If I had to choose between Zoey and Riven...
The thought claws at my heart, burning with guilt, but I can’t deny the answer. I’d choose Riven over anyone, every time, without hesitation. We share a soul now—my magic is his magic, and his heartbeat is my heartbeat. Choosing against him would be like choosing against myself.
The shame of this realization tears through me like glass. I’m betraying the Sapphire who existed before the fae realm—the girl who made that promise all those years ago over terrible nachos and horror movies.
I’ve changed. Zoey and I havebothchanged.
“You don’t understand.” Zoey’s voice is suddenly calm, pulling me back from my spiraling thoughts. Her eyes find mine, and there’s something almost tender in them now. It’s like shewants me to understand her as badly as I want her to understand me. “They need me.”
“Who needs?—”
Before I can finish, she breaks through my water restraint, lunges forward, and her mouth is at my neck, fangs sinking into my flesh.
SAPPHIRE
The pain is searing,sharp, and violent. But it’s the betrayal that shocks me the most.
Zoey bit me. Zoey is feeding from me.
This is my best friend. The girl I pulled from freezing water when we were children, the one who stood beside me through everything. And now she’s trying to drain me like I’m nothing more than prey. Like I meannothingto her.
Waves of dizziness crash over me with each pull of her fangs. The room blurs at the edges, my knees weakening as she takes more and more, as if she’ll never get enough.
I should fight back. I should blast her away with scalding water or freeze her with ice. Instead, I lean into her embrace as I try and fail to process everything that’s happened since Riven and I burst through that door.
I’ve fought through so much to get here, and now Zoey’s changed so much that she hates me? It can’t be real. It justcan’t.
“Sapphire!” Riven’s voice cuts through the fog in my mind, his panic surging through the bond. In the distance, I hear ice crash against ice, metal clang against metal, and wind swirlingin violent currents as he and Aerix face off against each other. “Fight back!”
Another clang of metal. I open my eyes to see Riven trying to get to me, but being held back by Aerix every time.
Before I can close them again, a memory surfaces. Matt when he spoke to me from the Underworld.
When I was alive, I couldn’t see it. But now I see everything so clearly. What the queen did to me... the way she twisted my mind until I couldn’t think about anything but her.
Realization hits me like lightning. Aerix’s hold on Zoey might be unbreakable while he’s alive, but if he dies...
Maybe there’s still hope.
Strength surges back into my limbs. Water erupts from my skin in a violent wave, throwing Zoey backwards. She crashes into the wall with a surprised gasp, and blood—my blood—stains her lips.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, my voice hoarse as I press my palm to the wound on my neck, the skin there stitching together as it starts to heal. “But I’m going to save you.”
Even if it means hurting you.
My magic flows stronger now, purpose replacing hesitation. Ice bands wrap around Zoey, pinning her arms and legs to the wall before she can recover.
She screams, thrashing against the restraints, but the more she struggles, the tighter my magic binds her.
“Let me go,” she growls, twisting again.
I increase the pressure, and her breaths come faster, panic crossing her face as she stops thrashing. Her gaze snaps back to mine, and beneath the vampire hunger and blind devotion to Aerix, something human and hurt is staring back at me. A flicker of the girl who promised me marshmallow nachos and endless loyalty.
“You don’t get it.” Her voice breaks on the words. “I love him, and he loves me. The two of us…” She swallows, looking down at her feet, as if she’s afraid. When she looks back up, her eyes are hard, the vampire in her replacing whatever remains of my best friend. “There’s so much you don’t know.”
I step closer, keeping my magic steady, holding the ice around her limbs. “Zoey, listen to me.” My voice is as firm as I can manage, despite my trembling hands. “Whatever Aerix made you believe is a lie. Everything will become clear after Riven deals with him. I swear it.”
Ice and metal continue clashing behind me, but I don’t take my eyes off Zoey. Not for a second.
