I’d planted one of those seeds in the greenhouse and saved the rest. The plants had bred true, and soon enough, I had another wickedly poisonous plant in my possession, one I warned Rowan to stay away from. He wasn’t my mate then, but even now, I wasn’t sure he’d be immune to the poison.
I made them as a safeguard, never thinking I’d use them, but I kept the seeds with me at all times.
Barrett swayed. A trickle of blood seeped from one of his eyes. “What did you do?”
“I used to try to solve things by being easygoing, peaceable. I made myself small to avoid conflict. But my enemies kept bringing war to my doorstep. They kept poking and prodding like a rotten tooth you can only fix through extraction.” I smiled with too many teeth.
Barrett licked his lips. Blood dripped down his teeth. A fine tremor began in his left hand. He squeezed his fist shut.
I came a few steps closer. “Those enemies tried to befriend me under the guise of helping me be the best I could be while waiting for me to reveal my secrets. But I stopped relaxing, stopped trusting as much as I used to. Instead I prepared, ever so slowly.”
Barrett swayed. Blood began to pour from all his orifices. He gagged and choked, his hand clutching against his throat as his airway closed.
“Evie,” he begged, his voice a hoarse rasp. “I’m one of the last of us left.”
“I do not care,” I hissed. “I don’t care about you or the swans or the rest of our people because not once have you given a shit about me. All you’ve done is take from me, and I am tired. I will no longer try to be peaceable. If you bring war to me, I will respond with the fury of the gods.”
I lifted my hands. Wicked, spiked roots dripping with poison shot from the earth and wrapped around Barrett’s neck.
“No! Please!”
I didn’t care about his begging, either. I crossed my arms and swiped them apart. Barrett’s head separated from his body with a moist thwicking sound, falling to the ground in a heap of blood and viscera.
When his body stopped twitching, I kicked his head away and glided toward the other shifters still fighting, pulling my poisonous thorns with me.
The fight went easier after that. Rowan’s people decimated the swans, and I killed with impunity. Maybe later I would feel guilt over this, but right now, magic thumped through my blood in a steady drumbeat. Every swan I saw, I touched with poison. Rowan’s people saw what I was doing and disengaged.
When I had cornered the last swan on the property, I surrounded her with poisonous thorns. The shifter took an unsteady step back.
“I wouldn’t,” I said mildly. “If you touch any of my vines, you will die.”
“You have the cure,” the shifter said.
I smiled. “I do. But I won’t give it to you.”
The shifter blinked. “They’re right about you,” she whispered.
I tilted my head. “Who?”
“The other Chimeras. They said you would kill us when we faced you.”
“Then why are you here?”
Her face crumpled. “We just want our curse broken.” The swan’s lips trembled. “I—I just want to be a mother. Our people will die. Surely you can understand that!”
“Of course, I can. But your people have taken from me. You’ve taken my people. You’ve hurt people I cared about, and you’ve made it difficult for me to move freely within my territory. You would have taken me, chained me, and bred me like an animal. Do you honestly think you are in the right?”
The swan did not respond, but her eyes kept darting back and forth.
“No one is coming to save you,” I said quietly.
She began to sob.
I was tired, so tired. I’d come so far only to have to fight again. Discussions hadn’t worked. Mercy hadn’t either. The only thing that worked was becoming death incarnate, and that was so far away from what I was meant to be. I was meant to bring life to the world. I knew it as sure as I was standing there.
“Return to your people,” I said quietly. “Let them know what transpired here today. Tell them if they ever trespass on my property again or try to harm any of my people or anyone I care about, I will destroy every single swan in the world. No one will escape my wrath. I will erase your names from our history. Your curse will be a small problem compared to the problem of me. Do you understand?”
The swan blinked and nodded like a bobble head. “Then go.” I made an opening through the path of poisoned thorns, wide enough to allow the swan to run away. When she was off the property, I called those thorns back and turned.
