32
If possible, I’ve become even more of a pariah since Instructor Alvarez’s death. Aside from my walk along the seawall with Nettie, no one speaks to me. Not even Portia or Myles. I suspect Evie threatened them, but maybe I really am just that much of a liability.
Now that Sin has returned to ignoring me for our safety, I meander to and from lessons on my own, using the time to think about the prisoners in the dungeon.
Queen Sybil kidnapped them. She brought the humans here to torture them—but why?
Sin obviously thinks she’s involved in a larger conspiracy—but how?
And where does Celeste fit into all this?
My head aches with unanswered questions.
The prisoners won’t survive, and there must be a reason for it. A reason why humans have been Bitten and transformed in the past, but now they’re more likely to die. I’m the only one of the new bunch who’s lived… that we know of, anyway.
The amount of soul it would strip from them would shatter their brain and body like a mirror. Too many pieces missing, gone, and impossible to be wholly repaired.
If a werewolf gives up a piece of their soul to whomever they bite, then the werewolves invoking these changes must be weaker after so many experiments.
There must be a sign of it—of them—somewhere.
My hands curl into fists. I promised Sin I wouldn’t go in that dungeon again, and I won’t…
so long as we find a piece of evidence sooner rather than later, a piece we can use to condemn the culprit.
Celeste’s death is tied up in this. My transformation is tied up in this.
The prisoners, this court—it’s all connected.
If only I knew how .
I scoop my hair behind my ear and shuffle up the stairs to my next lesson. I’m so lost in my thoughts that I almost miss the hulking, brooding guard in front of me.
Calix stands outside of Alchemical Designs, his arms crossed and his gaze glowing a vicious yellow.
I glance over his shoulder, into the classroom, and remember our fight.
Remember his smoldering voice and dark gaze.
Is that the best you can do? I flush as his words creep back across my skin.
“Calix,” I say quietly, trying to step around him without making too much eye contact. He moves back into my path.
“No,” he says. “I asked you to stop.”
“What?” Frowning, I raise a brow and attempt to walk past him for a second time.
He most certainly didn’t ask me to stop, yet he still grabs my wrist now to hold me in place.
Whatever nice feelings remained from the gentle way he cleaned my wound vanish in an instant.
Frustration boils my blood. “Are you hallucinating, or is this your version of a joke? Move , Calix.”
Portia darts up the stairs, spots us, and quickly ducks behind Calix to enter the classroom without speaking to me.
If only I could join her. I glower at him, certain my violet eyes are darkening by the second.
“Let go of me,” I snap. His fingers don’t loosen, however.
If anything, they tighten, and he pulls me flush against him right there in the corridor.
“No,” he growls.
Footsteps echo in the stairwell behind me, and then someone places a hand on my shoulder. The touch is laced with wicked heat. Familiar heat. Oh, thank god.
“Cousin,” Sin purrs. “Do you have a reason for accosting our dearest Bitten one in the hallway?”
Sin steps in front of me then, his hand dragging across my back as he pointedly wedges himself between us, going toe-to-toe and chest-to-chest with his larger cousin.
Though Calix releases me, he doesn’t balk away from the prince.
In fact, the guard’s eyes flash and harden.
I stiffen, glancing around Sin’s shoulder, trying to assess the danger.
A scent I’ve never noted before—citrus and vanilla, like a lemon tart—billows around us. Jealousy.
But—but that can’t be right. Not when it’s coming from both of them.
“Nice to run into you.” Calix narrows his eyes and tilts his head. “It’s strange. I was looking for you the other night, but I couldn’t find you. Any ideas where you were?”
Sin laughs, but it sounds wrong. Cold. “If you were looking to borrow a dirty magazine—”
“You were gone again,” Calix growls, and my blood runs colder still. He’s dead serious. Gooseflesh erupts over my arms at the warning in his voice—a warning I’ve only ever heard directed toward me . Sin, however, does not seem nearly as bothered by it as I am.
“I’m allowed to have a life, Calix,” he says with a scoff, still standing in front of me, protecting me. And if Calix didn’t already know about us, he does now. The way he glares at me tells me as much, and he doesn’t like it one bit.
You should’ve stayed away from him.
His eyes blaze brilliant gold. “You know what happens when you go missing.”
Sin relaxes now, sighing heavily and looping an arm around my waist, pulling me away from Calix to lean with him against the stone at our backs. “I know. I’m sorry.”
