Page 7 of Devoured

“To celebrate our bountiful circumstances”—Cora’s gaze fixes on me—“I have erected new chambers for all the werewolves in this court. Your old rooms have been demolished. Castle Severi has officially been reclaimed.”

My knees buckle. I can’t stop myself from collapsing back onto my chair as I stare at her, trying and failing to understand.

“Everything old is gone,” Cora says proudly. “Long may we reign.”

But I just—I just left my room. Hours ago, I sat on my bed, smelled the sheets that still carried Oona’s daisy scent, sprayed the perfume that reminded me of cherries and summertime and Celeste. I braided my hair in front of the mirror and washed invisible bloodstains from my hands in the tub. And now it’s… gone? I reject the thought even as my mind accepts its truth. Because of course my room is gone now too.

She burned it. She burned all of it. My memories, the traces of the dead, the only pieces I had left of my friends—

Gone.

Cora smiles that wicked smile at me, and the black smoke seems to dance around her in sadistic revelry. “As an engagement present, I have arranged for you to stay in the new southern turret with Sinclair.”

No. The castle walls tilt around me. No no no.

“This wasn’t the time for this,” Sin says brusquely, but he doesn’t do anything more than that. He just sits there like a beautiful marionette.

I hate him, and I can’t live with him. I’m trying to stage a revolution. I’m trying to murder him and all his allies. How am I supposed to do that if I’m forced to remain directly under his nose?

“Separate rooms, of course, but just until the mating ceremony is completed. And you know,” Cora drawls, “once a mating ceremony is completed, it can never be reversed.”

My stomach drops. I can’t help the hushed “What?” that falls from my lips. What the hell does she mean “it can never be reversed”?

Cora grins wickedly. “Werewolf mating is a very serious custom, Vanessa. The only way to absolve a union is with death. And should you choose to remain united without being faithful…” She looks at Sin. “Do you want to tell her, Son, or shall I?”

“If either of us is ever unfaithful, we’ll die,” he says without glancing at me. Says, as if he’s mumbling about lentils and beans again.

I want to rage. Scream. Demand to know what unfaithful means in their hideous world. But with the way they’re all staring at me—even Evie, even Calix—I know the truth. There won’t be any betraying and killing Sinclair once we’re mated. There won’t be any way out of this other than with my own death.

That gives me… three months. At most.

I can’t do anything but gape at them both. Foolishly, I assumed I had time to right all her wrongs. Time for vengeance. Time to murder the boy I loved.

But I don’t.

No wonder she wants Sin and me mated so badly. Once it happens, I’ll have no way out.

It’s only a game—and I’m two steps behind. Again.

My chest heaves as I fight the emotions pricking my flesh. My fangs burn. Pain ripples through my bones as they shift, as they beg for me to transform.

“If she doesn’t want to mate with the prince, then I will,” Amethyst hisses in that snarky, bright tone of hers. Jasper chuckles beside her. All while Lyra shivers on the floor beneath them, and the flaming chasm in my chest opens its jaws wide and roars.

I don’t think. I react.

Snatching a gilded steak knife from the table, I hurl it faster than anyone can breathe. Amethyst screams in the next second. The knife protrudes from her left arm, buried deep in the bone.

Amethyst fingers the scarlet oozing around the wound, then grips the handle and pulls the blade out with a muffled yelp. The stench of copper blood washes over the room before she can even contemplate retaliation. And, of course, she will retaliate. I turn to face her, prepared to catch the knife seconds before she launches it straight at me.

I’m not the one to catch the knife, however.

Sin stands, seizing it without flinching. He closes his fist around the serrated blade. “That’s enough.” He slams the knife on the table in front of me. Blood dribbles over the porous wood.

There is no part of the prince I loved left in those two words. No humor, no ease, no teenage arrogance. He pivots on his heel, staring down at me with a flicker of something unreadable in his gaze. “We do not harm one another in this court. This is a new regime.” He glances at his mother, at the Wolf Queen, who watches her son with a twisted sort of pride that makes me sick. “We swore to herald an age of peace, and if any of you cannot acquiesce to that…” He looks back at me now, those burgundy eyes molten. As though I’m the problem here.

I want to laugh. God, I want to laugh so badly. What part of this regime seems peaceful to him? I think about asking if he plans on punishing me, just as Sybil had so many weeks ago, but he won’t understand. He won’t see the parallels. To Sin and Cora, their violence is a means to an end. Their violence is excused.

“Sorry.” Picking up his goblet of wine, I take a cool sip. He holds my gaze for one more second—for one more breath—before he storms away from the table to Amethyst’s side and then leads her carefully out of the hall. Probably taking her to the infirmary.