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But I can’t watch. I let my eyes lose their focus and concentrate on the flame of a lamp at the edge of my view, instead.
Fifteen men fall beneath the executioner’s cleaver. Fifteen bodies are stacked in a cart the thralls pull away, with fifteen heads stacked on top.
Some members of the pack have gotten sick. Some have fainted. There are intermittent shouts and screams of grief.
You have to do this, I remind myself. You can’t let them take this pack from you. You can’t let them hurt you, or Nathan, or your child. Never again.
When the bodies have been cleared away and the scaffold mopped clean of blood, they bring out a long table and three sturdy chairs with manacles on the arms. Of the three prisoners marched into the circle, I recognize only one.
Clare holds her head high. She lays her hands willingly on the arms of the chairs and makes no move to resist as they clamp the metal bands around her wrists.
And she never looks away from me.
As thralls bring Ashton into the circle, the Hierophant addresses Lycaon’s monolith, his words muffled by his respirator. “We honor you, Lycaon, with this traitor’s flesh, consumed by those who would harm your children. Let them play the part of the treacherous Zeus, who struck you not with a curse, but a gift for generations. This sacrifice, we offer up to you.”
“Blessed Lycaon,” murmurs the crowd reverently, though reluctantly.
I thought I would be more concerned about Ashton. That I would revel in his death, in my final triumph over him. But now, all I see is the instrument of my sister’s torture. I don’t want her to have to defile herself breaking the pack’s greatest taboo.
But I don’t know what to do with all the hurt I’ll carry forever, knowing that my own sister didn’t care if I died. Knowing that she might do it again.
The executioner makes quick, anticlimactic work of Ashton’s head. Then, the Hierophant moves forward with a dish and a knife. He slits Ashton’s blood-soaked shirt up the back and carves a slab of flesh away; it steams in the chill air.
I thought I would enjoy watching Ashton butchered in front of my eyes.
I don’t feel anything.
The Hierophant cuts a bite of the raw meat and skewers it with the tip of the knife. He puts it to Clare’s mouth. Sick rises up my throat as she takes the bite, chews, and swallows.
“I’m going to throw up,” I whimper, barely moving my lips.
“You’re not,” Nathan replies, equally stiff-faced. “You can do this. You’re the queen of this pack and you deserve justice.”
Destroying the Saint-Laurent pack, that would be justice. Not having my sister ripped away from me. Not having to watch this horror.
“This isn’t justice.” I don’t bother to hide my words now. “My family and my pack have been torn apart, and all due to the meddling of the Saint-Laurent pack.”
“Are you proposing some kind of revenge?” he asks, still staring straight ahead.
“I propose we’ll start with the Saint-Laurent pack,” I say in a low voice, for Nathan’s ears only. “They’re a threat to us. They can submit or be destroyed. Then, we move on to Manhattan.”
He turns his head, just a little, towards me, never taking his eyes off the gory spectacle below. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, we’re going to create the strongest empire our kind have ever seen.”
But I’ll need help with that one. I seek out Amber’s presence in the crowd. As much as I detest the thought of bringing her back into our lives, she’ll be useful. She knows the Manhattan pack, has contacts there. And after tonight, she won’t cross me ever again. And I can always discard her, after, if need be.
“Trust me,” I whisper back to him. “Trust my instincts, and we can rule the world.”
And Nathan reaches over to take my hand. “If you want the world, then you will have it.”
I sit back, head held high, as Clare is marched to the block.
I raise my hand in signal to the executioner.
I feel nothing when the blade falls.
CHAPTER 51
My sister is dead.
I take a sip from my mug and stare across the kitchen.
It’s after midnight. The last of the thralls that work down here have left for the night. No one is around.
No one except Xiao, who stands patiently by the door while I nurse my mug of tea in silence.
I’m sure she prefers the silence to the crying I sometimes do.
It’s been a week since the full moon. Since I killed my sister.
The most difficult part of grieving Clare is the knowledge that she knew someone would kill me. She was willing to sacrifice my life for her mate’s ambition. Or his revenge.
Would she have grieved me? Would she have felt this same guilt?
Xiao says something, but it’s into the communication device on her wrist. She keeps her voice low, and I can’t hear what’s going on. It could be that Nathan is looking for me; he’s been bossy and clingy since finding out about my pregnancy.
