20 #2
“Why would he do that?”
“Why does anyone do anything in our world? Power. Not quite the perk he thought it’d be, though.” Sin grins, flashing those straight white teeth in the glow of the trident. “It singed off his eyebrows the first time he used it. He had to pencil them on for six months.”
I want to laugh at that, but I don’t. I can’t. I’ve never been alone with someone like Sin. Not like this. “Why is it here?” I ask instead, wrapping my arms around my waist to keep from trembling. “In a broom closet?”
He shuts the door behind us, and darkness engulfs the rest of the tiny room.
“Because this is a room for useless and fiendish things. Experiments gone wrong. Cursed treasure, spilled secrets, spoiled faerie fruit, and the like—anything my mother deems too dangerous to keep and too precious to destroy.”
I glance at the shelves around us, filled with row upon row of ancient tomes.
Knives. Sealed jars of mysteriously burning fire—blue and white and gold.
They illuminate an evil-looking opal necklace on a bed of red velvet.
A glittering gilt comb with razor-sharp teeth.
“And your mother just leaves this room unlocked?” I ask incredulously.
Sin flashes an iron key between his fingers before slipping it back into his pocket. “I like to come in here sometimes when I want to be alone. To think.”
Truth.
“In here ,” I repeat. Then, shaking my head as an actual broom in the corner inches closer to eavesdrop—“No one in their… their right mind would consider this place relaxing.”
“I’m certain I don’t know what you mean.”
My eyes narrow on him—on the heat lighting up my chest—and the word flies from my lips before I can stop it. “Liar.”
His grin widens. “Your powers are very bad for this court, Vanessa.”
“Truth.”
“Good girl,” he murmurs, and he moves closer still, though I don’t know how that’s possible. I’m so glad for the dim lighting—that I don’t have to witness my own bad decisions.
His hand cups my cheek, his fingers brushing along my skin. The touch steals my breath. Steals my every thought.
Why am I here again? What questions did I want to ask?
Something about a bite, about my change, about—about Celeste .
I leap backward, crashing into the nearest shelf.
One of its many crystal balls spills from the ledge, but Sin catches it with ease before it shatters on the floor.
The opaque liquid within it swirls ominously.
“More faulty creations.” He gestures to the rest of the gently swirling orbs.
“According to Lyra, these fail to show the future. Instead, they show the past or the present. Dreams instead of reality.” For just an instant, I see his handsome face reflected upon its dusty surface, but then he places the orb on the shelf once more. His reflection vanishes.
“We shouldn’t be here, Sin. Someone might see us.”
“What if I don’t care?” At my startled expression, he sighs. “The court has enough rules that I worry about breaking. We needed a private place to talk. But”—he opens the door an inch, allowing in a sliver of torchlight—“if it makes you feel better.”
But I don’t know if it does make me feel better. He’s been ignoring me in public for so long… why should that change now? So I shut the door, if only a little.
He laughs. “You’re an enigma, Vanessa Hart. Do you know that?”
“I— me ?” Of all the enigmas in this castle, in this very room, I would hardly count myself as one of them.
In fact, I’ve always been rather simple.
I like watching movies. I like playing volleyball and going to the beach and scrolling on my phone.
I’m… just like every other girl. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Sin shakes his head, however, as if I’m anything but. “You and Kat… You didn’t try to cheat once during your match. She was seconds from crushing your throat in her hands, and you just lay there.”
“You were watching?” I snatch a quilt from his hands. Throw it onto another shelf. “I—I could’ve died .”
“You didn’t call for help,” he says. “Why not?”
“Because asking for help…” I throw my hands in the air, exasperated.
“Asking for help doesn’t do anything. It didn’t save me from turning into a monster.
It didn’t stop Celeste from dying. I’m not going to give anyone here the satisfaction of reveling in my fear again.
That’s all Katerina wanted.” I lift my chin, finding his burgundy eyes in the dim light. “I won’t let them.”
He doesn’t speak, and the tension in the room only thickens. Finally, he says, “Ask me.”
The silence shatters. But I don’t know what to say. “What?”
“Your questions. We have five minutes at most before Shepherd dismisses everyone. So ask me your questions and hear my answers.” When I don’t respond right away, he says, “Four minutes, darling. Make them count. And give me your hand.”
I frown.
“Please,” he adds.
And so I do. He takes my palm, splays it open wide as his fingers trail a path that Portia carved only minutes ago. Back when my heart was steady, and my stomach didn’t feel as if it were mid–roller coaster.
