Page 69 of Vengeance of the Gods

No one else could wield her curse better than she could.

I’m breaking this fucking curse. Vega was just as prepared to kill a man who’d spent fifty-five years torturing her as she was to destroy the curse that stole her life.

The Caelum sisters both made grave mistakes the night they summoned the dead, and Vega didn’t plan on making anymore when the lives of the people she loved were hanging in the balance.

She squeezed into the sharp edges, letting her blood coat the portal piece, feeling the release of a heavy weight the harder she pushed.

Using what leverage she had from the ground, Vega flipped herself over, truly catching Romulus by surprise when she broke the shard in half with her boot and used both pieces to drive into his sides.

The scream leaving his mouth sounded like one of multiple people, mixing together to form a tortured howl. Blood finally seeped from the new wounds while the others stayed hollow and grime free.

The portal is my curse. It’s my weapon to wield. It’s mine to break. Romulus is what ties me here…

Romulus fell to the ground, and Vega pushed into him harder, pressing her boot to his chest. She pulled one hand free, the blood from her own cut mixing with Romulus’s. “For someone who’s spent over half a century making sure my life was as miserable as possible, you sure fucked up underestimating me.” She leaned down, lowering her boot to the left side, where about a half foot piece of portal stuck out his side. Vega stepped into it, earning another pained squeal. “You and I aren’t too different though, ya know? Cursed by a sibling. Left alone to die.” Proof that myth, legend, and history could all repeat themselves. “There’s something very important that sets us apart. Me from you. Me from Marlena. You both fight for your own desires. I fight for the desires of others. I fight so the people I love get the happy fucking ending they deserve.” The wildcat from the alley was back, and this time, it had grown in size and was ready to claw its way out.

Vega stomped on the shard protruding from Romulus’s body until she felt it shatter.

His black eyes rolled to the back of his head, his body convulsing until it went limp.

It’s not over. She knew it wasn’t. He was going to keep coming back until the portal was gone.

Romulus wasn’t her curse. He was the reason she was tied to Earth and not some other world. The portal was what held it to begin with.

She’d broken a piece and let the power seep out for Romulus to fwd off.

The curse started with a mirror and the blood of two sisters.

And it would end with the death of a forgotten twin…

“Vega.” Bridger’s voice squeaked from behind, pulling her away from the cop’s dead body.

Bridger sat on his knees about fifty feet closer to the portal, his hands wrapped around a new piece sticking through his chest from the back.

Vega’s gut twisted with fear as her eyes trailed up the arm of the man standing behind Bridger, using the portal as a weapon too. She knew who it would be before reaching his face. She’d spent a lot of time memorizing the details of the man who’d done the most damage on Earth. Vega used to have nightmares of all the things he’d done to her. Then she learned what real monsters looked like again… and Antonio didn’t seem so scary to her anymore.

She averted her attention back to where she’d left Romulus’s last body.

Gone.

Not even blood stained the ground where he’d been. “Didn’t think I’d come back that quick, huh?” The voice coming from the man’s throat didn’t sound like the one she’d known from a different life—this one was deeper, more animal-like.

“Bridger,” Vega said, heaving, watching his jaw twitch from the pain. “No.” No!

She hadn’t come this far to get taken out so close to getting her life back.

You don’t make it out of this. That’s the point! A voice inside her head startled her, until she realized it was her own.

And she was only telling herself what she’d always known.

At the very beginning, Vega said she’d do this with or without anyone else. She promised to kill her sister—no matter what it took.

Vega Caelum, cursed to forget, but destined to die.

I haven’t come this far to not let my friends, my world, get their lives back, she corrected.

Her eyes welled with tears, but she wouldn’t let them fall.

Bridger would have healed already in Tolevarre—he would be able to fight with her… but this wasn’t Tolevarre, and she didn’t need him to save her.