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He screams and scrabbles away, but he is no match for me, strength to strength, not anymore.

Even without a name, I am a horror beyond his comprehension.

Before he can squeal, I pick him up again and slam him hard onto the dais with a sickening crack.

Lyle shudders as my teeth spear his half-rotted, abominable body, his limbs finally, finally going limp.

“Please,” he whimpers. “Please, I only wanted revenge.”

And I do stop. I think of the child bride I was, the one who was betrayed for the crime of falling in love. I think of the men who cut me down and made me rise a monster. Of the revenge I’ve sought for hundreds of years, only to find myself empty.

I open my jaws and Lyle collapses, sobbing in his half-formed, half-devoured state.

I slam my hand through his chest wall to the still beating heart inside of him. It’s not rotted yet; it squelches prettily in my palm, warm and needful. Lyle chokes, dark blood flooding his lips.

“You hurt the woman I love. You deserve to live with your pain.”

His heart explodes inside my clenched fist. I watch as he bleeds, the meat of him going spoiled and foul. He writhes away from me, clutching the gap in his chest, rasping words I don’t care to understand.

I wipe my hand on his shirt and turn to survey the scene.

I don’t know where Whittaker is, but violence and triumph taste the same in my mouth: so very sweet. I raise my hands, walking beneficently toward the crowd of huddled vættir at the chapel’s door. Power sings through me, heady and strong. I am so close to being free of this hellish place. I just have to destroy them first.

Then—and only then—I will find Lacie.

“There is no way out,” I say in English. And then add, “Óttastu dauðann sem þú hefur skapað, því hann mætir þér.”

“Poetic.”

The voice rips me in two. Something so very fragile I’ve held inside me shatters, and I turn slowly. Unbelieving. Afraid, I realize. For the second time today, I am afraid.

Lacie’s monstrous body is as beautiful as her human one: narrow-boned and glowing, talons glinting slick and lethal.

I find I cannot say a single word as she walks toward me. I am awestruck by her power, the sheer glimmer of it on her skin.

She crooks a talon under my chin, a fish on her hook. My insides twist tight. Fuck. I have no right to want her ever again. I changed her, I drank down her energy like it was mine to take. She trusted me, and I killed her.

Her expression curls into a smile, baring endless needle-sharp teeth. “I want to hate you,” she says, her voice the roar of the ocean. “But I can’t.”

The words in my throat loosen, finally, mercifully, and I fall to my knees before her. Gripping her hands, I kiss her bloodied palms. “I am sorry, lamb. I am so, so terribly sorry. I could think of no other way to make sure you lived.”

“So you killed me?”

There’s no anger there, but there is a brush of inquisitiveness, the spark of curiosity I fell in love with her for. Raising my eyes to hers, I nod. This time, I am here as supplicant, not as judge.

Her torn, wretched, beautiful face turns away and everything stands quite still. Even the vættir jostling at the door stop screaming. This is exactly who she is. World-ending, perfect, rageful.

“Fear the death you have wrought, for it has returned to you,” she murmurs, repeating the translation of my Old Norse back to me. “Pretty.” She pulls me to my feet. “And true.”

She grips my head and kisses me hard, twining us tight together. Heat flares inside of me, my eyes gathering and spilling tears as our teeth gnash together, my tongue pricked and bleeding.

I would bleed for her forever.

“I’m sorry,” I say into her mouth, to her too-sharp teeth and all her new edges, her torn skin and reshaped bone and the darkness and rage I freed.

“Don’t be,” she says, and releases me. “This is who I’ve always been.”

I give her a smile, tearful and all hers. “Lacie, lamb. Let’s burn it the fuck down.”