13. Maven

The darkness is filledwith shouts and screams, and the ever-present mist barely conceals the bloodshed that has already begun in this haunting forest. I can sense death nearby, thick and potent, as it awaits hungrily for more victims.

If I closed my eyes, it might feel like I"m back home.

But closing my eyes would be stupid since an incomplete quintet is already rushing through the trees towards us. One has a sword, one wields the wind, and the shifter is already in bear form as she leaps through the air.

My hand slips into a concealed pocket on my pants. I"m ready to grab the dagger there and end anyone who comes close, but a blinding flare of red magic has my hair standing on end.

The bear drops dead from Silas"s spell, blood gushing from where it"s been split clean in half at the torso. The wind elemental is also knocked backward, slamming into a tree trunk with a sharp cracking sound.

When the legacy with the sword lunges forward, a wickedly sharp rapier made of ice forms in Everett"s hand. He moves with the sly, practiced speed of a fencer, his ice blade piercing through the gut of the legacy. Immediately, they"re encapsulated in solid ice, just like that cheeky siren at the ball.

It all happens so quickly that it takes me a moment to realize Baelfire is tensed in front of me like a massive shield of muscles, scanning for the next imminent threat with his eyes shifted into the slitted pupils of a dragon. Admittedly, he actually looks pretty terrifying when he"s on edge, especially with the faint glow under his skin, like there"s fire trapped inside him that wants out.

No wonder they"re considered top-ranked legacies. They"re not bad at this.

I mean, they"re sloppy, but I would be lying if I said the frigid deadliness in Everett"s movements didn"t do something for me. It also affects me more than it should when Silas lifts up his hand, licking away his own blood with a drag of his tongue, the barest flash of his fangs reminding me that those appear when he loses control.

I wonder what they"d feel like buried in my skin. I bet it would hurt so deliciously.

Pulling myself out of my moment of distraction, I clap slowly. "Brava. Now follow me. The cemetery is this way."

I turn to lead them, but Silas interrupts me.

"First, Baelfire should end that wind elemental. A kill will give him more control."

Baelfire hesitates, glancing at the tree where the wind elemental is collapsed unconscious in a wheezing pile, probably with several broken ribs.

"No. Leave him be," I say immediately when I read the apprehension in the set of Bael"s jaw.

Silas gives me a stern look. "If you"re worried about sparing Bael"s innocence, don"t be. He"s killed plenty—all of us have. But if he doesn"t end a life soon, he"s liable to shift out of control, which puts you in even more danger. That"s not fucking happening."

He tries to turn away like that"s the end of this discussion. But I grip the front of his shirt and yank him down to meet my eye again, not bothering to hide my true strength or the anger on my face. It makes his eyes widen fractionally.

"No, what"s not fucking happening is making someone take a life that they"re not sure about taking. I get it. You"re a cutthroat asshole with no qualms about ending a deserving opponent, no matter what condition they"re in. We"re similar in that way," I parrot his words from last night with an eyebrow raise. "But Baelfire"s dark side isn"t quite as pitch black as ours. So if he isn"t comfortable killing a defenseless enemy, then I get the final say, and I say leave him the fuck alone."

Roughly releasing the front of the startled blood fae"s shirt, I start toward the ancient cemetery. I"ve been there plenty of times in my wanderings through Everbound Forest. It will take us at least twenty minutes to get there, which doesn"t leave much time to refuel my magic to perform a search spell for the changeling.

Baelfire catches up to my side. "Damn. You"re fucking hot when you"re bossy. Do I need to step out of line to get my turn? You know I love being good for you, baby, but I can try being a brat."

Unexpected heat blooms in my neck, and something pools low in my stomach. The thought of punishing any of them sexually makes it really hard to think straight.

Baelfire inhales sharply, and I know he"s scenting my arousal. "Fuck," he groans.

"Keep it in your pants," Everett snaps.

