Page 338 of Coal Hearts

It didn’t damn well matter.

And it mattered.

It mattered so, so much because how could I betray myself in that way?

How could I twitch with the undying rage to kill every Master in here? How could I say such nasty things, even if they were true? How could I do such nasty things...especially with a man I hated.

I-I put his finger inside me.

My stomach flipped, remembering the way he’d swiped his dinner to the floor and made me his main meal instead. The show of possession. The rage of someone equally unhinged.

I’d practically started coming the moment he’d entered me.

Stop it, Il.

Just...no more.

You’re fighting with anything and everything you have. That’s all. Your body is a weapon. Your heart is a knife. Use them. Use them until they’re dead.

My toes dug deeper.

I hurtled forward.

Swiping rain from my eyes, I did my best to see where I was going.

Uplights twinkled on manicured animal hedges. Fountains babbled and fairy lights swayed in the wild wind.

Despite the churning clouds above, the horizon glowed a faint pearl as if the moon did its best to slip beneath the wet violence, beckoning me to climb the stronghold walls, swim through the moat, and hurl myself off the cliff.

Masculine laughter came from my left, followed by a feminine scream.

My feet immediately switched directions, running away from them despite my heart breaking for the poor jewel who’d just been caught.

Lightning forked above me like a morbid, murderous firework.

I hunched, waiting.

BOOM.

The answering thunder threatened to stop my breaking heart as I darted over the sweeping lawns and toward a part of the estate housing fruit trees and a giant maze.

No way in hell would I go in the maze.

I wasn’t stupid enough to get lost and molested, but I did race into the grove of leaves, searching for a place to hide.

An hour.

The game would only last an hour.

If I could hide for that long, then I could ask Henri—as nicely as I could with my newly venom-coated tongue—if I could spend the night with the jewels.

Spending the afternoon alone hadn’t been my plan.

I’d hoped at least Peter would’ve been in the showers or dorm. I needed to talk to someone. To ask if this was normal. To purge myself with confession so these awful, sickening secrets didn’t eat me alive.

Instead, I’d spent the precious couple of hours I had in the vault, doing my best to distract myself with necklaces and gemstones because each time I brushed my body, all I could think about was him.

Him.