Page 106 of Devoured

I snap my wrists from his grasp, even though the harsh movement stings, and stagger away from him across the classroom. “I’m not lying!”

“So what, then? You just want to make me crazy? Is this your idea of revenge?” He stalks closer. Closer. Our bodies brush, but he doesn’t touch me again. Only looms over me with that burning burgundy gaze. “You are driving me sick with jealousy. All I do is think about you, Vanessa. Day and night, in and out of my dreams. I love you, and you hate me. I see it in your eyes. When you assume I’m not watching, when you’re caught off guard, it’s just a glimmer. It only exists for a second. But it’s there. You hate me, and I would still burn the world for you.”

Though my hands ache to shove his chest, to send him crashing into the desk behind, I force them to remain at my sides. “I never wanted you to burn the world, Sin. I wanted you to help me save it.”

“I tried—”

“You murdered them!” My hands curl into fists now, and my entire body trembles with the effort to stay still. “Oona, Instructor Shepherd, Katerina, Nettie, Myles, Eric, Evie’s parents, Lord Allard, your own mother—”

He recoils. “She wasn’t my mother.”

“You’re lying. I can feel you lying to me. You know she raised you, Sin. In her own twisted way, she loved you.”

He stares at me, his breaths heavy and rapid, and I can almost feel the distance stretching between us. Still, his voice comes out even. Controlled. “Do you really think I don’t understand the reason they’re all dead? It’s my fault. I fucked up. I lied. I manipulated you. I killed everyone, and I see them every time I close my eyes. I will never forgive myself, and when death comes for me, I hope it’s painful. I hope it’s as brutal as I deserve.”

He leans closer, bending low to look directly into my eyes.

“But I know why I did what I did. You and Calix”—he laughs darkly—“you get to live your righteous, proud lives, pretending your hands and consciences are clean. Not me. I’m Sybil Severi’s son. I watched her torture hundreds of werewolves. I killed for her. At thirteen years old, she had me skin a thief. Do you know what he stole? A necklace. One pathetic necklace, and I had to flay the flesh from his bones.”

His voice trembles. His hands flex. “No, Cora isn’t much better, but I’m doing what I can. I’m trying, Vanessa; I’m trying to fix everything, and I’m falling apart because I know you’re lying to me. Calix can barely stand to look at me. Cora orders me around like I’m her lapdog.” He expels a harsh breath and straightens, glaring over my shoulder. “So yeah. I made the world’s worst mistake. But I’m not going to stop trying until someone puts a wolfsbane bullet in my heart and buries me in the forest that we can no longer access.” As if against his better judgment, his gaze cuts back to mine, and I see him—not the monster, but the boy underneath. The scared, shattered boy who never stood a chance.

My heart breaks all over again. Even though I know it shouldn’t. Even though it changes nothing. Blinking away tears, I whisper, “Sin…”

“What, Vanessa?” He wipes the tears that have fallen from his own eyes. “Don’t tell me it’s all going to be okay. Don’t lie to me again. I can’t take it anymore.”

“I can’t take it anymore.”

The words are familiar, so sickeningly similar to my own these last few months. I’ve seen the same in Calix’s haunted expression, in Evie’s rage and the desperate scratch of Portia’s quill as she wrote for someone—anyone—to help us. None of us can take it anymore.

Including, apparently, Sin.

“We have to kill them,” Evie said. “All of them.”

I never allowed myself to imagine what that might look like—Sin, dead upon the floor. Cold and lifeless. Gray instead of golden, with those burgundy eyes closed forever. But maybe there’s another way. “You—you can go against her, Sin. You don’t have to remain her lapdog.”

He shakes his head, and it hurts. Worse than the silver, worse than the manacles. With each word, he carves straight through my chest. “Don’t you see? I’m in too deep. We’re all in too deep, and the only way out… is through.”

I feel as if I’m going to be sick.

We stand there until my feet ache, until the walls begin to fade with my exhaustion. He doesn’t speak again, and neither do I. Once we leave this dream, it’s over for me. For Portia and Calix and Evie too. Sin knows too much. He knows almost everything now, all the anger and hurt and secrets we’ve been keeping. He knows we don’t forgive him, knows we blame him, which means he must also know what comes next. If—when—he goes to Cora in the morning, there will be nothing left for us. Unless…

“Sin?” I ask.

He exhales softly, as if he’s relieved. “Yes?”

“Am I really in control of this dream? I can make anything happen?”

His gaze snaps to mine, burning with intensity. With longing. “Vanessa—”

“I don’t hate you, Sin,” I tell him. “I just don’t know that I can love you anymore.”

Fresh tears blur my vision as the dream ripples around me, as I pinpoint every single thing that is wrong with it—the broken clock, the empty classroom, the cell phone that wouldn’t turn back on—and I feel it start to wither. I feel myself beginning to wake up.

However, I’m not done with the dream yet.

I blink, and the tears spill down my cheeks. I’m in control here. I think of paint, of brown brushstrokes and warm chestnut hues. Sin’s gaze shifts before my eyes. From Alpha to Delta in an instant.

He feels the change as the walls fall away, as the classroom fades until only the two of us remain. He tenses in realization. His voice deepens. “Don’t do this, Vanessa.” Though he tries to compel me, it doesn’t work.