Bael grumbles something about frozen blue balls that I don"t fully catch because an agonized scream splits the air of the forest nearby. We all go silent and still as we wait for the potential threat to emerge from the dark mist.

All that emerges is a baby manticore, which hisses and scales the nearest tree.

"Disappointing," I sigh.

Silas tips his head. "Is it? Do you enjoy watching our more monstrous sides in a fight, sangfluir?"

Apparently, I do.

But I haven"t been in a good fight in ages, and I"m itching to spill blood. Of course, I only want to hurt people who truly deserve it, and I still don"t want other legacies to catch on to the fact that I"m stronger than they are.That would draw the attention of the Immortal Quintet before I"m ready to start picking them off.

So, I"ll have to temper the darker urges that were ingrained in me.

For now.

Suddenly, another scream sounds much closer, and I sense another wave of death just before a cluster of legacies steps out of the trees. All seven of them are on high alert, with one of them bleeding heavily from their side.

I realize with a start that the heavily bleeding one is Monica—the empath atypical caster I met at Harlow"s sadly-not-a-murder-rendezvous the other night. She slumps slightly onto one of the guys, who bares his teeth at us.

"It"s the lottery quintet!" he snarls. "Take them out, and we"ll eliminate the highest-ranked legacies at Everbound!"

That"s enough for the rest of the legacies to launch forward with shouts and flares of blinding magic. These legacies don"t seem to be matched together, so I assume they"ve formed a temporary allegiance as many legacies do.

Silas takes on two casters at once, Everett is attacked by a water elemental and a vampire, and Baelfire begins wrestling with a wolf shifter. The guy supporting Monica releases her and simply runs away, abandoning her to stumble backward in terror. I can already tell that the gushing injury on her side is fatal. But hearing her cries as she disappears through the trees calls to my human side—the often-dormant part of me that drove me to make the blood oath for those who needed it.

Monica might be an atypical caster, but she"s far more human than I"ve been in years. I"m not part of their fluffy asscaster support group, but I can"t just let her die in these woods.

The fight distracts all my matches as I take off after the atypical caster.

"Monica!" I shout, jumping over a fallen log and sidestepping a smoldering corpse as I continue in the direction she ran.

She ran fast. Really fast. Was she using magic to try to get away?

Finally, I stop in a clearing, taking in my surroundings quickly to avoid any nasty surprises. But I"m still taken off guard when I see Monica sitting on a nearby rock…with a smile on her face.

I"m just close enough to see that her pupils are square.

Fuck. I really hate this changeling.

Immediately, I whip out a throwing knife, but I barely have the hilt in my leather-gloved hand before blinding light smashes into me, sending me careening. Hitting the ground hurts, but I can usually take hits like no one"s fucking business and walk it off.

But this time, I can"t move.

And it dawns on me. That was a paralysis hex just now—a potent one. If I had magic in my system, I could rip the hex apart in the blink of an eye, but I haven"t refueled. So now I can"t turn my face away from pressing into a surprisingly green section of grass.

No matter how hard I try, I can"t fucking move.

If I had my heart, it would be crashing in my chest. But even though I can feel my thundering pulse and breathe and bleed and feel like any living thing, my shadow heart is undetectable, a reminder of the monster they turned me into.

Except right now, I don"t feel like a monster. I feel…helpless. It"s been a long time since I felt this way. Trepidation claws at my chest.

Sierra titters, "See? Told you it wouldn"t be hard to get her alone."

A guy"s voice snorts. "Nah, that was fucking easy. Thanks for your help, Mon—didn"t expect you to volunteer to help us like that."

"It was nothing. We all want to get rid of the lottery quintet, after all," the changeling says sweetly in Monica"s voice.

I"m going to fucking kill it once I get out of this.

"So this is the unmemorable little bitch everyone got so worked up over?" another of Sierra"s guy friends scoffs, and all of my senses are thrown into panic when I feel hands turning me over.

