Page 134 of She Who Holds My Wrath

Her smile is faint. Terrible. Something sinister laying behind it that gives me goosebumps. “An imperfect one.” The darkness behind her shifts like wings. “Everything broken can be remade, Sunshine Queen. Even gods. Even realms. Even fate itself.”

“Remade into what?”

She doesn’t answer straight away. But when she finally speaks, her voice is barely more than a breath.

“A world that does not require daughters to die for the sins of their fathers. A world where monsters are made useful. A world where my boy lives long enough to see peace and hates me for the price of it.”

My boy… “What did you just say?”

“When you win this war with him by your side, you will know all,” she says, dismissing me entirely. “Keep going. You are stronger than you could ever know.”

I watch as she fades and the mirror shifts. And suddenly, I’m staring at myself. I stand there, breath caught in my throat. My golden hair is braided into a long plait streaked with silver, resting over my shoulder. My eyes are harder. Sharper. Older. I’m dressed in an armour I have never seen before.

Black skin-tight fighting leathers cling to my body like a second skin. Over my torso, iridescent crimson scales form fitted armour, protecting my heart and lungs, glowing faintly as if alive. Onyx boots laced tightly up to my knees. My dagger sits sheathed at my thigh. And strapped across my back—my sword. Its hilt crowned with the ruby that’s glinting over my shoulder like a captured flame.

I do not look like a queen that was made for peace. I look like a queen made for war. A ruler forged for bloodshed. I look like death incarnate. A woman ready to burn the gods to ash for daring to believe they could ever silence me.

Chapter 44

EZRA

It’s been three days since I summoned that stupid, red-eyed demon.

Three days since I saw my own head on a table like a grotesque centrepiece. Three days since I was told I absolutely, under no circumstances, could go home. And three days since I apparently made the executive decision to volunteer myself as useful.

I would like to formally retract that decision.

Because what nobody told me—and I mean nobody—was that “helping the healers” meant six a.m. wake-up calls, and sometimes not finishing until five a.m. the next day. Which is honestly criminal. I didn’t even do those hours when I was pulling all-nighters for finals, and at least then I had caffeine options that didn’t taste like despair.

What I also didn’t account for was the amount of blood I’d see. So. Much. Blood.

I don’t know what I expected. Maybe some gentle potion stirring? Handing out bandages? Offering moral support? Instead, I was thrown directly into the thick of it like, Welcome to Hell, human. Here’s a severed limb.

Apparently, Cassyr thought starting me with ‘the hard stuff’ would be character building. Cassyr, for the record, is not the Head Healer. He’s the Head Healer’s son. Which I learned immediately after she took one look at me, sniffed, and said—and I quote—that she “could not be arsed” with me.

I might’ve been offended if Lucifer hadn’t laughed so hard he nearly fell over. I swear, if I could punch that smug bastard in his stupid, beautiful face without being incinerated, or whatever horrific thing he does to humans, I absolutely would.

Still. Silver linings. Cassyr is not… unpleasant to look at. Unlike his old hag of a mother, he’s tall, with a lean build. Like, muscular but not Korithax muscular. His skin is a warm bronze, peppered with scars like they’re part of him rather than damage done. His most noticeable one slices straight through his eyebrow, splitting it clean in two, and down over his eye and ends at his cheekbone. Which gives him—unfortunately—bad boy energy. Especially with his stubbled, sharp jawline.

His eyes are molten bronze—like honey heated too long, flecked with gold—and his horns match them, a deep amber that contrasts sharply with his jet-black hair, which he always has half tied up in a knot.

Unfortunately for me, being devastatingly attractive does not cancel out the fact he is also unbelievably rude.

“Human,” he groans. “Are you listening?”

I flush instantly. “Sorry. What?”

He rolls his eyes so hard I’m shocked they don’t detach from his skull. I return the gesture. Asshole.

“I said,” he repeats slowly, like I’m five, “go and grab two more bottles of healing tonic from the shelf.”

He doesn’t ask. He orders. Like a man who has never once been told no in his entire demon life. Like mother, like son, I guess.

I pull a face as I turn my back to him, quietly mocking his tone under my breath while grabbing the small glass bottles down from the shelf.

He is genuinely insufferable. Actually, most of them down here are. So bossy. So serious. I tried to crack a joke, one joke, and Cassyr looked at me like I’d slapped him across the face with a dead fish.

Oh, and did I mention the coffee here fucking sucks? No chai oat. No vanilla with a dash of caramel. Just black coffee and milk. That’s it. Hell is real, and it hates flavour.