10 #2
But that feeling is a lie. I do not care about my purple eyes—about being a different kind of monster from the rest. Someone here killed Celeste.
Sin knows. The Wolf Queen knows. They have to.
Hatred sears through me, a loathing so intense that I can hardly breathe.
My muscles twitch. Slightly. Barely at all.
But it’s enough to feel as if I’m in control again.
Over my dead body will I ever join them.
The Wolf Queen shakes her head. “Intelligence is a severely underrated skill, but one I hope you look to now. You could be so much more than another victim. We rule everything, Miss Hart. Everything.”
A shudder racks my spine, and the Wolf Queen’s eyes narrow.
“You are strong, but you cannot resist my compulsions. I am above you—above all —in the court hierarchy. Thus, when I ask you to transform back, you will have a single moment to decide which path to take. Be wise. I would hate to kill a Bitten with so much potential.”
Sin sucks in a breath. Holds it. The rest of the room descends into silence, leaving me with a vicious maelstrom of thoughts. I hate them. I hate myself. I can’t be a monster. I’ve already lost so much. Too much.
If I refuse, however, what will happen to me?
My father all but abandoned me to the wolves.
If I return to him, what will stop him from doing it all over again?
I don’t think I’d survive the betrayal twice.
And even if he didn’t, how could I possibly go back to my old life?
Everything has changed— everything —and my friends probably think I’m dead too.
I wonder what he told them. I wonder if they threw a memorial for Celeste and me—if they decorated our lockers with flowers or held a vigil.
Even her name aches in my chest. It feels all at once too painful to ever acknowledge, yet also hollow, as if I am the one who bled out in the street.
Celeste.
I haven’t avenged her. With the red haze fading, I can admit that I haven’t even come close. I glance up, and the Wolf Queen inclines her head. It seems I have run out of time. “Vanessa Hart, I command you to return to your human form.”
My bones crack at once. My back breaks. The wolf vanishes in an explosion of brutal force.
Pain throttles me to the core, and suddenly I’m back in that prison with the ghost of Celeste bleeding beside me. Gripping the floor with human hands, human nails, I retch and shake. The wolf is gone. And I—I can think again. Really, truly think without that haze of red turning me into a beast.
Oh god. Oh god oh god oh god.
What have I done? What have I become ? I curl up on the floor, gasping for air, as Sin rips down the tapestry and throws it over my bare body.
“We should’ve given her more time,” Sin says, standing in front of me. Shielding me from his mother. I hold the corners of the tapestry around myself. As though if I let go, I’ll shatter again.
“That tapestry has remained in the throne room since this castle was founded by our faerie ancestors.”
“Then perhaps it’s time to purchase something a little less dusty,” Sin says. His voice turns suddenly dark. In control. And I… I think I’ve heard it before. Not just at the beach.
Outside of my prison.
Fight it , he’d said. It… it was him .
“She’s been through too much. There’s no way she’ll make the proper choice.”
“Do not speak with such disrespect. I am queen—”
“And as queen, you should know that her alliance is more important than immediacy.” Sin’s claws descend from his hands, sharper and longer than his mother’s. An ebony so deep, it looks infinite. “There’s no way she’ll even speak—”
It’s enough. That challenge, that condescension, is enough for me to open my mouth and form a single, coherent thought.
“Who did it?” I rasp, rising first onto my knees and then onto my feet.
The process is painful, arduous, but still I manage.
I lift my chin, clutching the tapestry to my body. “Which one of you k-killed her?”
The Wolf Queen appraises me with an inscrutable expression on her beautiful face. “We do not know.”
“You—you liars !” I lunge forward, but Sin restrains me.
Wraps an arm around my waist and hauls me against him with such force that I can’t even try to move.
He’s strong. He might be stronger than his mother.
I glare up at him, but he only smiles at me.
A taunting, teasing glimmer in those burgundy eyes. Alpha.
“Believe me,” the Wolf Queen hisses, “no one would like to know what happened on the island more than I. The entire situation is a mess I cannot afford.”
A mess I cannot afford.
“What about you?” I stare at the boy beseechingly. A blond halo of hair falls over his thick brows. His jaw could cut through diamonds. His grin might be the most gorgeous grin I’ve ever seen. And I will rip it off his face if I have to. I will.
