Page 56 of Devoured

Oh god. Gorge burns through the knots of viscera, rises in my throat. “What do you mean practice?”

Cora sighs dramatically, flicking a careless wrist toward the princess. “The man you experimented on wasn’t an accident. You are going to do that again—without my help. You will practice on this traitorous princess until you succeed in utilizing your abilities on your own.” She approaches Valja with confident steps, smiling wider when Valja cowers beneath her shadow. “After all, she deserves it. Doesn’t she?” Cora seizes Valja’s chin before glancing over her shoulder at me. There is a glimmer in the Wolf Queen’s blackened gaze.

Does she know the poison wasn’t Valja’s doing, and it was me? Is she punishing me for it? I stagger backward. “I can’t. I… I don’t even know what I did.”

“That’s why it’s called practice, darling.”

But I can’t. What I did to the bishop was horrible enough. “N-no.”

“No?” Cora’s gaze sharpens. She releases Valja with enough force that Valja collapses on the floor. A heap of blood and bone and girl. She is just a girl.

I can’t tear my eyes away.

Valja just watched her sister die. She traveled here from a court probably not unlike this one. She is sad and grieving, and I won’t hurt her.

“No,” I say, my voice resolute now. Strong. “I won’t do it.”

I will not become Cora Severi.

Cora inhales, and it sounds like the slow drag of a cigarette. “Very well, then.” To her wolves, she says, “Take the princess to the infirmary. Make sure her wounds are healed.”

What?

My body jolts to attention. I nearly trip over my own feet. I glance at Cora, but she’s already watching me, her gaze trained on mine. Burning through mine. The black of her irises undulates, and in that moment, the truth of her loathing lances my chest. She hates me. She hates this place. She hates all of it.

“Just you, Wright,” she says with a jerk of her chin. “I’d like Luca to accompany Vanessa to the dungeon. If she’s this empathetic to the princess, perhaps she’ll enjoy the visit. After all, she’s already so familiar with the space.” Her irises darken. Deepen. In them, that loathing writhes and twists like the shadows along the wall. She doesn’t watch as Valja leaves. She doesn’t look away from me.

“Your humanity will be bled out of you one way or another, Vanessa. You and I are destined to rule this world. The longer you fight it, the more I will make you hurt.” With a sigh, she finally tears her gaze from mine to direct her ire at the remaining wolf. “Use the silver chains, Luca. If she struggles, bind them tighter. If she manages to escape, I will bury you out back in the St. Augustine mud where you were born.”

I keep still—frozen, rooted in place—as Luca approaches, saliva dripping from his snout at the mere prospect of violence. I’ve survived too much to break now. I lift my chin and relax my shoulders as he clamps his teeth around my wrists in a crushing grasp and drags me toward the door. Toward the dungeon. “Don’t worry. I won’t struggle.”

Cora laughs darkly, under her breath. To Luca, she says, “Bind them tighter anyway. Make her wish she was never born.”

22

VANESSA

SOMEHOW, IN THE PAST WEEK, CORA HAS RECONSTRUCTED the dungeon to appear exactly as it did in my dreams. Silver cages now sparkle from a lone spill of moonlight inside the otherwise dark and confined intestines of Castle Severi. Bodies of Antarctic soldiers hang like butchered pigs from steel hooks and chains. Others cower inside cages, behind silver bars, watching with hateful gazes as Luca forces me into a cramped cell of my own.

I drop to my knees, attempting to enter without grazing the silver, but Luca shoves me too hard, too fast, with his snout. I careen into the cage. My hands flail. My shoulder knocks against one side as my foot seeks purchase against the other. Silver bites me—burns me—everywhere. My blood incinerates, flesh igniting as if I’ve been set aflame.

Luca transforms back into a young man with a sharp laugh. “Easy there, Violet. We haven’t even bound you yet.”

I scurry on my hands and knees, instinct forcing me away from him and the bars until my spine threatens to collide with the back of the cage. Luca kneels before me, hauling a pile of silver chains from the center of my cell. He doesn’t wear gloves. Nothing protects his own flesh from sizzling against the silver pain, but he doesn’t flinch. He just whistles to himself, gazing at me as if he’s hoping to hear me scream.

I won’t.

Sucking in an agonizing breath, I let my voice descend into swift, ferocious compulsion. “You are going to release—”

Faster than should be possible, he seizes my throat. He kills the words on my lips and bruises my windpipe.

“Come on, Violet,” he interrupts with a vicious rasp. “Say you do compel me—the queen will find out. You’ll still be toast.” He tilts his head, and brown hair falls in a greasy slant across half his face as his fingers tighten ever so slightly. Enough that I choke out a painful cough. “You know it’s futile. Cora is bigger, stronger, and smarter. She’ll always win.” He lets go of me, and I collapse. I don’t move.

He’s right. I can’t compel him. Cora might kill someone over it, and that’s not a price I’m willing to pay again.

Luca hauls a pair of heavy silver manacles toward me. He clasps them around my ankles first, then retrieves the shackles for my wrists. Fire instantly rips through my bones. Agony shudders up my spine. God, it hurts. It hurts, and I’m going to scream. I can’t contain it anymore. I wince—just one pathetic wince—and Luca already grins wider.

“If you listened to our queen, you’d realize we’re top of the damn food chain. We are gods among men. If you want to die locked in a prison because you’re too stupid to help yourself, then rot here. Maybe you’ll realize what a mistake you’ve made.” Luca rises on his feet, wiping his scarred palms on his bare waist before turning to address the soldiers across from me. “Be good, little wolves. I’ll be back soon.”