Aurora calls my name, and I turn. Her jaw trembles, her eyes dart between me and the fight ahead, panic and hope warring in them until it’s all I can see.
“Talon, try not to hurt her too badly,” she yells up at me.
I cock my head to the side, not understanding.
“She…she says she can break the curse.” The expression of hope and dread tells me she debated even telling me.
My heart soars out of my chest with a hope I didn’t know possible.
Mal could undo what she’s done?
Aurora could be free?
Terrified screams send my heart plummeting right back down to earth again.
I nod and fly off, already knowing I have to stop Mal at any cost. Even if that cost is me and Aurora.
Chapter 38
The Corpse of Love Attacks
AURORA
It doesn’t take long to find a horse and saddle up. I mount and take off toward the castle, keeping wide of the village chaos. Two vampires whip their heads toward me, fangs flashing as they break into a sprint, their feet pounding against the earth in a blur of speed.
I pull the power into me, grip it tight, and aim. For once, I don’t fight it. I let it surge. Heat builds in my chest until I can barely contain it, then I release. The blast tears free in a rush of searing pink light, spearing into the vampires mid-stride. Their bodies jerk, limbs contorting as if yanked by invisible hooks. I scoop the life force out of them, devouring, feeding.
Delicious.
Patting the side of the horse, I urge them faster until we’ve raced through the gates of the castle.
As I approach, my eyes turn upward to see my mother and father standing on a balcony above the gates. They aren’t hiding. Even from here I can see their fierce expressions. My mother’s dark blonde hair is braided back under her crown and I seethe glint of determination in her matching gray eyes. My father holds her arm in his as he grimaces at the monster flying directly at them.
My mother finds me first. For one impossible breath they soften, relief breaking over her face as if my return alone is enough to steady the world. My father’s arm tightens around her, his own lips lifting in the ghost of a smile. They’re glad to see me. Glad I’m alive. The love in their faces steals the air from my lungs.
Then their relief evaporates. My mother’s hand flies to her mouth, my father’s smile twists into horror as their gaze lifts to the shadow bearing down on them.
My chest aches with how much I still love them. All the distance, all the resentment, it burns away under the fire in Mal’s wake. Whatever else I’ve become, I am their daughter, and I would die to keep them alive.
“No!” I jump off the horse as Mal sails on massive wings, with fire beneath her skin.
She looks nothing like the woman she once was. Skeletal wings beat against the night, heavy with muscle and corruption, dragging her bulk through the air like something pulled from a nightmare. Black scales stretch across her bloated limbs, glowing fissures pulsing underneath with molten hate.
I understand that kind of hate.
One moment with Talon, brief and bright and stolen, ripped away so fast it left me raw and seething at the world. But what simmers inside me is nothing compared to the thing above me, the full-grown beast of heartbreak left unchecked, left to rot and fester in isolation until it twisted into this. Mal is not just angry. She is the corpse of love, animated only by spite.
Ice crystallizes in my veins as I stare into a possible future for myself. What I’d become if I let this grief curdle inside me until nothing human remains.
But this could never happen to me. Hiding my secret had begun to kill me from the inside. Mal let exile and heartbreak rot her soul until she embraced it. I refuse to let that happen.
Even when I cannot control what I am or what the world throws at me, I can still choose. I can break rules to claim my own life. And I have help, from Talon and my Lost Girls, true friends who choose to love and support me no matter what I am. I built a rich, exciting, fulfilling life even with heartbreak and pain rooted smack dab in the middle of it.
Time crawls with painful clarity, and I can plainly see the hate and glee gleaming from the burning embers in her black eyes as she breathes in deep, her mouth open wide, fire sparking at the back of her throat.
She releases her breath, and flames spew out toward my parents. My heart lodges in my throat as panic sends a rush of white-hot needles through my brain.
I’m going to watch my parents die, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.
