Jude flashes his psychotic, fucking-Jude grin, and I watch in silence as he gets to work relieving Dr. Belinda Eckhardt of her ribs.
It’s nothing I haven’t seen before. A hundred times. A thousand. I’ve lost count of the people we’ve tortured, killed, eviscerated. De-boned.
But it weighs on me tonight in a way I’ve never felt before—or maybe just never noticed—and now it hits me, all at once, that I’m standing here in this shithole house that smells like garbage and blood and candle wax, watching my best friend crack apart a woman’s ribcage for one of his twisted sculptures, and every fucked-up thing in my life and his for the last fifteen hundred years can be traced back to the dark fae. To the curse. To all the lives and hope and possibility and fucking humanity those bastards fucking stole from us.
And there’s Jude, elbows-deep in a dead woman’s chest cavity, hands covered in blood and gore, and…Fuck. He used to be the guy who jumped in tostopthe fights, the one who’d take a drunkard’s fist to the gut to save some other poor bastard from the same fate. The one who’d stay at the tavern long after closing just to make sure the woman who ran the place could finish up her night without being harassed.
He was always a little crazy—that’s just Jude. But he was also funny and kind and he loved fiercely—his family. His friends. Strangers he’d invite to the table to share a meal.
We all did.
But that’s gone now. All of it. Because that’s what tragedy does to us. Violence begets violence begets violence. A river of blood becomes an ocean, and it’s never fucking enough. Not until you’re the last one standing, soaked in it, watching the remains of humanity burn down around you and you finally realize there’s not a soul left to help you celebrate your hollow victory.
Jude gets to his feet and hands over the blood-soaked duffle. “Hang on to this. Something else I need to do.”
He heads for the bed, where Conrad is barely clinging to consciousness, and grabs the still-burning candle off the table, using it to light the others.
Then he leans over the mage and says softly, “I’m sure you have a safe word, Connie. But since I can’t understand a fucking thing coming out of your mouth, it won’t do you much good. Anyway, you really shouldn’t leave these candles unattended. Says so right on the label.”
With that, he touches the flame to the sheets.
“This is for Westlyn Avery,” he says calmly. “The girl you couldn’t destroy. She’s stronger than you ever gave her credit for. Stronger than you and your so-called friends and all the dark magic in your arsenal.”
It takes a minute for the fire swirling at the edge of the bed to finally reach Conrad Nesterman’s flesh, but when it does…
Fuck, the sound that he makes… The stench of his hair and skin being consumed by that fire…
Acrid smoke clouds the room, making me gag.
Jude looks at me. Nods once. I nod in return.
We’re done here.
Leaving the two corpses to burn, we head back out the way we came and slip into the shadows across the street, watching until the house is completely engulfed and neighbors begin wandering out of their homes. Sirens wail in the distance, but it doesn’t matter. By the time the firetrucks arrive, there won’t be anything left for them to salvage.
Wordlessly, Jude takes the duffel from my hand and hauls it over his shoulder.
We’re about to make for the skies when a cold, invisible force explodes inside me, doubling me over. It feels like glass in my lungs, like fire in my gut, like all the worst of those so-called heebie-jeebies crashing down on me at once.
“Jude,” I breathe, and he spins around to face me, his eyes going wide as he takes in the sight.
He puts a hand on my back and crouches down to meet my eyes. “Augs. What’s going on, mate? You suck in too much smoke?”
“It’s… It’s West. I can feel it.”
“What do you mean? How?”
“I don’t know what the fuck happened, but I think she’s in trouble.” A wave of nausea barrels over me, and I turn my head and wretch, barely missing his shoes. “Call… call Drae,” I bite out. “Something is off. Way the fuck off.”
Chapter Five
WESTLYN
“Eloise,” I breathe, my voice thin. I open my eyes, hoping against the odds that I’ve only imagined that shrill tone, that thinly veiled disgust.
But there she is. Beady eyes lasering in on me, lips curled in a perpetual sneer, not a single hair out of place.
My stepmother.
