Chapter 46
ELLE
Cora grips the back of my head, her fingers tangled in the roots of my hair. My eyes are wild as I look from Mae to Marik, praying that they have some plan to get me out of this.
“If this is who you choose, then she’s mine now,” Cora snarls in Marik’s direction. Her nails dig into my scalp. I squeeze my eyes shut, desperate not to make a sound. I refuse to give her that. “We had a deal, remember?”
Marik holds his hands up, palms facing us. As if she can be reasoned with.
“What is this, Marik? What is she to you? She’s a nobody,” Cora spits.
Marik glances from Cora, back to me. His eyes are frenzied, panicked. He doesn’t know what to do. Any attack on Cora will surely kill me. There’s no reason for her to keep me alive.
She’s right. I am just a nobody. My parents are nobodies, just a seamstress and a carpenter. Just a nobody girl from a nothing town.
My hand twitches, ready to blindly fire at this cunt who holds me hostage. But she binds them behind my back. Hot breath tickles my ear as she whispers, “I will cut your hands off if they move again. Or I’ll just kill you. Do you understand?”
“Fuck. You,” I grind out.
The pressure on my scalp eases. But then, a lick of pain shoots up my spine as she digs her iron-sharp nails into my antlers, nail piercing bone. A scream crawls up my throat and cuts through the air.
“Cora!” Marik’s voice booms over my scream. “Enough. She has nothing to do with this.”
Her nails dig deeper and my vision blurs. The room flashes to black and I try so, so hard to grasp onto consciousness. But it flickers with every wave of pain.
“Liar,” Cora spits. Her hand on my antlers retreats, and I fight the bile that rises at the lingering pain.
Any relief I had is temporary, because her hand now grips my throat.
I gasp at the feeling of her nails embedded in my neck.
Warm blood trickles down, between my breasts, dipping below the collar of my dress.
My heart rate doubles and I urge it to slow, to stop pumping blood faster.
Marik’s eyes darken as they track the blood. Mae and Asmo stand frozen in place as they watch the scene unfold.
Cora cackles, and the hair on the back of my neck raises. “I see…” she mutters. “Does she know? When were you going to tell her, Marik?”
My mind races at her questions. Do I know what?
Do I know what? I fire at Marik.
He ignores me.
“Take me,” Marik says, taking slow, measured steps toward me. “Take me, Cora. I know I messed up. Let me make it up to you.”
Cora’s nails dig deeper. My back arches in pain. I don’t know when I started crying, but tears stream down my face in silent pleas.
Marik drops to his knees. “Please, Cora. Take me instead. I beg you.”
Why? Why are you doing this for me?
“How sweet,” Cora’s voice drips with apathy. But her hands rip from my neck and she tosses me to the side like trash. Asmo dashes toward me and pulls me to my feet, back to Mae. She stares at my neck, at the five different holes still streaming with blood.
When I look back, Marik is in Cora’s arms. They embrace, and my stomach roils. Cora’s hands wrap around his waist, slender hands clinging to him.
Her next words are a whisper, yet they clang through me all the same.
“What makes you think I still want you?”
Marik’s body convulses as Cora shoots lightning into his back. He drops to the ground with a thud. The male who seemed so untouchable, so unbeatable, so full of evil and hate and wrath, is…he’s too quiet, too limp, too…
Something in my chest cracks. Something is wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. I grab my chest, clawing at it, at the way my own body feels like it’s dying, like something is terribly, terribly wrong.
And then Mae is gone. She is a whirlwind of ice and fire and wind and earth as she slams into Cora with a scream that I swear could crack the earth open.
The remaining hybrids drag the injured to the sides of the room, out of the way of the carnage.
They don’t attempt to get Marik, who lays lifeless on the floor, feet away from Cora.
Asmo is frozen, his eyes glassy as he watches his brother. Is there something deep inside of him that wishes he would stir, too?
Mae hurls white fire, but Cora easily deflects it. She hurls ice, but Cora melts it with a flick of her wrist. Every single movement is easily blocked. Mae might be powerful, but she’s no match for the First Witch.
A writhing ball of black magic catches Mae on the arm and she yelps in pain. It snaps Asmo and me back into focus. We join Mae, each of us firing shot after shot at Cora. I pour every single ounce of magic into sending her back to whatever hell she crawled from.
But she’s too strong. And it’s just the three of us. And I can barely summon what I used to.
Mae faces her, pale and posture slumped, swaying on her feet. My neck wounds keep healing, then tearing open, fresh blood mixing with dried blood.
Cora stares at us with a pitiful smile. “I admire your tenacity, sweetheart. But you can’t defeat me.”
“Then I’ll die trying,” Mae spits.
Cora says something else, but I’m too distracted to hear.
Behind her, Marik shifts on the floor, and the ache in my chest lessens.
His skin is sallow and sweat gleams along his forehead.
He smears blood from the cut on his cheek, now open and bloody once again.
He draws something in the dirt with his hand.
He looks at me one more time, his dark eyes gleaming with something that I can’t grasp.
He wraps his hand around Cora’s ankle. She whirls and tries to yank herself free.
But she’s too late. A portal opens beneath him, black nothingness reflecting through into oblivion.
He drags her into the portal with him. And closes it shut behind him.
I stare at the ground where the portal was. Where Marik was. I refuse to blink. I refuse to believe it was that simple. But the seconds turn into minutes. And Cora doesn’t return.
A whisper, a brushing against my mind.
Little fawn.
The thing in my chest cracks again.
Mae stares at the now-closed portal, the only sign it was ever there a circle of disturbed dirt. She goes to the hybrids, places a flat palm on their chests, then looks to the barricaded doors. “We need to get inside those doors. There should be healers inside.”
She stands and sways on her feet. Asmo steadies her, placing a hand on the small of her back. “I’m fine,” she says, walking to the wall of dirt beside the doors. She lays her hands flat on its surface and goes quiet as she concentrates.
I watch her, frozen in place. My brain has stopped working, little fawn on repeat in my mind.
A tiny hole appears in the wall. The hole grows wider, wider, wider, until finally—the healing center.
It’s a wreckage. Bodies litter the floor, dead and alive, splintered wood from the healing tables and medical instruments scattered among them. In the distance, someone flits around the room arranging makeshift cots, while August carries hybrids to them.
Someone rushes to the opening in the wall.
That’s when Mae collapses.