The stars behind my eyes flared white, rearing for attack, my body tensing in answer.
He was here.
The air prickled, bodies thrashing, screams folding into static. Shades of life and death smeared together until I saw nothing but shadow. The body beneath me at last stilled, and I used it to push myself higher.
Let me see.My voice demanded inside my head.
The Viper resisted, then slunk back, ceding me my own eyes. My dagger slid free of its sheath, weight comforting against my palm.
“Hello, beastie.” His voice was a sour chill as my spine locked. “That was quite the show.”
Reve stepped from the blur. One step toward me—and I fucking flinched. The spark in his eyes brightened at the movement.
“You’re even more spectacular than I ever anticipated.”
My fangs hung, blood and venom sliding from their tips in slow drips that spattered between us.
Ford shifted at my side, his shield trembling like glass about to splinter. The girl whimpered behind it, but he held strong, burning every shred of his strength to keep her protected.
There were too many Fae, too much strain on the core. It couldn’t feed us all, could barely replenish what we had lost.
Reve’s stare turned toward them, and my heart plunged when a sinister smile drew across his face.
“How’s the hand?” I bit out.
His head snapped back, the smirk widening. The memory of that severed finger still lived in my mouth, metallic and rancid. He lifted both hands, wigglingtenfingers at me. Though one more pallid than the rest.
Damn him.
“You have something the king wants returned.” He never blinked. Even when his head tilted and his eyes dragged down the length of me. He just...stared.
“Sorry.” My blade rose. “Finders keepers.”
His eyes narrowed then, void of warmth, void of mercy, as he ran a thumb along his lower lip. “Verena—” The rings resting on his fingers glinted as he extended one hand.
I rememberedeverythingthat hand did to me.
“Come with me,” he said. “Now.”
The command cracked like a whip. And then my back turned to fire, the scars igniting, aching, as though the demand lashed them anew. A scream tried to tear from my throat, metal filling my tongue when my fangs punctured clean through my lip, silencing it.
And it was suddenly all too fucking familiar.
My body locked, every muscle trembling beneath the surface. Still, I made no sound. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
“This pain can end if you just come with me.” Another step, another lash of misery across my back. “Things will be different this time, I swear it.”
The agony strove to force me to my knees. Blood slicked my lips, the world funneling to the single sound of my pulse roaring in my ears.
My lips parted only to draw a breath, slow, controlled. The pain licked at my veins, feeding off the same darkness that lived inside me.
Still, I did not bow.
Through blurred sight, I caught Ford, the girl in his arms, fleeing where her mother’s body lay abandoned. Good. Let them be gone, let them be safe.
Breathe,a voice told me.Fight it. You are stronger than this suffering. Show him who you are.
It was a calming presence. But it was not familiar.
