“I’m responsible for Saela’s disappearance,” he says. “I didn’t do enough. And I’m going to continue putting any resources I can into finding her until the day we bring her home.”
Lee reaches up, brushing the tears off of my cheeks, and the motion only makes me weep harder. My stomach is a twisting, writhing mess. I both need him and loathe him in the same breath, and ithurts.
“There’s no we anymore,” I spit at him. Then I press my hands against his chest andpush. He stumbles backwards on the dirt path, and when I meet his gaze again, he lifts his chin.
“Don’t you realize?” he says ferociously. “My love for you is as unwavering and steady as the winds from Mount Wolfsbane. I’d give it all up if you told me to. I’d abdicate tomorrow.”
I scoff, folding my arms over my chest again, trying not to flush at his words. Because truthfully, I love him too, even as I hate him. The warring emotions threaten to crater me where I stand.
“You’re the most powerful woman in Nocturna, Meryn.” The certainty in his deep tone heats my blood, makes me look him straight in his glittering eyes. “You can bring this kingdom to its knees with just a word.”
My stomach bottoms out and I look away from him again. I’m not sure what might come out of my mouth if I look him dead-on. “I’m here for Saela and Saela only,” I say, reminding him and myself at the same time. “That’s all that matters to me.”
“I know,” he says, his voice filled with regret. “And I’ll do everything I can to protect you and help you find her while you’re here.” I hear his heel turn on the dirt and he starts to walk away, but then stops. “I don’t expect your forgiveness. But I hope to earn your understanding.”
With that, he leaves me to chew on my regrets and the fragments of our hopes, our promises. The fragrance of the roses has turned cloyingly sweet, choking. A thin veneer of beauty covering up an unending cavern of misery.
I waita few minutes after Killian leaves, wanting to put as much space between us as possible—and also because I need some time to pull myself together. Then I make my way back through the darkened halls toward the Rawbond quarters.
In the corridor right outside the dorms, the attack comes.
I’m not ready for it—more fool me. My thoughts are still tangled up with Killian, and Saela, and the exhausting day I’ve had. I don’t even hear my attacker coming until his fist is in my hair, yanking me backward with brutal force.
I don’t scream as he starts to drag me away. Plenty of people were not happy I survived the Presentation. I’ll be damned if I’m going to alert the whole fucking compound to my predicament so they can come and help finish the job.
Instead, I twist silently in my attacker’s grip, ignoring the searing pain in my scalp as I try to get my feet back under me.I need leverage—and to see my target so I can kick his fucking balls into next week.
He’sstrong. Much stronger than me. Fast, too. He senses me twisting and gives my head another brutal yank. It feels like my hair is about to rip clean off my scalp. But I’m thinking fast even as my feet scrabble and drag against the polished floor.
The violence is clear. Intentional. This guy is going to kill me, rules be damned.
The knowledge pushes me over the edge of an emotional cliff I’ve been dangling from since I realized I couldn’t leave this place.
Shadows move over my vision and enter me, expanding in my chest. A darkness overtakes my mind as one thought crystalizes, the only thing that matters:this is not where I die.
As if possessed by something I don’t totally understand, I pull my knife from its hidden sheath and slash at my own hair. The silver strands split instantly. The man, unprepared, loses his balance and tumbles forward.
I’m on him before he hits the ground, one knee on the back of his neck while I bring the knife down hard on the hand still clutching my severed hair.
It’s like my common sense has blacked out and my body has been taken over by rage personified.
When my dad was still alive, he used to take me hunting. He taught me the proper way to dismember an animal. The key is working your knife into the joint just right, and then all it takes is a practiced twist?—
A hoarse masculine scream echoes through the corridor as my attacker’s hand separates from his wrist. Hot blood sprays my face. I taste salt and copper and boiling fury.
His eyes are wide in the dim light, mouth gaping around a wheezing gasp as I lean down to show him his detachedextremity. Distantly, I recognize him as one of the Daemos boys that hangs around with Jonah.
“You fucked with the wrong woman,” a voice growls—mine, I realize belatedly—as I tear his jaw open and slam his own severed hand into it.
He chokes and gags, eyes widening as I push it deeper down his throat. Cartilage crunches under the pressure. His body starts bucking underneath me, a desperate ploy to shake me off, to free me, to save himself.
I’ve held men down enough times in my life to know how to do it right.
The iron wall in my mind swings open. On the other side is Anassa, her feelings bare to me for the first time.
There are no words. Just a rush of cold, bloodthirsty approval.
Snarling in disgust, I slam the wall down again.
