Page 11 of Devoured

“Ow.” I press a hand to my head, disoriented and confused, my stomach in my throat. “What the—”

“You bitch.”

Evelyn Lee glares down at me, her chest rising and falling rapidly as her pale fist tightens around the handle of her makeshift stake. I shake my head as if it will help me understand the sight of her above me. Help me understand why the hell she just shoved me to the floor.

Deep red colors her cheeks and nose, and shoulder-length strands of silky black hair fall over her left shoulder, disheveled, as old mascara colors her eyelids a messy, splotchy charcoal. She looks worse than ever before. The hazy form of Evie’s deceased best friend appears at her side, Nettie’s cherubic cheeks and eager smile stained with blood, a reminder of everything Evie lost. Not just Nettie, but her brother, her mother and father, her entire world. I blink until the ghosts disappear and the nausea in my stomach subsides.

“What did she want with you?” Evie growls.

And part of me feels devastated for her—sickened by what Cora took. Pain still radiates through the rest of me, however, as she brandishes the stake under my nose. I shove it away and start to rise. “That’s none of your business.”

“Like shit, it isn’t.” Between one breath and the next, she snatches me up by my throat and slams me against the wall. My skull knocks against an amber mirror that splinters. Cracks. “This is all your fault,” she snarls.

I choke against her hold, scratching frantically at her arms. “What—are—you—doing—”

“This horror show didn’t start until they bit you and dragged you into this castle. How dare you survive when they all… when they all—” Her voice breaks, and her red eyes glow brighter as she tosses me to the floor. “You would let her kill everyone, wouldn’t you? So long as you and your precious fiancé live.” She spits each word as a curse, raising her stake over my heart. “You should have died. Not them. You.”

Shit. My gaze widens. She’s going to—

I roll away seconds before her stake impales my chest and leap to my feet, but Evie is fast. Too fast for me in this mindless rage of hers. She lashes out with a claw, raking her nails across my cheek. Just as she did to Celeste so many months ago. My blood boils. The emotions I’ve been trying so hard to repress start to snap free. “Are you really trying to kill me in a freaking hallway?”

My cheek splits open. Blood wells and drips. But I don’t have time to acknowledge the wound. I can only dance around Evie, farther down the narrow corridor. She javelins the stake at me, and I drop to my knees to avoid it while she spits a curse. “Maybe I am.”

“I don’t want to fight, Evie,” I hiss low, under my breath, as four werewolves creep closer to us. Another three linger in doorways at the end of the corridor. We’re surrounded. Evie can’t win this fight.

Cora won’t let me die.

Evie either doesn’t realize this or doesn’t care. “Too bad.” She races forward and throws a hasty punch. I catch her fist in my hand and twist. Hard. Her fingers loosen instantly, and she exhales the barest hint of a scream as her left hand catches in my hair. And pulls.

My vision spots white and black. Sharp agony drills into my head, and she seems to relish inflicting it, to delight in making me hurt too. “What is wrong with you?”

“You. You are everything wrong with me. You always have been.” Knotting her fingers deeper in my curls, she forces me to my knees and rips my head back. “Look at me,” she commands hotly, glaring down at me with unfiltered loathing. And—and she really might try to kill me now. “I’m going to watch you die. I’m going to be the last face you ever see.”

I glare right back up at her. “You are an idiot, Evelyn Lee.”

The barest hint of a smile twitches on her lips. “Adorable insult, Vanessa Hart. I’ll remember it forever.” She lifts her knee. Moves my head down toward it. Fast. Too fast.

She’s going to break my nose. She’s going to shatter my skull.

A dozen lessons from Combat and Conquest blow through me at once. Instinctively, I slam a fist on the inside of her thigh. Evie shrieks, the surprise, the force, throwing her off balance. Her hand loosens in my hair, and I don’t stop to appreciate the way she hits the floor like a brick.

I launch myself on top of her. My hands wrap around her throat. Her eyes widen as I squeeze. The other werewolves crowd us now. Thirteen now if the periphery of my vision is accurate. They stomp their feet and clap their hands. “Kill her! Kill her! Kill her!”

We are just a play to them. A bloody performance.

Evie spits in my face, and I strangle her windpipe. For a moment, I think of how easy it would be to kill her. Just like this. With one harsh twist, I could snap her neck. “I won’t allow you to hurt me anymore,” I say through my teeth. “This is a new court.”

She laughs at me. Even though she can’t breathe. Even though I’m killing her.

And I’m furious enough that my grasp hardens, that her eyes bulge, that her breath rasps from her in a painful little gasp. “Vanessa,” she hisses.

The werewolves—fifteen now—chant louder.

My claws cut into her soft flesh. My muscles tremble. My fangs grow, long and sharp enough to pierce her throat. “You started this.”

Then there’s an arm around my waist. Someone pulling me off Evie. Away from the crowd. I’m torn from her so quickly the walls spin around me, and all I can track is darkness and red. Those same red eyes as before.

“Calix.”