Page 130 of Devoured

Evander pretends to lock his lips and throw away an invisible key, but he glances at me after, almost apologetic.

I refuse to budge, even when Cora approaches. Dreadfully close. She nudges one of the unconscious bodies with her boot. “I’m not so certain these are the strong werewolves for whom I was hoping. They look rather… pathetic.” She steps on a young man’s hand—the one who worked the front desk—and twists. The bones break. It takes everything to stay rooted in this spot.

“You asked for them specifically,” I say.

She sighs. “Yes, but how was I to know they would be so frail?” She bends now, cradling a woman’s hand in her own, and… and pulls. She rips her arm cleanly from its socket, the flesh around it still intact. “Oops.”

A scream lodges in my throat as my heart stutters to a painful halt. “You… you asked for them,” I repeat, staring at the woman’s oddly contorted arm. Cora wipes her hands on the woman’s sleeve and shrugs.

“So I did.” She smiles, and my stomach sinks. Because I know—I know this isn’t over. She isn’t done here yet. Turning on her heel, she starts back toward the dais. Toward Officer Warren. “I suppose you’ll have to visit the high school next. I don’t think these prospects will work out.”

That scream finally claws free. “Stop!” I lunge in front of her before she can touch him. “I—I did as you asked. I bit them. I brought them here. They’ll make fine werewolves. Just leave them alone.”

Cora merely stares at me, unblinking, that same horrid smile curled on her lips. “Oh, darling. Always the hero, aren’t you? I thought I told you—being a hero is vastly overrated.” Faster than should be possible, Cora whirls and rips Officer Warren’s heart from his chest.

She discards the still-beating heart, tosses it as if it’s nothing, and it rolls right to my feet.

Officer Warren. Henry Warren.

Who loved puns and watching football with my dad. Who used to let me pull on his mustache when I was a toddler.

He’s dead.

Blood roars in my ears. It’s too much. I can’t handle it anymore. I can’t take another second of this. “Haven’t you done enough?” I glare at her, tears falling in silent, blistering rivulets down my face. Onto the bloodied floor.

Cora laughs. One sharp cackle. “You’re so emotional, Vanessa. You think this is the worst I can do? I haven’t even started yet. When I’m done, the entire world will bow to me. And those who don’t will be murdered, discarded, and forgotten. I am the Wolf Queen, and no one is going to challenge me again.”

I don’t know what comes over me. Maybe it’s her reflection dripping scarlet around me. Maybe it’s Evander and Arielle standing frozen in shock. Or maybe it’s the heart on the ground.

I snap.

Unleashing my claws, I tackle Cora to the floor. Her crown flies off her head, smashing into the nearest mirror. Shattering it. Glass rains over us as Cora thrashes beneath my grasp, but I bury my claws in her wrists. I pin her arms above her head so she can’t escape, leaning low to snarl in her face. “I am going to kill you. I am going to make you regret the day you strode in here with your fucking army and slaughtered your court.”

Cora hisses, baring her own fangs. “They were not my court.”

I dig my claws in farther. They slide through her flesh like a knife through butter. “I hope you rot in hell.” Pulling one claw out, blood spurting on my cheeks, I move to slash her throat.

Evander seizes my arms. He wrenches me away with a violent growl. “What are you doing, Vanessa?”

“Let me go!” I fight him to reach her. I buck, I thrash, I become a feral beast, but he doesn’t release me. “Let me kill her, Evander. Let me kill her!”

Cora rises in a fluid motion. She abandons her crown in a pile of blood and glass on the floor. Her wounds heal quickly. Too quickly. She wipes the blood from her wrists onto her gown before prowling toward me with fever-bright eyes. As if she’s excited, delighted, by my reaction. “Vanessa, Vanessa, Vanessa. What am I to do with such a little traitor?” She glances behind me with a wild grin. “Good boy, Evander. You can release her now.”

Puppet, I want to scream at him. Murderer, I want to snarl at her.

Arielle weeps beside the throne.

And I don’t care.

Cora plunges her claws between my ribs, and I scream. My knees buckle. I collapse on the floor, chest heaving as blood gushes over my sundress. Cora leans over me, twisting those claws deeper, making it as painful as possible. “You are lucky that your gift is so powerful. Otherwise, you wouldn’t survive the night.”

Blood burbles up my throat, out of my lips. I spit it on the floor with a groan. “Why—do you—care?”

“You are a stupid, useless girl who should have died months ago. You were blessed with a gift you don’t understand, and that is the only reason you are allowed to live.” She slides her free hand into my hair, wrenching back my neck and forcing me to look at her. “Did you never wonder how you fought my son’s compulsion the night of the massacre? Did you never wonder why we are so alike? That answer is the key to everything, Vanessa Serafina Hart. But once this mating ceremony is finished, you will lose that last bit of control. You will be mine in every sense of the word. I will compel you to the ends of the Earth. I will make you do anything and everything I choose. We will rewrite history together.”

Her fingers tighten in my hair, around my heart, and I choke on another spurt of blood. “You want to know why I’ve tortured you so much? Because I can. Because you remind me of the pathetic girl who used to roam these corridors, daydreaming of love and believing she could trust the world. That girl died. I killed her to become this. And you—you must die too. When I have control over you, when I can trust that control, this version of you will die. And you will join me in a reign of terror that will shatter the world.”

The tip of her claw scratches my heart, and I gasp against the excruciating pain.