Page 140 of Queen of Nothing

This is the final card up my sleeve.

And it will ruin everything.

“My parents….” The tears tremble my whispered words, “wanted to pay off a witchdoctor. For blood tests. Your witchdoctor—and my blood tests. I think they gave him someone else’s blood.”

Dray’s fingers dig so hard into my wrist that the promise of bruises springs aches all over the bones.

It doesn’t stop me.

I push through the thumping of my heart. “When I was out there… in the krum world… I… I tested my blood.”

His lashes flutter slightly.

His face shutters.

Then, his grip tightens impossibly, and I should cry out from the pain, but I feel only that ache inside of me.

“Dray…” I smile something watery. “I’m a krum.”

20

Time stands still for a fleeting moment—

Then Dray is suddenly on his feet.

Wrist tight in his grip, he hoists me up with him, so hard that my shoulder screams and my wrist is aching.

A hollow sound utters out of me, but Dray couldn’t give two shits about that, and he’s yanking me with him to the paned glass doors behind my desk.

He strikes aside the curtains.

“It’s lock—”

It’s all I manage to say before he flicks his hand—and shards of glass go blasting out onto the balcony.

I throw myself back from the explosion, and smack right into Dray’s shoulder. But the glass doesn’t touch me. Doesn’t touch either one of us.

I look, wide-eyed, at what used to be my door, and just as I do, all those glittering shards hang in the air—

Then drop.

They hit the stone floor, scatter over the balcony that hugs the length of my windows.

A shout catches in my throat.

I cringe back, but Dray wrenches me alongside him, out into the chilly night air. He drags me out onto the balcony, his shoes crunching down on the glass—

I jump over the broken shards.

I land with a stagger on the stone, and still, my socks tear. The nips of pain wince through me. I feel the heat of blood. I’ve definitely been cut.

Dray jerks me around to face him.

I smack into him, my forehead colliding with his collarbone and erupting fresh pain in my head.

Undeterred, Dray’s hand twists my wrist. He turns my palm upwards and brings his finger to it.

“Ow—”