At least now I can see, but it"s not a pretty sight. Sierra stands over me with a victorious sneer on her face, with two guys leering alongside her and the changeling off to one side, smirking in a nasty way I"m sure the real Monica never could.

"Damn, she"s a butterface," the taller guy with dark hair says, and the panic doubles when he reaches out and squeezes one of my cheeks hard enough that it might bruise.

The other guy, a blond, frowns. "You think? I think she could be really cute if she put in more effort. It looks like she"s wearing a fucking tarp, though. And what the hell is with the gloves?"

"She"s a germaphobe," Sierra says confidently, and fire flares to life in one of her hands. "Let"s see how well asscasters burn, huh?"

Fire.

Fuck.

I"m going to actually die. Shit, shit, shit.

But I can"t even formulate a plan of how to stop this from happening because this asshole is still touching my face, and it makes it feel like every nerve in my body was just submerged in acid.

Stop touching me.

"Not so fast," the douchebag holding my face grins, showing off his fangs. A vampire. I should"ve guessed. My track record with vampires is abysmal. "I wanna see her cry."

"You always like to play with your food," the other guy grumbles.

Sierra beams. "No, Jace is right. This fucking bitch cheated in a fight just to take a cheap shot at me and stole my entire future from me. She deserves to suffer for everything she put me through, and I know how to make that happen. Get her gloves off."

My stomach careens. Once again, I try to move, but I"m completely locked in place by the spell the blond caster must have thrown at me. Jace, the fucking prick, grins with excitement…and his other hand slips up under my shirt to caress my stomach.

I"m going to puke.

Panic is now beating in my veins so hard that I start to acutely disassociate before I can feel them stripping my gloves off me, cackling as they rip up grass and dirt to shove in the "germaphobe"s" mouth. But even though I try to check out as fast as possible, I can still feel when Sierra laughs and spits on my face.

And when the blond caster licks my neck, laughing uproariously.

The vampire"s hands are on my arms, my face, my throat…

Disassociating isn"t working, and hot tears start to gather in my eyes as bile crawls up my throat. I can"t move to puke, so I might choke on it. I hope I do so I don"t have to feel their skin on mine anymore.

Stop fucking touching me. Get away from me.

From the corner of my eye, I see the changeling approach. It"s no longer bleeding, so it must"ve been healing itself just now. Its fingers brush against my temple, and a sharp, painful surge of memories rises to the surface, drowning out everything else and forcing me to relive the hell that conditioned me to hate all of this so much.

I can see it all again—myself at eleven years old, screaming and crying as I pounded on the thick wooden door of a dungeon, so desperate to get away from the maggot-infested corpses surrounding me that I left bloodied handprints on the wood. I can feel the fucking maggots that wriggled against my skin, trying to get inside to eat me alive from the inside out.

Then I see myself at fourteen, biting down hard on a strip of fabric so my teeth wouldn"t break from clenching them in pain. But it wasn"t enough to muffle my screaming as another one of the necromancers" never-ending, agonizing rituals seared through every muscle.

And finally, I see my own tear-streaked face when I was seventeen, reflected in whiteless black eyes as my heart was ripped out.

This one is not to be touched. She will be my masterpiece,Dagon"s oily voice echoes in my head from so long ago. If anyone lays a finger on her, tear them to shreds and send her back to me for conditioning. She must learn that she is nothing more and nothing less than what we make her. I will ensure she becomes the telum.

Telum.

Scourge.

It"s true. That"s what I am. I'm the scourge—a living weapon. And I"ve been through shit that these three assholes can"t even fucking imagine. They never would have survived a single day of my life in the Nether, so why am I holding back?

I snap back to myself as the changeling draws away with a smirk. I can tell it ate no memories, but it"s smug that it got inside my head. It probably saw far more memories than I just re-experienced.

But right now, I don"t give a fuck what it saw.

