Page 139 of Devoured

Surviving without Calix has been hell.

“If you want me to crawl inside her brain, you should know… I’m going to see whatever she shows me. So if there are any secrets you’re keeping that she’s heard in your thoughts—”

“There aren’t,” he says. Too quickly. Too tensely.

I raise a knowing brow. “Calix.” He scowls at me, so I continue. “You can barely say Vanessa’s name without blowing a gasket. If you’ve been involved with my future mate in any sort of way, maybe I shouldn’t… see it.” For all our sakes.

I’m not an idiot. I’ve noticed their long glances. I’ve seen the way she smiles at him, the barest twitch of her lips when his back is turned. I watched the way he fell to his knees when we found her collapsed in the throne room. The way he lifted her in his arms without a moment’s hesitation.

I know it all too well.

I just, selfishly, don’t want to see it up close. In vivid detail. Splashed across Arielle’s mind.

“We could find Arielle a very comfy cot in the infirmary,” I offer.

He growls. “You’re a bastard, Sinclair.”

“Yes, I suppose I am.”

His jaw tightens as he grinds his teeth. “Just invade her dreams already and bring her out. I’d hate for her to miss your big day.”

“Okay,” I say easily. “But we’re going to have to knock her out first. She needs to be asleep.”

Fortunately, I do not see my cousin in Arielle’s dreams.

Unfortunately, shades of Cora flood the liminal space of the girl’s mind. Blacks and grays and blood, blood reds. They seep down the walls and over the floor, viscous as paint, as if a leak has sprung and there is no way to drain them. Arielle sits in the midst of it, curled into a ball, rocking back and forth as those sludge colors rise to her stomach. She doesn’t seem to care that she’s about to drown.

I force my legs to walk through the mess, and she lifts her head at the sound. “Prince Sinclair?” She blinks rapidly at me. “Are you—are you really here?”

I swagger toward her with a roguish wink. “What do you think?”

She groans, however, as if I’m the last person she wants to see. “God. Of course you’re here.” She throws her head in her hands and groans again.

I laugh as if I don’t care at all. “My ego is mildly wounded, I must admit.”

“I’m sorry. It’s just—if she somehow finds out you’re seeing this, she is going to kill me.” She glances up with wide brown eyes. “I have tried really hard to stay alive, and…” Her words drift off as she tilts her head. Her gaze narrows on mine. “Why can’t I hear your thoughts?”

“You’re dreaming,” I tell her. “We aren’t really here. Dreams don’t work like reality.”

“Oh.” She wrinkles her nose, and those colors continue to rise. Past her elbows, past her biceps, past her chest. She makes no move to stand. No move to leave. I swipe a hand toward the corner of the room, and a grate appears. The thick colors slowly begin to drain away. She glances down, jolting in surprise.

“Shall we leave?” I offer her a chivalrous hand.

But she just stares at the drain. Stares and stares. “No.” A firm shake of her head. “I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because the second I wake up from whatever this is, the queen is going to murder me.”

I don’t bother mentioning that Cora would never murder Arielle. A Mind Reader is far too valuable of a talent to give up. “I’m sure she won’t.”

Arielle’s gaze flicks to mine. She frowns. “Don’t be stupid. She’s been killing people for months.”

“Then, why—”

“I can read thoughts, Prince Sinclair, and I—I accidentally read hers. I’m the worst kind of liability.” She leans back on her hands now that the colors are gone. Although, red still stains her skin, her clothes. “Being stuck here is better than being beheaded. Or gutted. Or disemboweled.” She shudders as each of these memories flickers on the wall behind her, as if in a film reel of her most gruesome memories.

I watch through Arielle’s eyes as my mother murders half a dozen werewolves, seemingly at random, with her bare hands. A creeping sense of dread prickles up my spine. It stings like ice. “What thought did you read, Arielle?”