Page 142 of Queen of Nothing

It’s pure hatred.

His eyes flash with rage, his lip curls with disgust, and I swear, for a moment, he thinks about pushing me off the balcony.

The moonlight washes over us on the balcony, it illuminates the cracks in his mask, his shuttering face.

He looks at me, the deadblood he loved, then loathed, then pursued, then chased across the world, and he sees me for what I truly am.

Nothing.

Not a Craven.

Not a witch.

Not a deadblood.

Just… nothing.

But I see it.

That shuttering of his face, the cracks in that perfected mask of his, and before he can turn his cheek to me, the image is seared into my mind.

A grimace.

A pained one.

Hurt.

Dray reels back from me—from the nothingness that I am—and stalks for the blasted doors.

He storms off the balcony, his shoes crunching down on the glass, and disappears into my bedchamber.

I am rooted to the balcony.

Socks torn and bloody, crimson threading through my fingers and dripping down me.

Then I flinch—because the door slams shut, hard enough to tremble the whole bedchamber.

Still, I don’t move.

Breaths mist at my face.

I feel the cold eating at the wet trails down my cheeks, the chill prickling at my breasts—

And I drop my head.

The tears wash over me like a violent wave strikes a cliff.

I crumble.

Falling to my knees, my hands smack down on the broken glass.

The first sound out of me is guttural. It’s somewhere between a heave and a moan. It’s years of built-up anguish releasing—and I hardly even feel the cuts all over me.

Doubled over, I wail against the quiet night, moonlight dances over the glass like it’s mocking me.

It’s when the sharp inhales spear through me, like weapons, that I hear the knocks rattling the bedroom door.

It comes rapid, urgent, and doesn’t follow with a pause. Not before the door opens and Oliver’s familiar voice calls out my name.