Was I dying right now?
Hard to tell without pain to guide me.
Vitra’s cool drawl penetrated the fog of horror clouding my mind. “I think you’ve made your point, Heidi.”
The bonds holding me captive evaporated. I fell forward, palms pressed to the cool ground, gasping for air as if it were nectar.
“Disrespect of your superiors will not be tolerated,” Heidi said coolly.
Primal instinct warned me to keep my mouth shut, that I wasn’t the one in control here. But the words came anyway, because honestly, what did I have to lose at this point? “I don’t see anything worthy of respect here. Besides, you’re going to kill me anyway, right?” I slowly pulled myself up. “It’s what your kind does. Cut down anyone who challenges you.” I opened my arms, holding them out on either side. “Get it over with then. I doubt it will be the first time you’ve murdered an innocent.”
Portia snorted. “Innocent? I highly doubt it.”
“You know nothing about me, you stuck-up?—”
A phantom hand wrapped around my throat, choking me until I couldn’t breathe. My eyes bugged and I reached for the Coterie, my desperate gaze locking on Vitra.
He sat forward, his eyes narrowing. “Portia…”
The pressure increased, bringing tears to my eyes.
“Let her go, Portia,” Vitra ordered, coming to my defense yet again.
The air spiked with an acrid stench, and the pressure vanished. I sucked in a greedy breath, swallowing hard past the lump in my throat.
Portia smirked and slowly blinked, and in that moment, I would have gladly committed murder with my bare hands.
“May I remind you all that nothing has been decided yet,” Walter said. The knot in my stomach eased a little. “Miss Onyx, do you require a moment? Water, maybe?”
A hatchet to bury in Portia’s head would be great, but I cleared the thought from my mind and shook my head.
“What do you mean,nothing has been decided?” Portia said. “The rules are clear.”
Walter opened his mouth to reply, but the big guy, Crax, beat him to it. “AMortem Finalemcan be overturned.” He sat forward in his seat, dark brows pinching into a frown. “Surely, we must look to the future. I, for one, do not want to be responsible for the loss of another bloodline.”
“You’re not seriously suggesting we disregard her crimes and admit her?” Portia countered.
“I wasn’t aware that Miss Onyx had committed a crime,” Vitra said smoothly.
I should keep my mouth shut. He seemed to be advocating for me, after all, but… “No Onyx aside from Dharma ever committed a crime, but that didn’t stop you from punishing us all. You not only blocked our power, you cursed us too.”
His eyes flinched. “The curse was an unfortunate side effect.”
“Unfortunate?” I was breathless with indignant rage, eyes hot with tears of frustration, which pissed me off because the last thing I wanted to do was cry in front of these fuckers. I sucked in a breath and exhaled to calm myself. “Yes, unfortunate.” I glared at them all, daring them to ask me about my curse so I could tell them where to shove it. But there was silence. Heavy, guilty silence.
Good.
Vitra was the first to break it. “The punishment was warranted at the time. But time has passed, lives have been lost. Too many lives, and now I cannot help but wonder if the sentence was too harsh.”
The almond-eyed woman looked over at him in surprise, but if he sensed her regard, he didn’t show it.
Portia’s delicate nostrils flared. “I may be agreeable to overturning theMortem Finalem, but I willnotsanction the return of her power or admittance to this institution. She was on Nightsbridge soil for less than an hour and our tram was derailed. People could have been killed.”
“Yes, that wastotallymy fault. I planned the whole damn thing.”
Portia opened her mouth to respond, but Xander Crax beat her to it.
“There was no one else on the tram,” he said with a sigh edged in a growl.
