But Jake? Jake actually grins.
“Wicked… wicked littlewhore,” he breathes.
He’s trembling and close to death, bruises blooming all over his face, but still. The piece of shit finds the strength to mock me, one last time.
In that moment, the strange force keeping my emotions at bay finally shatters, and everything inside me boils over like one of my infamous exploding cauldrons from Mrs. Larkum’s class.
Fury. Hot and wild and unstoppable. It churns through my veins, my gut, desperate to consume.
I stalk over to the counter. The guys step aside, and I scan the array of tools spread out there—cleavers and knives, mallets, rusty pipes. A box of old hairnets that would make the proverbial lunch ladies proud.
And there, at the very end—a curved dagger, the blade gleaming.
Hello, beautiful…
The moment my fingers wrap around the handle, the rage inside me crystallizes into a sense of purpose and inner knowing so clear and precise, there’s no doubt in my mind.
Thisis the moment the Ace of Swords predicted.
This is why I came.
This is what I must do.
You belong here. Everything is unfolding as it should be…
I return to the mages. Kneel before them.
Smile.
Everything I meant to say—everything I thought would come to me in the face of my tormentors— vanishes.
When the words finally come, I don’t even recognize them as mine.
“Your last moments on earth will be filled with an agony far greater than what you caused me.” I touch the tip of the blade to a pale throat. Jake’s. He’s no longer grinning. Piss pools on the cement beneath him. “But that agony isnothingcompared to what you’ll suffer athishands.”
I press the blade in the tiniest bit. A crimson drop beads on the metal.
You belong here. Everything is unfolding as it should be…
A burst of silver-white light explodes around us, and everything goes black.
Chapter Twenty-One
AUGUSTINE
If I needed any more evidence that our mysterious fae entity is connected to West and not some disembodied spirit wandering the manor, I’ve got it.
The moment she picks up that blade, I feel it—that cold, hollow wind. The sickness gripping my stomach. The wave of nausea is so strong, it’s all I can do not to fall to my knees and puke.
I don’t, though. I force myself to remain steady, to take deep breaths through my mouth, to keep my eyes locked on the scene unfolding before us.
West is no longer with us. It’s like the witch we know has checked out, the dark entity inside taking over. Her skin glows with silvery light, her eyes wide and unblinking. Aside from the athame at her wedding, she’s never wielded a blade before. Yet now, she cuts with swift, precise movements, carving up every visible inch of skin she can find—a slash under Jake’s arm, another on the side of his neck. Alonzo’s inner thighs. The bottom of his feet. Foreheads and cheeks, shoulders and shins and knuckles.
She’s not gentle. She’s not merciful.
She’s fuckingpossessed.
And through it all—through every slash of that blade, every upwelling of blood that follows—the mages cry out in ways so terrible, so horrifying, I’ve only ever heard those sounds on the battlefields of men at war.
