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To refuse would mean forfeiting Clara’s life here and now… if I obey and bear this punishment, then she will be safe.
“I will drink,” I say. When surprise lights her eyes, I hold up a hand. “In exchange for one thing.”
Her lip curls. “Is it not enough that I allow her to live?”
“I want Cherno’s freedom. Release my demon and never cage, hurt, or imprison them in anyway ever again.”
She laughs. “Is that all?”
“You mean other than Clara’s safety if I do this? Yes.” I reiterate, knowing Elizabeth will attempt to change the terms to exclude Clara if given half a chance.
“We are agreed.Now drink.”
Now that Clara is my oath bound, she is as connected to Cherno as I am.
I throw my head back and swallow the contents in two gulps and force the cold blood down my throat. Kharis’s power settles heavy in my stomach, thick and sour. Bitterness coats my tongue—the lingering taste of something rotten. As it slithers through my veins, I wait for the pain she promised.
The glass slips from my hand and shatters against the floor, as realization comes too late. My head snaps up and I meet Elizabeth’s cold, lavender gaze.
Cursed blood.
Her lips curls into a dark, wicked smile. The curse will strip every last bit of who I am away, leaving me as an empty shell for her to use as she pleases.
The price for being cursed is always death.
I summon Cherno through our connection even as it’s being blocked, like walls slamming into place around it.
Stay with Clara. Keep her safe!
Kharis’s foreign power slides over me, muting my own and leaching my strength. It claws and shreds at the oath bond, though it cannot sever it, eventually that connection is muted as well.
I stumble sideways as the world tilts. It takes everything I have to fight against her power, but she is gaining, and in the end, she will win. Falling to my knees I clutch at my throat and glare up into her horrible face.
“You lied,” I snarl.
Ringing sounds in my ears, loud and shattering. My blood feels as though it’s transforming into a sluggish, icy river, numbing me to everything as it works its way through my muscles. It starts at my toes and moves upward.
Elizabeth saunters over, crouching down and bringing her serene face to eye level. She cups my cheek and leans in to whisper in my ear. “I did not lie to you, my prince. I promised you pain…” Elizabeth’s eyes sparkle as she basks in her victory. “What could be more painful to you than being demon cursed and entirely under my control?”
I feel as though I’m drowning. Suffocating. Choking. Elizabeth’s power coats my heart in a block of ice, then inches up, caressing my mind, and stealing everything. Thoughts and memories slip through my fingers like trying to hold water in a tight fist.
Everything I have ever felt for Rosalie, for Clara, for anyone I have ever known, is slowly buried in a grave, hidden until they are nothing more than distant dreams that will burn away with the light of the rising sun.
We never cared about any of them anyway,a strange voice whispers into the dark of my mind.
Straightening my spine, I blink at the flaxen-haired woman before me with lashes like ice and eyes the color of spring flowers. She takes my hands in hers, and together we rise to our feet.
I don’t know who I am, or how I got here.Those things are not important.
The only thing that matters is that I am here now with her…
My queen. My allegiance is to my queen.
Those words echo in the space where insignificant thoughts used to occupy.
And that is all I know—the only truly important thought.
And hunger.
