Air would not move past the knot in my throat. I stood for several seconds, struggling against screaming. Bared to the waist and barefoot, Grayson wore only bloody jeans. He dangled from chains wrapped around his wrists. With his arms stretched grotesquely above his head, his shoulder bones bulged as if dislocated. I couldn’t see his face with his head tipped to the side, but with each shallow breath, his chest rose… my lungs squeezed down when I saw the obliterated alpha tattoo. Rivulets of blood wove a webbed pattern across the bronzed skin of his chest. His foot spasmed, warning me he was lost in whatever delirium existed after hours of torture.
My heart broke, cracked right open. If a faille could crush stone with her bare hand, what I held in my fist would have turned to dust.
I turned to Amal, my face as callous and cruel as hers.
“You’re a scornful bitch.”
“And you’re a daughter’s daughter.”
Through the high slitted windows, light fell across a crimson throne, a carpeted dais. Matching ceremonial bowls stood on polished bronze pedestals with an etched design marring the metal—depictions of creatures from hell. Or from her dungeons.
Amal’s eyes gleamed with a blinding black light. She was exactly as she’d appeared when she walked through Azul, a flawless face covering the rot beneath. We were nearly the same height. Similar build. I judged her age—she’d been ten years older than me when she was turned, and when she whirled, what I thought about was a black raven ready to strike. Even when she held out a trembling hand, her fingernails reminded me of talons.
“Where is the stone?” Her voice was stunningly feminine when she wasn’t screaming. A melodic voice, one that would mesmerize someone to their doom.
But she had no right to the rune stone she’d so casually used for her own gain.
“This stone?”
I held my hand above the burning coals in the brass pedestal bowl, ignoring the skin-blistering heat. It was nothing like the faille heat building in my veins. The heat that burned forests down. A tumultuous fire that flared every time I breathed in the scent of my mate’s blood. Allowed myself to see him, hanging there on the wall like a trophy she’d won.
My lip curled back. “What a shame if I dropped it.”
The queen’s hand fisted.
Grayson screamed.
The agony knifed beyond muscle and bone. It plunged into my soul. Each inhale became more jagged, unstable, while the gods-damned gift of sight kicked in. I barely made out the shadow of Grayson’s wolf curled near his feet. The wolf I’d known as valiant, strong, now quivered while the faint, growled mewling ran end-to-end with the stress.
“A pity you can’t talk to him,” Amal sneered. She meant Grayson. I doubted she saw the illusion of Grayson’s wolf that I saw, since she was staring at the man. “You’re a failure with no pack bond, and he’s in no condition to say anything more than gibberish.”
“Cut him down.”
“No.” Amal’s lip curled with arrogant satisfaction. “He’s my only hostage since you released Antoine. I require some leverage.”
A game, then. She wanted a war of wits before the loser’s death.
“I have the rune stone.” An unnecessary reminder. “The wolf trapped inside is weak. Sometimes, I can’t even feel her, so the longer you rage, the longer she waits.”
“Taking it from you is like breathing.”
“But you don’t recall the ritual, do you? The song the Bone Woman sang? Everything I see around you reveals failure. Was it in a room like this? Did Pelonie stoke the fire in a ceremonial bowl? Did she use that knife on the table, or is all of this pulled from your fractured imagination? Because you can’t remember, can you? It’s all mixed up in those dark days after you were turned. All you can do is cut and cut, and they all die, cheating you out of your revenge. How utterly frustrating.”
Pressure beat through the air. The sting of nettles burned my skin. The taste of dead ashes coated my lips as the queen advanced.
“You need that song, Amal,” I said. “The song weaves the magic, and it dies with me if you’re foolish. Then you can rot until the others get here. The wolves and the vampires. The nymphs and the witches. They’ll kill you, and I guess that’s one way to reunite with your wolf… if you’re lucky enough to end up in the same place.”
I paused, watching Amal’s chest rise and fall as she dragged in air.
“Somehow, I don’t think you’ll be that lucky.”
Her volatility was her weakness. But her unpredictable anger surpassed weakness with a deadly threat. At any moment, she could destroy Grayson with a flick of those long taloned fingers. Rip her way through me. And every sacrifice being made by the wolves fighting on the outside, by Mace and Fallon, all the others, would be for nothing. Because I was failing with no idea what to do. What to say.
“What do you want?” Amal wheedled in that feminine voice that had my nerves clenching.
“I want him off that wall.”
“No.” Amal’s power slithered across the floor and coiled around my legs, piercing into me like a thousand tiny teeth filled with venom. Pain was a flash-fire through my veins, my muscles, inside my head until I screamed.
