Page 50 of Devoured

Cora slams the door without another word, and I return to reality with an unpleasant lurch. Looking each of her werewolves directly in the eyes, Cora says, “Find a Modifier and an Alchemist, and bring them to me immediately. Tell no one what you’ve seen. When the duchess arrives, show her to the Great Hall and proceed with supper as usual. I will join you there when I can.” She dismisses them with a flick of her wrist, leaving us alone.

“Tomorrow morning,” she says stiffly, “you shall accompany me to the room outside the Great Hall.” The lines of her face, usually softened by a smile, appear almost gaunt now. Severe. She looks unrecognizable from the Wolf Queen I’ve known as she stares at the door. She looks human.

She looks as if she has a weakness.

“The room?”

“I assume you know the one,” she snaps. “I found you sneaking outside it earlier.”

My stomach drops as I remember the crack of a whip. Someone behind that wrought iron door was being tortured. Maybe more than one. Does Cora intend to torture me too? Or will she expect me to be the executioner?

I don’t know which is worse. I don’t even know if I can bring myself to care as Cora fixes that fathomless black stare directly upon me. “If you tell anyone about the forest, I will kill your father.” The words are direct, flat, and she means them. Gone is the pretense of amusement, of games and pawns, replaced with stark inevitability.

I feel myself nod, mumbling my assent. Because I’ll go with her; I’ll do whatever she asks. I’ve survived pain before, and I can survive it again. All that matters now is her frown. For the first time since her coronation, Cora has stopped smiling. And that’s more than I’ve uncovered before.

Cora has a weakness.

Unbidden, another memory rises to the surface of my thoughts, and goose bumps skitter like spider legs down my arms. “The gods abandoned this place. They have left it to rot and to ruin.” That spider, the arch, the air being too thin to breathe—something went wrong with the forest long before it closed. But when? And why?

I watch, silent, as Cora turns on her heel and stalks away. And the sound of those harsh, staccato steps, her tense shoulders and rigid posture, all burrow in my chest until my intuition bites deep. The questions themselves don’t matter—when, or why, or even how—because the answer is right in front of me. Cora is afraid.

I’ve finally found leverage.

20

SINCLAIR SEVERI

THERE IS A LIST OF ATROCITIES IN MY MIND THAT NEVER ceases growing. I am responsible for every single one.

1. I lied to Calix Severi, my best friend and cousin, every day for seven years. I knew he was the rightful prince, and I didn’t tell him. I knew he wasn’t a blood traitor, and I didn’t tell him. For all intents and purposes, I ruined his life.

2. I bit a human girl and forced her to become a werewolf. I lied to her, used her, crawled inside her mind and devoured her thoughts and dreams and hopes and whims. I manipulated her. I loved her. Worst of all, I made her think I was the hero.

3. I helped my birth mother slaughter an entire court.

A tourist bus jostles through rough jungle terrain. With each throttle from the weak suspension, I hit my head against the window, and I think of another atrocity.

4. I haven’t told anyone that my mother sent me on this mission. Although Calix is hurting and Vanessa is still not herself, I left them. I abandoned them to a volatile court.

The emerald lowlands of northern Guatemala blur through the glass pane, the scent of mud and vegetation rising above the stench of three dozen bodies packed inside this small metal tube on wheels. I grasp for the leather of the seat in front of me with the next hard turn, but it’s no use. I am the Crown Prince of the Wolf Queen’s Court of North America, and I am probably going to die on a tourist bus.

“You shouldn’t fall asleep if you have a concussion.” Evelyn Lee balances easily on the seat beside me, as graceful as a cat. No matter how much the metal tube shakes, she remains perfectly unaffected. “You could die.”

I peer at her through a half-clenched eye. “I’m closing my eyes so I don’t vomit, Evie, not so I’ll fall asleep.”

“I wasn’t trying to dissuade you. On the contrary, nothing would make me happier than your sudden death.” She pushes Prada sunglasses up from her eyes, setting them atop her head, and flashes me a sharp grin. “You look terrible.”

She hates me. I don’t blame her for hating me. Her fate is just another atrocity. “Try not to revel so much.”

“Please.” She scoffs. “The golden prince drenched in his own sick? I’m going to revel for as long as I damn well please.”

That nickname—the golden prince—carves me up inside. “I am not drenched in my own sick.”

“Soon.” Her crimson gaze narrows on my face. “Give it time.”

I slouch farther in my seat, arms crossed, and count the trees as we pass them.

Cameras shutter around us, though some tourists smack their phones and curse their sudden malfunctioning. The bus radio stopped long ago. Ended on an abrupt high-pitched squeal. The humans don’t realize they’re surrounded by werewolves. They don’t realize something about our very existence undoes the most complex of their technologies.