“Well, well, well,” she purrs, her head tilting like a twisted Barbie. “My girls. Finally, we’re all together again.”
“You’re not our anything,” I growl, pushing myself upright despite the screaming pain in my shoulder.
“Oh, but I am, Cressida. I made you,” she says, her eyes wild with delusion. “I gave you everything. Friendship. Love. Protection. I gave up everything for you.”
“You faked your own death and stayed dead for seven years, Giselda,” Sunniva spits. “That’s not protection. That’s psychosis with extra steps.”
“Makoa was going to kill me. I had no choice.”
“There were plenty of choices,” I snap. “You just didn’t want any that didn’t end with you playing queen on a bloody throne.”
She laughs and it’s the most monstrous sound I’ve ever heard.
“You’re so small-minded, Cressida. You think the world is black and white—good friends, bad enemies. But I was building something better. An empire. One ruled by women, not by the boys’ club of killers and monsters you married into.”
“You’re the monster, Giselda.”
Her smile falters.
I should stop, I know I should, but all my grief, my pain, my fucking rage pours out of me before I can stop it.
“You stalked us. You sent threats. You kidnapped us. You’re not building an empire. You’re setting fire to everything you ever claimed to love.”
“I own you,” she screams, suddenly unhinged. “You and Sunniva were mine. My sisters. My legacy. And then you went and chose Lucetta,” she spits her name like a curse, “over me. You replaced me.”
“We didn’t replace you until you threatened us, you batty bitch,” Sunniva snaps. “That tends to sour a friendship.”
“And you’re pregnant,” Giselda sneers, stepping closer, her eyes darting to my stomach. “With his child. His blood. You were supposed to bemyfamily.”
“You’re sick, Giselda. And the worst part? You think it’s love. You think you’re the hero in this story.”
The bond sears my chest so painfully that I gasp. Konstantin is coming, his rage sharpening into something cold. I feel it, thick and heavy, the Bogeyman waking fully.
Giselda notices something going on, and then I feel her, trying to dig her claws into my head again.
I grit my teeth and shove her out so forcefully that something inside her shatters. But then she grins maniacally. “Oh, he feels me, doesn’t he? He’s terrified. Good. Let him run.”
Sunniva’s laugh is raspy and full of pain. “You’re fucked, you dumb cunt. You just don’t know it yet.”
Giselda’s head snaps toward Sunni. “You always were the loud one. The distraction. Maybe I’ll cut out your tongue first just to make it quieter.”
“Try it,” Sunniva spits. “You want crazy? Bitch, I will out crazy you.”
I know what she’s doing. She’s keeping her focus off me and the baby. And goddess above, I love her for it, but she really needs to shut the hell up before I end up losing her.
“Enough.” My voice rips out. “You don’t own us, Giselda. You never did.”
She blinks, startled at the venom in my voice. For a second, I see the girl I once loved like a sister. Then she’s gone again and replaced with this twisted thing in front of me.
“You’ll understand,” she whispers. “You’ll see. When you kneel beside me in the ruins with the Bogeyman’s blood staining your boots. Then you’ll see.”
Konstantin’s cold fury settles the way it does right before he kills. I know this feeling. I know what it means.
I drag air into my lungs and smile at her. “He’s coming for me, Giselda. My monster man. And when he gets here, you’ll see exactly what you unleashed.”
For just a second, her smile falters. Then she laughs, high and broken, and the sound is worse than the silence.
Once she leaves us with guards who look too jacked up, I close my eyes.
