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We’re monsters. All of us.
My knees buckle, and the stone floor greets me cold and cruel. It’s like my body knows what my mind can’t accept; we’ve crossed a line that can never be uncrossed. I shudder, each breath ragged, tearing through me as if it’s laced with shards of glass.
“Ever.” Damien’s voice slices through the haze, but when I look up, his eyes are a storm I can’t weather. They’re supposed to comfort me, guide me, but there’s a darkness in them now that wasn’t there before.
“Look at me,” he commands. My gaze obeys, even though every instinct screams to look away, to unsee the blood that stains my hands—our hands.
“Fuck,” I whisper, my voice foreign to my ears. It comes out a broken thing, like the remains of innocence that once lived here. I can feel the tremors that quake through my fingers to the core of my being.
“Stay with us, Ever,” Ben says, his tone steady but his green eyes betraying the turmoil underneath. “You need to stay present. Don’t retreat.”
But how can I? Right now, everything feels too sharp, too vivid. The memory of Robbie’s life slipping away under my hand is an image that will haunt me, claw at me from the inside out.
“Can’t... I can’t...” The words are a feeble attempt to hold onto something, anything that isn’t tainted by death.
“True North has been initiated,” Alistair states, his voice loud in the chamber. He lets out what sounds like a sigh and mumbles, “Albeit it with some persuasion.”
“Fuck off,” Damien growls. “It was by her hand.”
“And your strength.”
“Stop! Stop! Just don’t...” I’m not the girl who walked into this chamber. That Ever is gone, a ghost swallowed by darkness. Now, I’m a murderer, a toy for these men to use and only a pawn in a game where they are the kings and knights.
Knights.
Silence envelops us again, a veil that whispers of things broken and things changed. In its midst, I stand with them—my protectors, my captors, my co-conspirators—in a world that’s both familiar and foreign.
I mourn the Ever I’ve left behind as I walk forward on this dark path that’s been laid before me with no other choice now but to put one foot in front of the other.
2
EVER
Blood drips from my fingertips, staining the ancient stone floor of the underground chamber. I can’t tear my gaze away from the carnage at my feet—two bodies, lifeless, because of secrets and lies. The Four Cardinals. The other members, including Alex and the Chancellor, seem to have melted back into the shadows and then there’s me.
Me.
Ever Knight.
“Ever, look at me,” Alistair’s voice cuts through the murk in my head, his eyes boring into mine with an intensity that almost scares me more than the dead men. He’s never looked at me like this before, like I’m something fragile, something precious.
I shiver, anger and betrayal knotted tight in my stomach.
He moves toward me, swift, decisive. I’m too numb to fight, too lost in my own head. His arms wrap around me, lifting me off the ground with ease. I feel like a rag doll, limp and broken, as he cradles me and carries me away from the scene of death.
The tunnel is tight, the walls pressing close, but Alistair doesn’t falter. His steps are sure and steady, a rock amidst the chaos swirling inside me.
“Stay with me, Ever,” he murmurs as we emerge into the dim light of the house. His words sound distant, muffled by the pounding silence in my ears.
They’ve taken everything from me—my peace, my control, my innocence. But I’m not struggling.
I have nowhere else to go. Nowhere else to be comforted but here, in the cold, merciless arms of a man who will kill as easily as take his next breath.
Panic claws at me as Alistair takes me to his bedroom. I cringe, expecting the worst, my muscles tensing for a fight I’m not sure I have left in me.
“Shh, angel,” he says, his voice low, but I can’t tell if it’s a warning or reassurance. I don’t trust it either way.
His grip is firm, he takes me through the threshold, my heart slamming against my chest. But instead of the bed, we head straight to the bathroom where steam already clouds the air. Damien twists the taps, a torrent filling the bathtub, while Ben’s hands work on the shower, turning knobs with mechanical precision.
