46 #3
My blood freezes in my veins, and my hands instinctively clench into fists.
The threats hadn’t been Evie. The blood, the mirror…
Every single one happened right when I’d woken up—when I thought I’d woken up.
And the dungeon. The stupid fucking dungeon with its false doorway and its cages and the human prisoners who weren’t prisoners at all.
Who… who might not have even existed. It rushes through me in a blast of heat. A blast of lies .
“You… you’re a liar ,” I hiss, stepping back to Calix’s side. His hand remains, a touchstone to the present, the only thing anchoring me to this moment. “How? How could you do this to me?”
“He already told you”—Cora rises at last after wiping blood from the mangled wolf’s lip—“we needed you, and you are magnificent , darling. Our dearest Bitten, transformed through my son’s own soul, with a gift more deadly than you yet realize—with powers more deadly.
Those purple eyes aren’t purely aesthetic, darling.
You broke an Alpha’s compulsion. If my sister had been a more competent leader, she would have used you, honed you. Of course, under my tutelage—”
Tears burn my eyes until her hateful face blurs. “I would rather die .”
“Don’t be a hero, darling.” She waves a clawed hand at the bodies littering the forest, stepping over Eric’s spine. “They’re vastly overrated.” Evie sobs, and at the sound of it, Cora frowns, as if in confusion. “Why are you still sniveling? Move, Princess , and join your pack.”
Evie’s knees collapse as her compulsion finally breaks.
And—because I can’t do anything else, can’t escape this waking nightmare—I turn my back on Cora and Sin, stalking over to her. I help Portia and Lyra lift her to her feet, checking each of them for injury. Though Evie weeps silently, the rest seem unharmed. “Are you okay?” I whisper to them.
“You ask all the wrong questions, you know,” Lyra whispers right back. Repeating the words she said in the lagoon. In the dream . “You miss all the answers even as they’re in front of you”—a pause—“but the universe spins along as it should.”
Cora’s gaze fixes on the Oracle now, and I resist the urge to step in front of her.
To shield her. “Aren’t you a precious thing?
” Cora touches the tip of her fang in contemplation, and blood wells from the wound on her finger.
It heals twice as fast as anything I’ve seen before.
“Our latest Oracle. Tell me, have you predicted this great victory?”
Lyra inclines her head, her voice a strange mixture of ethereal and guttural. “I have known this day would come since the stars chose me to speak for them. I have seen all that you will do, Cora Severi, just as the Oracle before me knew the same, and the one before that.”
“Cute.” Cora prowls forward to tip Lyra’s head backward, a claw nearly slicing across Lyra’s throat as she examines the prophetess. “Then you must have seen what comes next.”
Lyra smiles sweetly, and her sapphire eyes gleam with knowledge. It feels ominous. Like a threat. “The Ascension must be completed.”
“No.” Cora releases her with a sinister smile. “I do not obey the stars anymore; the stars obey me.”
A beat of silence descends at her words.
Cora seems to relish it—she relishes how Evie cannot tear her gaze away from Nettie, how Portia drops to her knees beside a man with flowers in his hair. How Lyra looks past us all to the dawn, while Calix and Sin stare at each other. Neither willing to move. Neither willing to speak.
Our hope is gone because of her . She stole it from us. Isolated us. We have nowhere to go except to her. To this castle of bones she has built on a landslide of blood-soaked lies.
“Swear your allegiances to this court,” she says, extending her arms, “to me as your queen and my son as your Alpha. Forsake those you lost, and prosper in our new reign.”
The wolves around us begin to paw at the earth with restless energy. Their howls echo through the forest as the sun creeps over the trees. It casts brutal light on what happened here. There is no hiding from it. There is no running.
Together, our gazes rise to Cora.
And instinctively, I know they’re feeling the same. Evie, Portia, Lyra, even Calix—in this moment, we are one. Our pasts no longer exist. There is only our future. We are still surrounded. We are still outnumbered. We have no other choice.
Except—we do. There is always a choice, and I am making this one. I will not cower. I will not be afraid.
When I look at Calix, he looks back at me.
In his bloodred eyes, I see the same fire of vengeance igniting.
Sinclair manipulated me, he used me, he lied to me—to all of us—and now I’m going to do the same to him.
I’m going to make him regret the day he turned me into this monster.
Calix and I will reclaim the castle. We will reclaim our futures.
We will kill them both.
“Vanessa,” Sin murmurs, holding out a hand. His brow furrows just slightly—just enough to betray his hesitation. He glances at Calix, and his frown deepens. “Come here. Please, come here.”
So I do. Repressing a smile, I approach him and his mother. I take his hand, and I entwine my fingers through his. “I will align with you, Cora Severi. I swear my allegiance to your court, with you as my queen.”
Beside me, Sin visibly relaxes. He presses his forehead to mine with a sigh of relief. “It’s going to be okay. We’re going to be okay.” His lips brush my hair, and I want to recoil. But I don’t. “I love you, Vanessa.”
I gaze up at him as the wolves finish howling, as the sun breaks across the clearing, and lay a soft palm on his chest. His heart beats gently against me. It reminds me that he can be broken.
“I love you too, Sin.”
Just as he taught me, I lie.