By the time I’m finished, it’ll be drenched in red.
“You look familiar. Oh, right. You’re the warlock who dragged my son into that filthy cell by his hair, aren’t you?” My punch lands hard, cracking his nose. I have to cover my ears when he wails like a banshee.
Meh. He had it coming.
“Use your words, sweetheart,” Angel cuts in, stopping my next punch.
“Why? My fists work better.”
A dagger appears in front of me, and my head snaps to Hazel. She’s offering me her sharpest blades—her favorite. The haunted look in my eyes reflects in hers, but when I look closer, something about it doesn’t belong to me completely… like it has blended with hers.
I flip the dagger, savoring the fear swirling in the coward’s eyes, but once again, Angel decides to shit on my parade.
“You promised information,” he reminds me, pulling me back from the urge to carve this man from the inside out.
“Fine… only light stabbing then. Don’t worry, Micah. I’ll takeexcellentcare of you.” Chuckling, I drive the dagger into his thigh. His scream rips through the room, and I wait for him to calm down, biding my time so I can pull the information Angel needs before I can truly enjoy my prey.
Looking into his eyes, I am forced to admit how comfortable I am with inflicting pain. Sometimes, I’m scared of what I’ve become… but they did this to me. Every torture technique I know is their gift. Whatever I am today is what they made me.
They expected me to be a monster, so they turned me into one.
Twenty minutes later, I’ve extracted everything Angel wanted, only breaking a few bones inthe process. We have the location of almost every high-ranking coven warrior, except the dark queen. She’s continuing to hide while her followers pay for her sins.What a leader.
I know what the witch is capable of, and I have this gut-twisting hunch that she’s up to something. She wouldn’t have let Micah out of her sight and risk an asset if she didn’t have something up her sleeve.
I’m about to ask Angel if I’m finally free to do as I please with Micah when a loud thud stops me. I turn to find Seiji flat on his back, with a crushed banana peel sticking out from under his heel.
Everyone bursts out laughing, and from the corner of my eye, I see Harvey recording the whole thing. So he knew Seiji was going to fall, but instead of warning him, he decided to record it.
I use the distraction and swiftly sever all the fingers on the warlock’s left hand in one clean motion. All eyes snap back to the man howling through the gag in his mouth.
“Nevaeh—” Angel starts, but I lift my hand that’s dripping with the warlock’s blood to halt his approach.
“I’ve waited long enough.”
I repeat the same on Micah’s other hand, slower this time to make the pain last longer. Then I start carving into his chest, praising my artwork as I go.
‘S-C-A-R-E-D… Y-E-T?’
I knew it would trigger Angel. The night he found me rocking back and forth on our bathroom floor still haunts him.
He’s seen those exact words carved on my thigh… a scar that never faded.
Most days, I can bury my intrusive thoughts before they take over, but something tripped me over the edge that night. When I finally snapped out of my nightmare, I was standing in the bathroom searching for something sharp to cut off every piece of my skin that reminded me of that cell.
That night, my mate saw just how broken Nevaeh Blackburn is. He watched me crumble in his arms, and insteadof leaving me on the floor, he gathered my shattered pieces and held them until I was ready to be put back together.
When I told him how much that scar bothered me, Angel took me to Grace. My sister offered me a rare potion she’d been secretly working on since the day she met Harvey.
She wanted to be prepared in case, after Harvey’s coronation, the Fates’ markings triggered him or made his old scars worse. But the Fates took pity on him, erasing every scar that reminded him he was ever alone or broken.
I should’ve known the potion would come with a price. Angel let a few drops fall on my skin, and I quickly regretted my decision. The potion burned hotter, worse than anything I could’ve prepared for.
For hours, Angel held me as I bit my tongue until it bled to stop myself from screaming in pain. The scar faded with each hour, and I was free of the mark by morning, but it pushed me back to a time when I wasn’t considering a living, breathing person anymore.
Grace offered me another vial, but as the potion works, the pain it brings is eerily familiar to how I got those scars in the first place. No amount of scar-free skin was worth revisiting those memories.
From the look on his face, I know Angel is also thinking about that night. He doesn’t stop me anymore, but still stands close enough to catch me if I fall.
