left of the pompous male.
Her lips thin.
“How about now? Would you have preferred that chunk of flesh bathing in blood to have been me?”
She scoots her attention off the gruesome sight, affixing it to her lap. Her brow pleats when she takes in the black slip thatespouses her borrowed body, and then her neck straightens with a snap and she’s squinting past me into a grimy mirror.
“Blood-magic is truly sensational, isn’t it? So…do you wish I were dead now?”
“No. I only ever wished to abolish the monarchy and send you into exile with all your shifter friends. I never meant for anyone to die.”
“Really? Not even Salom?”
“Except him,” she mutters.
Thanks to the sconce filtering light down her back, I catch her fussing with her manacles. Unlike the chain wrapped around her torso, which is carved from black stone, the cuffs are pure iron.
I kick her arms up with wind until I hear the distinct pop of bones displaced from their sockets. She smothers her scream behind gritted teeth.
“What about our niece?” I ask.
“She wanted”—breath—“to kill you.”
Little Witch, did you ever find out what Mestyla wanted with me?
Silence.
“Isla?” I look over my shoulder, my heart going numb at the sight of her clasped lids and motionless chest. I lurch to where she now lies on the floor and sink onto my knees while Ksenia jangles, either trying to reset her bones or to break free. I can’t seem to care.
All I care about is fishing that damn bullet out from beneath my mate’s clavicle. My fingers tremble on the flaps of fabric she must’ve sawed through with her blood.Delicately, I press them apart. My gut clenches, not at the sight of gushing blood, but at the worry that I may be angering the lesion and deepening her pain.
I call on my magic and funnel it into her wound to widen my access. When I spot the glimmer of metal embedded in muscle, I loose a deep exhale and begin to circle my finger, targeting the munition on all sides with steady drafts. Little by little, the iron casing unscrews itself from her flesh.
A torrent of fresh blood surges, floating the bullet out. Once it’s within reach, I pinch the thing. Inspect it. It’s hollow, which means the obsidian powder must’ve leaked out of it. Will her body flush the toxin out on its own? How can I speed up the process?
I press my ear to her mouth.Silence. My heart stumbles. Mutes.
I splay my fingers on her inert chest.Come back to me, Isla. Come back to me.
Come on…
Come on…
Fury bleaches my vision. I lurch to my feet and wheel around, then pound toward Ksenia and clutch her neck. My anger is so monumental that when I lift her, the hefty armchair gains altitude as well. “How do I get the fucking obsidian powder out of my mate?”
I feel her pulse trill my thumb, feel her panicked breaths peck my vibrating jaw.
“I don’t know,” she wheezes. “I d-don’t—know.”
I release her. As the armchair slams down onto the floor, I seize the shotgun at my back and aim it at her stomach. “Should we find out how long it takes to come out of you?”
Tears film her eyes. Which aren’t hers. Gods, I want to shoot them out of her face just to stop seeing them on someone other than Isla.
“I always assumed you were kinder than Atsa,” she croaks, “but you’re exactly like him.”