Even the thought feels feebler now than it did before. Instinct tells me to run from it—to run from myself. From my rage.
His eyes narrow slightly. Perhaps he can read my thoughts—or perhaps he can hear my heart pounding violently in my chest. “I did not kill your friend.”
“How—how do I know you’re telling the truth?”
He holds me tighter. “I did not. Kill. Your. Friend.” His voice cuts low. Dangerous. And his eyes shine brighter, redder. “You can ask the others too, but they’ll all tell you the same. Even Evie.”
My heart stops beating. My chest threatens to cave in.
No.
The enormity of the task before me crashes down upon my head.
Because I—I don’t even know where to begin.
The prince… Sin is right. No one here will ever admit to murdering Celeste.
I’ll have to trick them, or—or find conclusive evidence.
Which means I have nothing. Nothing to go on except Evie’s haughty expression and hatred of Celeste—and if tonight is any indication, I won’t be able to coerce her into a confession.
Not with the queen around. Not with the prince—with Sin —as her fiancé.
I’d attacked Evie on instinct, and though the queen tolerated it once, I don’t think she will again. I have no power here.
I have nothing.
The floor falls out from under me at the realization.
I almost collapse. Would collapse if Sin wasn’t scooping me up into his arms. He cradles me against a firm, heated chest, but I barely feel it enough to resist. Barely feel anything.
They can’t get away with this. Celeste’s parents will bury her.
They’ll say it was some freak accident— roadkill , I remember them saying—and then they’ll clean out her room.
They’ll sell her car. Everything that is Celeste will be erased.
Forever. And I… I won’t be able to stop them.
Not from here. And especially not if I’m dead.
A decision looms heavy over my head. I can let them kill me. Bet it would be quick enough. But I can see her ghost still, in the corner of my eye, a phantom of blue hair and red wounds. I hear her laugh. My favorite sound in the world.
I can’t leave her like that. Like this.
I promised.
“You’ll train me?” I ask slowly.
The Wolf Queen nods. “After the First Rite, you will join the nobility. You can become so much more than you are now.”
I chew on the inside of my lip and glance around the room. Torches flare, the flickering flames bouncing from wall to wall. Our shadows lengthen, the edges wrong and crooked, making us look every bit like the monsters we are inside.
“Decide,” the Wolf Queen orders, but it’s not a real command. It’s not a compulsion.
Do I die now? Or do I try to do what I couldn’t for Celeste when she was still alive?
“I don’t want to be weak,” I admit, thinking of my best friend. Her laughter. Her screams.
“Good.” The Wolf Queen combs back her hair with her claws. “We may have underestimated you, Miss Hart.”
“Seems we have,” Sin whispers at my ear.
I ignore him and the shiver that follows. “Don’t kill me. I’ll stay. I’ll learn.”
“Do you swear your allegiance to your court and future pack?” The Wolf Queen runs a claw along her sleeve. Slices it off. It flutters to the ground before she plunges the claw into her wrist. Blood pours from the wound, and I suck in a sharp breath, startled.
“A blood pact,” she explains. “That was my gift from the Cassiopeia constellation under which I had my First Rite. Swear your allegiance and give me your wrist. Once this is done, you will belong to my court and command as long as we both shall live.”
I hesitate.
Blood drips onto the tiles. I flinch at the sight.
Red red red
“It will only hurt for a second,” Sin says. “The pact will heal you once it is enacted.”
Two choices stand before me, and I find myself holding out my hand.
Resolve hardens in my chest—right where Celeste used to be.
I will not let them kill me. I will make them pay.
Determined now, with the prince still holding me in his arms, I offer my hand.
It only trembles a little, and the Wolf Queen accepts it with a merciful touch.
I’m so sorry I didn’t fight harder, Celeste. I’ll do better this time. I swear it. I blink away the last of my tears and pain and hold my head high. “I swear my allegiance to my court and future pack.”
The Wolf Queen cuts my wrist and yanks my open vein against hers.
“It is done,” she says, as my skin blisters to the touch.
A second of burning—of bleeding—and then a golden light spills from the connection.
It heals me from the inside out. “Welcome to the Wolf Queen’s Court, Vanessa Hart. We are so very pleased to have you.”