Calix’s lip curls. “No, you’re not.”
Sin grins—a twitch of his beautiful lips, and completely at odds with his cousin’s brutal features. “No, I’m not.”
“Bastard.”
“Dick.”
“Royal ass.”
“Traitorous leech.”
They exchange barbs the way girls might exchange true, genuine sentiment in a bathroom after midnight, and it is fascinating to observe. Fascinating and terrifying. I can’t seem to breathe as my gaze darts between them, the light and the dark. The prince and his guard.
Laughing out loud now, Sin moves forward to clap Calix on the shoulder, and the tension seems to drain from both their bodies.
When Calix huffs and rolls his eyes, the pressure in my own chest eases slightly.
I don’t want to see them fight. Not about anything, but especially not about me—a pointless concern, I realize when Calix’s irritated gaze meets mine in the next second.
As if he just remembered I’m still here.
I try not to feel insulted.
“You’ve been summoned,” he says simply, as if that explains exactly why he’s kept the three of us trapped outside the classroom.
“For?” Sin asks, inserting himself directly in the middle of the conversation once again, but Calix ignores him, too busy studying my face.
“I—I didn’t do anything,” I hasten to say. “I swear it.”
But Sin’s eyes flick to mine, and—my stomach twists.
Fuck. I did do something. Not only have I fooled around with the prince, but I found a dungeon full of human prisoners across from the lagoon.
Shit. Blood roars in my ears. Though I swallow hard, I maintain careful eye contact, determined not to give Calix a reason to suspect me.
He still registers the new stampede of my pulse, however, and says quietly, “I warned you to be careful.”
“I was,” I respond instinctively, even though it’s a lie, and I wasn’t. I wasn’t .
Shit shit shit.
Dread chills me to the bone. Who could have told on me? There was a guard in the stairwell when Lyra was with me, but she hid me in the lagoon. And— Lyra .
My stomach drops.
I forgot about the Oracle. How could I be so stupid? Of course she must have confessed. She works directly below the queen.
“Hey.” Calix touches my arm—one quick brush that feels as if I’ve been electrocuted.
As if I’ve been damned. I jump away from it—nearly jump out of my skin —and his brow furrows at the overreaction.
He drops his hand instantly. “You need to go. Queen Sybil demanded an audience. If you don’t leave now, she’ll send more guards. Worse guards.”
Sin frowns between us before seizing my hand, squeezing my fingers when they start to tremble. “Everything is going to be all right, Vanessa.” But it’s a lie, and we both know it. Sin has no idea what awaits me in his mother’s rooms. Has no idea what she might have in store. “I’ll go with you—”
“No, you won’t.” Calix shakes his head abruptly, and his tone brooks no argument. “She demanded an audience with Vanessa, not with you.” Then, under his breath, Calix says to Sin, “I hope you know what you’re doing, Cousin.” A pause. “Or she’ll pay the price.”
Though a chill sweeps down my spine, I pretend not to hear him. So does Sin.
Terrified but with no option to argue, I let Calix lead me to the queen’s personal chambers. He doesn’t enter with me either, doesn’t say a word of reassurance as I push open the golden doors. He doesn’t even look at me as I step inside.
When I speak to the queen, it’s alone.
Queen Sybil Severi sits on a throne of gold deep within the heart of her ebony chambers.
Roses smother the space, the air. Black, red, white—so many that their petals wither onto every single piece of furniture and even the queen herself.
She stares at me with the pitch-black eyes of the Wolf Queen.
A title that didn’t always belong to her, but one she wears as if it’s her own flesh and blood. Which, I suppose, it was. It is .
I crouch on my knees before the throne, tangling my hands behind my back to contain my shaking. Roses bloom beneath me, petals opening and tickling my chest when the queen sighs.
She knows. There’s no way she doesn’t know.
I might die. Before she can even stand and slit my throat with her bejeweled claws, I might pass away from terror and fright. I bite my lip, head bowed so low, I can only see the blackened petals before me and the charcoal tile beneath them.
“Would you really bow for an entire day if I didn’t release you?” Queen Sybil drawls.
Hatred snags in my organs, further worsens the knots that have been there since I left for her room. I breathe through flared nostrils, counting to ten. Twenty. It’s better if I don’t speak, if she doesn’t hear the tremble in my voice.
She sighs. “Yes, yes. We understand your obedience. Sit up .”