“If you want to pull your claws and fangs out quickly, you have to concentrate on the emotion that you experience the strongest. For each wolf it’s different, and it usually reveals itself during that first transition.
When our souls split, they find their way back to each other with that common thread.
A tether, if you will. How did you feel?
Harness that. Focus on it. Let it consume you for those seconds.
The transition won’t be painless, but it will be fast, and then it will be over. ” He grins softly. “Three minutes.”
There’s no time to think. To contemplate the right question to ask at the right time. I blurt out, “You were at the beach that night. Why?”
“It was a pack outing. We’re allowed them only when the Wolf Queen approves.”
A viscous warmth soothes my bones. He’s being honest. “Did everyone go?”
“The only person who stayed behind was Portia. She ate some kale that didn’t agree with her.”
Another truth. I nod, and my heart leaps into my throat. “Did you know it would happen?”
“Did I know your friend would die and you would…” He shakes his head. “No. I didn’t.”
“And you—” My voice breaks. For the first time in days, tears begin to water in my eyes. It takes all my strength to keep them there. To not let them fall. “Did you… were you one of the ones…”
Sin closes his fist around my hand, squeezing. “Go on, Vanessa. Please. One last time.”
I shut my eyes, unable to bear looking at him. Seeing his answer. “Did you kill Celeste?”
“No.” He lifts my chin, his thumb running across my lower lip. My mouth falls open with my eyes. “I did not kill your friend. Your friend deserved better, and I will never not be sorry for your loss.”
Truth. Truth. Truth.
I breathe a sigh of relief, and it might as well be the sky opening up again. Washing away the worst of my worries and fears.
It wasn’t Sin. No matter what, it wasn’t him.
“Your turn,” he murmurs, still holding my hand in his. “Try to summon your claws.”
I stare at my hand. Strain until my bones quake. But nothing sprouts. Nothing even changes. “It’s not working.”
“You’re not focusing on your emotions.”
“I am!”
“Are you, though? These outbursts you have—they make you a threat. They mean you’re allowing your emotions to control you. Perhaps Evie was right, and you’re meant to be fertilizer on our lawn. You can join the others this court has murdered—”
That does it. Fury unleashes itself from my chest and bursts forth in a red-hot streak of adrenaline and torment. I twist around Sin, grab his hand, and force his arm behind his back with a snarl.
“There you go,” he murmurs. “I knew you could do it.”
He looks over his shoulder with a grin, and I follow his gaze to our hands. My hand. Four claws have sprouted beautifully, quickly but not painlessly, from my fingers. I loosen my grip on him but don’t let go.
“Rage,” he says. “You were born with rage as your anchor. You’ll have to learn to control it in order to use it, and it’ll take some time. But now you know.”
“Rage,” I repeat through numb lips. It feels strange, foreign yet familiar on my tongue.
I’ve never considered myself a particularly angry person.
Or rather, I’ve never allowed myself to be.
No one likes anger in someone else—especially in a woman.
It makes them uncomfortable. Defensive. Most people even resent it.
Celeste’s death seems to have unlocked something, however—something that has always been inside me but I’ve never acknowledged. I’m not sure how I feel about that.
As if sensing my uncertainty, Sin murmurs, “Rage is an emotion like any other, Vanessa. And just like any other, you can choose to succumb to it or use it to your advantage—embrace it when it serves you, and repress it when it doesn’t.”
Embrace it when it serves you, and repress it when it doesn’t.
The truth of his words wash over me and—and I can do that.
I did do that. Almost. Somewhat. He threw Evie in my face, and I used it to my advantage.
I didn’t shift, but it’s closer than I’ve ever gotten before.
“What is the deal with you and Evie?” I ask suddenly.
“She isn’t your fiancée yet, but it’s already been arranged.
You refuse to talk to me in public, but you whisk me into”—I extend my arms around us, knocking over an enormous portrait of a naked woman—“magical storage closets when no one is looking?”
Sin snatches the portrait away before I can straighten it. “Speaking of not looking ,” he says swiftly, “don’t make eye contact with this one. She’ll turn you to stone if you do.”
“Maybe pick a safer place for our next secret rendezvous.”
Ignoring me, Sin says, “And yes, the deal with me and Evie is that our parents expect us to marry in the not-so-distant future. We still haven’t made it official, though. I am to propose during the Ascension.”