Page 131 of Devoured

“No,” I breathe. “Just—just—kill me.”

“I don’t have to kill you,” she snarls. “Your soul will die on its own soon enough.”

Then she removes her claw and shoves me to the floor. I clutch the gushing wounds, stanching them with my hand until they can close on their own as I lie beside Officer Warren’s body.

Cora gestures to the mess of corpses and flicks her wrist toward Arielle. “Clean this up, girl.”

“Yes, of course.” Arielle sprints out of the room in a second.

Evander lingers, however, just behind me. As if he wants to help. As if he wants to kill me himself. As if he can’t decide whose side he’s really on. “Your Majesty—”

“Take her to her room,” Cora commands, retrieving her crown and placing it on her head. Glass dusts her hair. Her gown. She doesn’t seem to notice. “Don’t bother locking her in. She knows there is no escaping her destiny. Don’t you, Vanessa?”

I don’t respond.

She sinks onto her throne and smiles. “Pathetic thing. How great and terrible we shall be.”

I fall limp in Evander’s arms as he carries me out of the throne room, barely noticing when he sets me on my bed. This has to end.

It’s time for Cora to die.

44

VANESSA

THE WEAVERS ALTER MY GOWN JUST OVER A WEEK LATER.

They dress me in wisps of gold lace, they adorn my head with a stupid crown, and they preen like mother hens. Pinching and plucking and poking me with needles, whispering and giggling over the grandiosity of my veil. Then—once I am tightly fitted in my wedding dress—they peel it off me and hang it in my wardrobe. They vanish without another word.

A tray of food appears in their wake.

I don’t know who sets it on the floor of my room. I don’t know who keeps bothering to deliver me drinks and meals three times a day. But the tray always comes and reminds me that I don’t care to eat right now. I don’t even care to move. My mattress has worn thin in the middle, where I spend day and night with my knees curled tight to my chest as I relive every horror and search for a way—any way—to reverse this. I plan. I plot. I conjure strategies in my head as if I’m playing phantom chess with myself.

But I lose every round.

How can I win against Cora when her moves are random, when she has no ethical boundaries, when she has total control?

“Pathetic thing. How great and terrible we shall be.”

I shiver, recalling her words and the venom behind them. Recalling the weight of her honesty like an anvil in my chest, sinking me deeper and deeper in my own despondency, until light has been swallowed by darkness, and I can’t breathe.

My gaze flits to the dress peeking through my wardrobe door, glittering gold fabric curling around the wood, and anger simmers in my veins. The gown fits like a glove. The Weavers told me I looked like a princess. But I loathe the sight of it. Shining even in the bleakness of my unlit room, each layer intricately woven of stardust and lace, it taunts me. It mocks me. A princess? I almost laugh. No. I am to remain Cora’s weapon for eternity. A soulless killing machine just like the Wolf Queen herself.

Claws unleash from my hands, but I don’t feel them as they pierce my bedding and slice through my mattress. I don’t feel anything except that anger—familiar, venomous, blazing—as I tear my gaze from the dress to the ground, to that tray on my floor. A frosted glass of water. A peanut butter sandwich cut into careful quarters. A sliced apple, a goblet of melting ice cream, and a mortal chocolate bar. A shiny wrapper amidst the luxurious porcelain and metal of the Wolf Queen’s Court. Whoever brings me food cares about me—enough to want me to eat. I hate that too. This is a meal for a child. Not for a monster.

Rage surges inside me, and my muscles clench. My body tightens as if I can contain the impending explosion.

But I can’t.

Without thinking, I leap from the bed and swipe a claw at the tray. I shatter it to bits. Metal and porcelain and food splatter the wall. Before I can focus on the mess, however, before I can glance back at my gown and scream, I pull on a robe and leave.

The walls of Castle Severi press close around me. Too close and too suffocating and always too fucking much. The castle has reeked of Cora for months now, withering roses cloaking everything like a layer of soot around a hearth, and the mirrors on every wall do nothing but reflect her horrors, her werewolves, her decor back at me.

I knock one off the wall.

I listen to it break, step over the rubble, and move on.

Craving open air, wishing I could just breathe again, I flee outside. Cora’s werewolves guard all the portals save for one.