Page 2 of Devoured

My knees almost buckle, but I hold tighter to the banister. They said my hallucinations would stop after my transformation. They were wrong. “Oona,” I whisper, “I’m so—”

As always, before I can apologize, she and Shepherd vanish. I blink away the puddles of blood they leave in their wake until those are also gone. Every last trace of them.

My heart splinters. In three months, I have lost everyone: Celeste, my father, even myself. Then Oona, Shepherd, Nettie, Eric, Katerina, Queen Sybil… people I didn’t even like. But people I didn’t want to see slaughtered all the same.

However, now is not the time to weep. It’s not the time to hesitate.

It is my turn to destroy.

Sliding a small bottle from my sleeve, I curl a palm tight around the glass. The sharp corners cut into my skin. The pain grounds me, reminding me exactly what’s at stake. Without hesitation, with a single flicker of movement, I toss the bottle in the flames dancing atop Sybil’s old chairs.

The glass shatters on impact.

The noxious liquor inside explodes in a violent roar of bitter blue flames.

Fire singes the hands of the nearest werewolves. It puckers the flesh on their skin, and they cry out. One even drops to his knees with a muffled shriek.

“Did you lose control?” he hisses to the werewolf beside him, but she only shakes her head and watches her skin blister in agonizing silence. “What the hell?” He kicks the leg of a chair, and fire erupts higher. Higher. It takes all their concentration to contain it.

Nearly grinning, I slip into a nearby corridor and vanish from their sight. As if I was never here at all.

Dawn crests the broken windows and begins to spill soft morning light at my feet. I glance at the black smoke behind me, listening to the werewolves’ chaotic cries for a few seconds longer, and then I leave.

Queen Cora is waiting for me.

And so is my fiancé.

Sinclair Severi, crown prince of this horrid new court, lounges at the heart of a massive rectangular banquet table. No longer is furniture arranged in divided sections. Cora doesn’t separate us during mandatory mealtimes. Now we eat together, forced to brush elbows with the very people who ripped the hearts and spines from the old court. I am forced to pretend I don’t want to rip out their hearts and spines in the same way.

Sin—my dearest fiancé—picks up a crystal glass and takes a small sip of something bold, red, and bitter. Fury strangles my heart in wretched claws, as it always does when I see him. So I jostle his elbow upon sitting beside him, an accidental nudge from a clumsy girl, and he spills the wine all over his pristine white shirt.

“Shit,” he growls. A frown mars his handsome face, douses the gleam in his burgundy eyes. He glances at the mess—a stain spreading like blood across his chest—and the frown deepens further. He doesn’t glance at me. Not once. “That was a new shirt,” he murmurs. And I want to rub his face in it. I want to smash the glass on his skull and use the shards to impale the rest of these monsters. I want to tackle his mother to the floor and make her choke on my rage. That fire in the hall wasn’t enough. It will never be enough for what they’ve done. But—

I can’t do anything else.

Three months have passed since my transformation into a werewolf. Three months. And I am still no better than a prisoner. If anything, I’m worse off.

Inhaling sharply, I unravel a cloth napkin onto my lap before reaching across the table and plucking up a glass of my own. As delicately and demurely as possible, I take a sip before glancing at the boy who ruined my life.

The boy I used to love.

My voice threatens to break, to expose my every loathing, but I speak on a soft exhale to disguise it. “Perhaps we should see if an Alchemist can wash that stain out.”

His gaze flicks to the first Alchemist he can think of: our old classmate—his former intended mate—Evelyn Lee. Once the daughter of the King and Queen of the Asian Court. Now an orphan. She doesn’t glance at us. She’s too busy shaving a broom handle into a stake under the table and glowering at the new wolves around her. She doesn’t speak to anyone, and if they notice the broom handle, they don’t mention it. They don’t care. In this new court, she no longer matters.

And neither does Calix Severi, who sits across from her and refuses to tear his gaze from Sin and me. I ignore him just as everyone else does, however. I can only handle so much deception at once.

Sinclair smooths out his shirt, wine and all. “No, no. I’ll do it.”

I lean back in my chair, swirling the putrid wine in my own glass. “Oh, really, Prince Sinclair? Have you ever done laundry before?”

He almost turns. Almost. But he catches himself before he can and grumbles instead to his empty plate, “Yes.”

A bolt of fire shoots between my ribs.

It’s as easy as breathing to detect his dishonesty now.

“Liar,” I murmur—and I mean every bit of the word. Maybe he can tell. Maybe I’m not as covert as I think. He flinches then, and his ears redden beneath the gold of his hair. He is still beautiful, breathtaking even in his ruined shirt, like the portrait of a saint come to life. And it isn’t fair. He looks like the boy I loved even though he’s become more than a stranger. Even though he’s become worse than an enemy.