Their hands are still on me as Sierra mocks me, the blond one laughing as he rubs dirt on my face. They"re preying on my trauma, enjoying my tears and horror. My panic hasn"t subsided, but now it"s just white noise as I draw energy out of the grass beneath me and give in to the life-devouring magic that flows through me.

Dark magic explodes out from all around me, finally shattering the paralysis spell. A shrill scream cuts short as Sierra slams into one of the nearby rocks and goes motionless. But I know she"s not dead yet because I don"t get the familiar buzz.

I want that buzz.

Letting my temper and the bloodthirst thrumming in my veins take the lead, I grip the blond caster by the throat to fling him aside. Jace yelps in alarm and tries to back away, but I"m already on my feet as I stalk toward him, spitting out the taste of grass and dirt and enjoying the shocked terror on his face.

"Calm down! Look, I could"ve killed you just now, but I spared you, so you should?—"

"What? Repay the favor?" I ask innocently, letting my lips curl into the sick smile that used to make even Lillian flinch. "Don"t worry, I will."

He tries to dart away using his vampiric speed, but I move faster than he thinks I can. Immediately, I have him pinned to the ground as the boiling rush of hatred and lingering horror pumps through my limbs.

They touched me. Mocked me. Fucking licked me.

I"m sure this vampire would have done far worse if I had never broken out of that spell, which only increases the turbulence in my stomach. I"m either going to throw up or kill him.

Either way, I want him to suffer first.

I"m so far gone that I don"t hesitate to draw more life from the grass beneath Jace"s back, and then I dig my fingertips through his shirt into his chest and unleash a flare of power. He jolts and lets out a bloodcurdling scream so shrill that his voice gives out, his limbs twitching and spasming.

Music to my ears.

I do it again. And again. And I enjoy every second of it. Every scream and sob fills me with a sick, intoxicating thrill.

I may be fucked in the head now, but I didn"t always enjoy killing. Actually, taking an innocent life is something I avoid at all costs. Even surrounded by the horrors I was raised with that would rip me to shreds if I showed weakness, I drew the line at killing anyone who didn"t truly deserve it.

This one? He deserves it.

I pause for a moment to relish the agony on the vampire"s face as he chokes on his own tears and snot. "W—what the f—fuck are you?" he sobs, too weak to push me off of him as his eyes flutter and roll helplessly.

"I"m what happens when the Undead experiment on the living."

His next scream is particularly satisfying as I force more lethal magic into his system. But finally, the fever pitch of fury starts to die in my head. The inescapable yearning to kill and maim and fuel my magic with death lulls. I"m abruptly dizzy as I pull my gloveless fingers out of his chest and glance around the small clearing.

The blond caster and the changeling are nowhere to be seen, and Sierra is still out cold. Part of me is tempted to end her life, too—to end all of their pathetic lives. It would be so fucking easy.

I was made for this. For death.

But as usual, when I"m on the verge of losing myself, Lillian"s gentle voice is like the brush of a feather inside my mind.

Death is not your destiny. Everything you have gone through gives you a choice—the ultimate choice. Whenever you think of ending a life, remember how hard you have fought for your own. It"s too precious to destroy so heartlessly. Rein it in, Little Raven.

Rein it in. Right. I should do that.

I finally shake off the last of the killing rage. But Jace is no longer breathing, his eyes frozen open as a fresh wave of buzzing magic lights up my entire system.

Oops.

Oh, well. Like I said, this dick deserved it.

I get to my feet and stumble away, my boots crunching over the now-lifeless grass. Nearby trees are equally drained. As I lean over to pick up the gloves they stripped off of me, another flare of nausea hits me hard, and I drop to my knees to heave until I have nothing left. My nerves are still burning, and it feels like my skin is crawling with thousands of invisible maggots, biting and burrowing little bodies.

I would give anything to fix how my body reacts like this.

Now that the vengeful outburst is out of my system, the panic catches up tenfold. I"m going into total panic. I can"t be here.

I have to get their fucking touch off of me, so I run.