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Kill the queen,I decree.
Each dead thing on the ground, even those buried beneath, awaits my bidding. They hunt. They rip and shred. But then my rival queen fights back.
I must destroy her. The need is in every fiber of my being, ripping apart my will. The murderous compulsion teases my parched bones, making me thirst for something I don’t understand.
But then my gaze pulls again, toward a group of hauntingly beautiful men. My need shifts in tempo and becomes feverish, pulsing, and demanding. It feels like those times when I have to numb my “beastly needs” with iced water in Crystal City, hiding in the bathroom from the humans so they don’t call me a freak.
I lock eyes with one of the men and fall into the fathomless night. The impact of his appearance steals my breath. Dark, sculpted brows. High cheekbones. A sharp, masculine jaw but soft, sensuous lips. Long, silken black hair cascading from a widow’s peak. He is made for seduction, but there is sadness in his eyes. He tries to hide it behind a hotter, darker emotion.
Others besides him steal my attention: fallen angels, each as hauntingly beautiful as the first but different in their own way. Unique. Precious. Caught in the between, like me. Belonging to neither place but forged from both.
Not enough,my dark friends whisper in my mind, urging me onward.She must die for you to live.
“Not enough,” I reply, agreeing.
And so I reach into that other place beneath the first, the midnight behind the ink. The place I fear to touch. But somehow, with them so near, I feel safe. Home.
More,they whisper in my mind.Close the gap between life and death. Tear a hole in the veil.
The gap.
Buzzing. Humming. Souls swarming and begging, waiting in the wings.
The gap.
The space between. These fallen angels are just like me. Different, never quite fitting in. Even my parents sometimes look at me strangely. Oh, how they love me. But they misunderstand me. Even as a small child, I have felt different. So when Rory stole me away, and the voices told me it was okay, I believed them.
But as I grew, so did the taunts.
Halfling freak. Tainted One. Ugly. Weird. Beastly. Bitch. Nothing. You don’t belong here. They don’t want you.
I feel a thicker kinship with these beautiful monsters than with my family. I see understanding, acceptance, need, and desire—beings trapped in the dark who want a slice of the light.
Yes, little wolf. It is not night when we see your face. Tear a hole in the veil. Close the gap. Be our skin.
The whispers are so familiar. They comfort me in lonely times. They dream alongside me. They wipe my tears. And now, they need me to save them.
Defiance burns through me. I submit to my instincts. The world falls away. Sound dims beneath the roar of buzzing wings until my heart pounds like a drum, and my power shoots into the stars.
There, I find what I need. I latch on and claw into it. Then I tug it back to the earth. I bring it closer, closing the gap.
Wake.
Rise.
There is no between, only life—one existence for all.
I lose all sense of reality. There is nothing after that but blood, buzzing swarms, screams, and the sense something isn’t going according to plan. The taint in the Well changes my intention and mixes everything up. Pain, agony, and the horrifying realization that my power leaks from my body like blood from a gaping wound.
Worse than leaks—something sucks it out like a vampire, and it isn’t the queen across the battlefield. It is someone far, far away, ancient and hungry. Greedy. Righteous.
I fight, scramble, lash, and try to hold on. But it is as futile as catching air. I am not experienced enough. This ancient entity is borne of stardust, and I have woken it from slumber along with everything else.
An ear-piercing scream rips from my throat. A tether snaps inside of me. And then there is nothing but the dry, crumbling hole inside my body.
Chapter
Forty-Eight
