Page 157 of Devoured

The world narrows to the tip of Cora’s smile and the rasp of my last breaths.

“You want to know why we’re so alike, Vanessa? You want to know what you were too stupid to ever discover for yourself? I could never have been a Lone Wolf. They took my Jack from me. They made me kill the love of my life when I was in a state of transition. They stripped me of my title, and they stripped him of his soul, and somehow in the process—we became one.”

She drives her knee into my ribs, leaning all her weight on top of me.

“I am not a Lone Wolf. Nor could I ever be one because I will always, always have my Jack. A part of him lives inside me. It gives me strength.”

I choke on my blood. I’m dying.

She’s killing me.

And everything—all the schemes, all the promises, all the hope we had for the future—everything I fought for withers.

“I made you, Vanessa. I want you to remember that. I want you to know how great we could have been.” Her grip tightens, and my legs thrash. “I made you, and now I must unmake you. You are a waste of your extra powers, and you will die without a single person to remember you. Once I kill you, I will kill Evie. I will kill Portia. I will kill Calix. I will kill your father. I will kill them all, Vanessa. I will drink their blood and toast to you. You want to try and steal from me? Then, I will take everything from you. Sin was only the beginning.”

Something cold and hard skates under my claw. Burns against my skin. My fingers close instinctively over the searing silver of—of a gun. I spit blood on Cora’s face, even as my palm blisters under the heavy weight of the weapon and I lift it toward her. “Fuck—you—Cora.”

She smiles, however, even wider than before. Baring all her teeth at once, Cora seizes the barrel. She releases the pressure on my throat. Just for a breath. Just so she can direct that gun elsewhere. She meets my eyes, and wicked madness writhes through her gaze.

“You always were predictable, Vanessa. Fine. You can kill them yourself.” As her gaze burns into my own—through my own—she compels me. “Shoot. Pull the trigger now.”

And I see exactly where she has aimed the barrel.

I see the girl’s face in the crowd, see her black hair whipping around her shoulders as she throws an officer against the wall and compels him to retreat. I see the skirts of her gown tripping her every movement.

I see Evelyn Lee. Princess of the Asian Court, and my best friend in this castle.

“Shoot her,” Cora demands.

52

VANESSA

THE COMPULSION SINKS CLAWS IN MY BRAIN. MY FINGER twitches against the trigger as I stare helplessly at Evie.

Evie who stabbed me once. Evie who had every reason to hate me. Evie who found me in my grief and carried me out of it.

Evie who became my closest friend. My lifeline.

Shoot her. The words explode shrapnel through my ears. Shoot her shoot her shoot her.

Amidst their slicing fragments, other words rise.

“Did you never wonder how you fought my son’s compulsion the night of the massacre? That answer is the key to everything, Vanessa Serafina Hart.”

And then—“They stripped me of my title, and they stripped him of his soul, and somehow in the process—we became one.”

The compulsion cuts deeper, deeper through me, but it’s Evie. I can’t hurt her. I won’t allow myself to hurt her. My body shudders, fighting Cora. Desperate to escape her command.

She repeats it. Over and over. She is too strong. Stronger than should be possible.

“You are mine,” she hisses, “and you will shoot her.”

I wrench my gaze from Evie to the purple she painted on my nails.

Just like the purple in my hair.

Purple that Celeste made me dye because she didn’t want to be the only one at school with different-colored hair. Purple that Celeste always told me looked the best on me. Purple that she bought for me in droves—sheets, clothes, pencils, water bottles. I remember her sharp laugh as she forced me to hold still over my bathroom sink. I recall the gleam in her brown eyes as she combed the bleach through my hair.