Page 30 of Devoured

And then I am a wolf.

Large. Black. Vicious.

“Calix,” Sin breathes beside me. But I do not hear him.

I do not hear much of anything right now.

The world shifts before my eyes, a kaleidoscope of gray as I aim my sight toward my intended victim. A young woman left shaking and alone in the closet. My head tilts sharply. There is the auburn of her hair. The tan hue of her skin. The brown of her eyes—brown, not violet. But the rest of the earth is muted.

I prowl forward slowly, exhaling plumes of blackened smoke with a low growl.

The girl throws herself backward, farther into the closet, her nails raking down the walls as her knees buckle. She trips over a fallen broom. A broken picture frame. Seven shallow wounds trickle blood down her legs. Injured. Weakened. She reaches down, grabs a sharp edge of the frame, and tries to hurl it at me.

I pause. Glance down.

The frame lands inches from my feet. Directly between us.

“P-please,” she murmurs then. Her voice is soft and gentle. Like Vanessa’s, some distant part of me thinks, but I file it away. She is not Vanessa, and I am a predator. I am a General, and this girl is my victim, and I know what I have to do.

“Please, don’t hurt me. Please, please, there must be another way. I’ll do anything—”

I lunge, and that soft, gentle plea ends on a scream.

12

VANESSA

SNEAKING OUT OF THE CASTLE IS BOTH EASIER AND more of a pain in the ass than I expected.

A ripped piece of parchment creases between my fingers, red ink smearing like blood across my palms. Storm clouds have darkened the sunset outside of Castle Severi to a noxious swirl of bitter gray and dull orange as I creep out of the southern turret and into the Realm of Superiority. Into the forest that has become a graveyard. I hesitate as the door closes behind me, and a harsh breath lodges in my throat.

A mess of earth covers the once-effervescent meadow in werewolf-sized mounds, the fetid stench still thick in the air even as rain batters the weeds tangled over the decayed corpses. That angry smattering of clouds seems to reach for the earth, clinging to the trees, smothering the stardust that once drifted from branch to branch like a dazzling, mystical glitter. Except for the rain, the forest is entirely still now.

Entirely lifeless.

I take a small step. Then another. Memories haunt me as my boots squelch in the mud, and the eerie quiet rattles my bones. An echo of screams shifts through the trees, dead branches groaning from the wind and rain and despair.

It doesn’t just remind me of the massacre; it reminds me of Lyra.

Swallowing, clutching that damned piece of parchment to my chest, I move deeper into the forest. Weaving through the first row of trees, through the second and third and fourth, until I’m farther than I’ve been before. I exhale in relief at the unfamiliar surroundings—so much better than unmarked graves—but pause at the strange tingle in my throat. The pressure in my chest. With each step, the air seems to thin, becoming brittle, painful, in my lungs.

Not good.

When leaves rustle behind me a second later, my heart stutters, and I whirl—in case of werewolves or monsters or god knows what else—but there is no one here. Only the trees, and the steady rain, and a slow rumble of thunder overhead. Pushing damp hair and sweat from my face, I glance again at the picture Evie drew for me.

A freaking flower. That’s why she sent me out here, although her explanation was far more colorful than that.

“Ghostbane,” she said. “A flower I can brew into a fate worse than death.”

But it doesn’t look very ghostly. Three small leaves blossom from a slender stem, while seven petals encircle a diamond-sized pistil. Evie wasn’t certain where, exactly, it’d be located, only that it can be found here, in this realm, during winter.

Sunset will finish in under twenty minutes. If I want to make sure no one else ends up hurt or dead, I need to be quick. I can’t let anyone catch me here.

My lungs continue to ache, my skin flushed with an unnatural heat as I wipe more sweat and rain from my brow. I search the forest for any sign of the flower, but there are only the blackened husks of mushrooms and crackling sticks buried under scattered piles of orange leaves. So I stalk deeper, kicking over rocks and peering behind tree trunks. My head throbs with a new ache, my hands trembling as I stumble into another empty meadow.

Empty—save for the abandoned gate in the center, the door open wide and revealing nothing beyond it but more meadow.

Ivy knots around ancient wrought iron, a stone pathway leading straight to the gateway before vanishing. On my side of the meadow, rain pours. But on the other side—I tilt my head, eyes narrowed in confusion, in wonder—it snows.