Chapter 276. An Insane Visitor III

Chapter 276: 276. An Insane Visitor III

The mountain next. My limbs unfeeling. The rogues dragging me like dead weight. Tessa walking ahead like it was an evening stroll, talking about the Queen, about getting rid of me permanently without killing them, about midnight.

I was going to die.

The thought landed in all four of us at once.

I’m never going to see them again.

Soren’s face. Jericho’s. Mercer’s. Quinlan’s. The way they touched me like I was something precious. There’s not a place you could go that we wouldn’t find you.

Tears burned behind my eyes and I couldn’t lift my hand to wipe them, couldn’t feel anything below my waist.

The cliff. I fought the memory even harder, and I lost.

I felt the wind, heard the whispers, my bladder felt full. I knew what was coming but I was helpless to stopping it. I was in hell, my worst nightmares brought to life.

Tessa’s foot was on my chest. The ashen dagger glinted in the night. Five minutes to midnight.

"Any last words, bitch?"

I wanted to argue and make up and do it again. I wanted to tell them I loved them. All that left my mouth was a senseless whimper, and Tessa smiled and said, "Pity."

Screaming. Someone was screaming in my ears. Please don’t. Please don’t.

Then she put the blade to Soren’s mark. "I’ve always wanted to tear this off you."

White-hot pain exploded through my neck. I couldn’t even scream. Blood poured down my chest, into the black lace, and she started to flay the skin off.

I wanted to die.

Soren jerked like he’d been the one cut.

"You know, the first time he called me malyshka, I felt special. This is for taking him from me."

Jericho stopped breathing under me. I didn’t want to see anymore. And yet, the memory continued, dragging them into every crevice of my mind I’d kept them hidden.

"And this is because I hate your stupid face."

I didn’t want to go there. I didn’t think I could survive another one of those without breaking all over again. But he came, like always. Lyon. To find the broken pieces of me there was, always trying to save me.

The world tilted. Open air. Then his hand catching my dress, nearly ripping me in half, brown eyes like Jenny’s, blood on his face.

"I’ve got you--fuck. Hold on, Mace."

Tessa behind him.

The first slash across his back. His whole body jerked. He didn’t let go. The second. The third. The fourth. The fifth. The sixth. I didn’t want to watch, but I couldn’t close my eyes.

Tessa laughed, planted her feet on his back, and shoved. "Die with her."

We dropped. "Close your eyes, Bright Eyes. It’ll all be over soon."

I heard someone bawling. It was an ugly, raw sound. It was me. Screaming. "Get out. Get out. Get out!" I was thrashing against something, the heat and hunger long forgotten.

I didn’t know who I was talking to. Them. Tessa. The rogues. My Lycan. Or the memories.

And then I felt the blood running thick down my hands. "Get it off!" I howled, that phantom pain still in my body from all that ash. "Get it out!"

Soren’s face was above mine now. His cheeks were wet and his eyes wide with horror and pain. Someone roared and glass shattered in the distance. Quinn, maybe.

"Breathe, malyshka," came Jericho’s voice from far away as fingers combed through my hair. "It’s over. Gods above, it’s over."

I wheezed, my hands fisting against a chest as I tried to get out of there, follow his voice towards reality. But I failed and fatigue wore heavy on my bones. And I took the easy way out and shut my eyes.

****

Quinlan

Violence never really was a last resort for me. Not many knew but it was a language I spoke most fluently.

There was an art in destruction, in pain, a discord that often struck me as beautiful. Like the splatter of blood against walls and floors. Like a broken body, mangled beyond recognition. It was amusing, usually.

But tonight, I only felt rage.

Everyone loved to think of us four, Mercer was the most violent and least predictable. Everyone saw a pretty face and a flirty smile and assumed I was the one easiest to fuck around with.

Fucking reach, considering my track record.

I thought most clearly when I was in the rage. I saw colours more brightly and could almost taste the fear of prey. On those days, viciousness and inhumanity often blurred the lines.

Which was why I rarely let my emotions get the best of me. But someone crossed the line. I had a score to settle. A long line of them, really.

Blood ran down the length of the knife in my grasp. It belonged to the guards outside. They died too quickly, too quietly, nothing at all like Maisie’s screams in my ears. I couldn’t stop hearing it. They never got out of her that night but it was loud enough in her head. Couldn’t stop seeing the line of scars littering her body, couldn’t stop hearing the soft giggling that followed every stab.

Naturally, I had to give back as much as she received. It was in my nature.

I wondered if the Grahams knew they were getting visited tonight. Perhaps Tessa knew her reckoning was near. It’d explain the tripled number of guards outside.

It really didn’t matter. They could’ve been a thousand and it wouldn’t have made much of a difference.

I stepped into the dimly lit room, cocking my head over at the body sprawled on the mattress, a lithe female curled atop it.

"Don’t kill him," Soren had warned. "He could help clear her name."

I’d spent a long, long time hunting for this rogue in particular. Funny I had never pegged Tessa as stupid enough to keep him under her roof as a guard.

I flicked the dagger. Death was too easy. It had never been my plan anyway. Not with him tonight, or with the woman I’d really come here to see.