Page 112 of Devoured

Twelve. No. God, no.

“That’s too many,” I blurt. “Even one makes me sick.”

Tensions snap.

Baron Ikenna charges the throne then, between one word and the next, his claws reaching, stretching, for Cora’s throat. Before he can draw blood, however, she fists a claw in his hair. And she hurls him to the floor.

He lands with a sickening thud, the tiles cracking beneath his powerful body as he glares up at her, seething. “You are no queen,” he spits. “My people will never follow you.”

“Start with Ikenna.” Cora rounds the throne and sits. She pushes fallen tendrils of her salt-and-pepper hair behind her ears, struggling to maintain her composure, then taps her claws on the armrests. “The others can watch. Perhaps they’ll change their own minds—before you do it for them.”

I expect the other ambassadors to fight back at the threat. To rise up and strike. But they stare at Ikenna’s fallen body before their gazes fall upon the throne. Even Rikki retreats a step, hiding behind the hulking body of a European duchess.

Cowards. All of them are cowards.

No, I think suddenly. That’s not fair. They just want to go home. They just want to survive this like the rest of us.

Ikenna begins to climb to his feet. He flexes his wiry muscles as he inhales deeply. But Cora growls, and futility claws the rest of the way up my throat. Without another choice, I reach out and brush the soft satin of Ikenna’s lapel. Gaze snapping to mine, flaring hot, he bares his fangs as if he means to kill me first. Unfortunately for him, I’ve been practicing.

It takes seconds for me to dive into the red of his gaze.

It takes seconds for me to paralyze him with his own thoughts, his own memories. His truths and his lies. The bright burgundy stretches between my fingers like clay.

“This court is a disaster,” he said.

But that was merely a lie built atop a foundation of fear. He knows Cora is strong. He is afraid of what will happen if her war reaches his doorstep. He is afraid for his people, his family.

“The supper.” A voice slithers between my ears. It coils around those glowing red lies like a serpent. “Change the supper.”

And I will. But maybe I can do it differently. Maybe I can do it in a way that won’t help Cora at all.

I see swatches of memories. The red of wine flowing into goblets. The red of screams. The red of Brody leaping atop the table to savage the carcass of a roasted bird. And beneath those memories, that fright pulses brighter and hotter. But it’s just clay. Soft and pliable and all mine to mold. Mine, not Cora’s.

So I do.

A distant pressure begins to build, but I ignore it. I am the beholder of the truth, and I can fix this evening. I can repair the chaos. I can soothe the dissonance and replace it with quiet betrayal.

Slowly—ever so slowly—I roll the red between my fingers. I shape my lies, my truths, then sharpen them, constructing a different night altogether. That distant pressure spikes into pain, but I haven’t finished yet.

Tonight, a queen succumbed to the monstrosity of her court. She brutalized nobility. She abused her own pack. And now—her ambassadors have a choice. They can die, or they can return quietly to their countries. They can escape Castle Severi and refuse to offer Cora any further help.

The lies are brilliantly woven. Expertly spun.

But with each one, a new shade flares through the red. Until there isn’t just the red of the baron anymore. Until I catch flashes of a Beta’s golden distrust, the brown of a Delta’s revulsion, the gray of an Omega’s shock. So many colors. So many people. No longer clay to mold, but threads.

They—they shouldn’t be here. I try to hold their truths too, but they knot and twist around one another until there is no possible way to untangle them. When one thread is pulled, so are a dozen more. But I have to pull the threads.

She brutalized nobility. I squeeze the red tighter, tighter, until it oozes between my fingers. They will die if they do not leave. I catch at a golden thread, a brown one, and weave them around the lie. But it isn’t a lie anymore. It’s the truth. They should escape Castle Severi and refuse to offer Cora any further help. This is the only choice.

The colors swirl together in a sickening vortex of truths and lies and perspectives and consequences until they cascade through my fingers and out of my grasp.

I can’t hold them anymore.

Clutching my head and falling to my knees, I reel backward. My vision fractures. The throne room carves itself into jagged pieces, splitting into a dozen truths that no one else can see but me. They reflect like shattered glass. They lacerate my mind, bleeding me from the inside out. I clamp my teeth around a scream as the floor falls away beneath me. As everything falls away except those truths.

My lies.

Countess Rikki Sertori crashes to the floor next, her hands clasped tight over her mouth. Seconds ago, she’d been hiding, but that moment doesn’t exist anymore. That version of Rikki is gone forever, replaced by this one. A countess on the verge of vomiting.