This shit is personal.
I have the heart that Vinca burned to a charcoaled crisp in my mouth. The taste is worse than that disgusting paste her priests slathered all over me. I spit it out into the air and then shift as it falls back toward me so I can catch it in my hand.
Then I stare down at what’s left on the ground. Briar’s body, ruined Vinca.
As I do, I can feel that damned heart in my handbeat.
Right there against my palm.
More than once, in case I think it’s a fluke, until I have to accept that it’s finding its own rhythm.
In the distance, the acolytes—who dropped when Vinca did—begin to stir. They heave themselves to their feet and they run, knives pointed directly at me.
But the Wolf Moon is on my side tonight.
She is headed toward the other side of the crater. I can feel the way she moves, and when she gets there, there will be no moonlight left in this dried-out pit that should be a lake. It should take even less time for her to no longer beam down on this altar rock area.
At my feet, what’s left of Briar slithers.
I turn toward the altar and explode into action.
One step, another, then I jump.
I land hard on the rock, and as I do, I hear a terrible scream.
It’s coming from Briar’s heartless corpse. It’s coming from the heart in my hand. It’s everywhere, filling up the crater, sick and terrible.
I take the burned-up heart in my hand and throw it high, toward the moon—
Where it explodes.
Something in me does, too.
I feel myself toppling through space, blown backward by the strength of my throw and the exploding heart, and I know that I’m going to hit the ground hard—
But Ty is there.
He catches me before I hit the ground.
I feel limp and strange, but his arms are around me. I can smell him. He’shere. I open up my eyes and I gaze at him.
“You caught me,” I say.
He looks like he’s taken some heat tonight. There’s an ugly slash down the side of his face. There are scrapes and dark bruises all across his wide tattooed chest. I’m thankful for the rain that helps wash away the blood and grime.
Ty looks down at me and shakes his head, as if scolding me. Always scolding me. I don’t know why I like it. Why it makes all the noise inside of me ... quiet down.
“I always catch you,” he rumbles at me.
He sets me down on my feet, but everything feels like jelly. Ty peers down at me, then he takes his thumb and rubs at my mouth, making me wonder which particular revolting thing is on me.
Whatever it is, it doesn’t keep him from leaning down and kissing me on my forehead. It doesn’t keep me from sagging against him. I close my eyes, breathe him in, and watch the screen in my head.
Savi is flowing her way through the battlefield that seems to part before her, and it’s hard not to make Red Sea comparisons. She slides like an inevitability through all of those red cloaks, smiting them with golden bursts of sorcery as she goes.
She murmurs as she moves, locating the wounded Kind in every pile of the fallen.
With a few words and a wave of her fingers, she moves hurt vampires and wounded wolves out of her way. I watch her for some time before I realize that she’s gathering up all of the acolytes and removing anyone who is not one of Vinca’s faithful.
