Chapter Fifteen

Nova

My head throbbed as I woke. My vision blurred as I gripped my neck. The pounding in my temples sliced through my skull and I winced.

“ Nova.”

When I heard Harvest’s voice in my thoughts, I realized what the pain was from. He was giving an order, likely while I was dead by the intensity of the pain. The longer I took not doing what he asked, the discomfort would get worse. That was just the first step. My body would start acting on its own if I defied him much longer.

I glanced at my wrists. The only thing in the way of my freewill was the two bands left, and yet he still held so much power over me. If he could control me so easily, why so many bindings?

“ Kill August, then get away from him. Go to Grim’s woods and hurt his family. Just like August allowed me to hurt you and those children that day.”

I screamed. My vision cleared as I stood, but my body trembled with its rage. It was like the inside of my veins were on fire. Agony ripped up my spine as Harvest repeated his order in my head. The hazy vision came again. Stabbing pains reached into my eye sockets. It was like hundreds of hands plucked inside my mind the longer I stood still instead of doing what Harvest wanted.

Wetness seeped from my nose and ears. Wiping under my nose, I saw the blood as my vision faded in and out.

I am tired… Revenge had been a dream for so many years. When it wasn’t revenge, it was the wish for true death. All my life, I’d been at the mercy of first Derrick, then Harvest. The person who tricked me with his lies almost got the shackles off me. I didn’t know why August tried or why he would. I could never forget the past.

The taste of freedom had been so sweet…

Maybe it was for the best Harvest intervened. I wasn’t as strong as I should be when around August. Like in the past, I didn’t feel like me in August’s presence. Something strange always happened to my body.

Harvest must know I needed to be reminded of who August Reaper was. He started sending images to my head of a massive mansion in the City of the Dead. I knew it was August’s home. I also knew of every single female that lived there with him. Harvest showed me over and over through the years. He sent more images of the demon women traveling in and out. August’s harem.

My chest hurt—the tightening sensation made it feel like I couldn’t breathe. Harvest might as well have cracked me right down the middle with an axe. As soon as the vulnerability hit, I erased it with a scream of fury. I knew Harvest reminded me, so I’d kill August and the others for him, but it didn’t matter. Everything Harvest showed me was the truth. While I rotted away, August lived in luxury with women. He could save me a thousand times over and it would never be enough for me to forget. He left us to die that day. Even if he hadn’t known what our fate would be, Derrick would have destroyed us if Harvest never showed, and August had known that.

A shrieking roar sounded above me. I saw August in the air, flying beneath the beast’s belly as he gutted it. As the creature fell through the trees, August disappeared, only to appear before me. His powerful essence was like its own weapon crashing into me.

“ You won’t let him near you, ” Harvest commanded.

I didn’t resist his order. Instead, I let it consume me.

“Just two more,” August’s voice had that enchanting echo to it when skeletal. The hair on my arms raised.

“You’re too late,” I said as I lifted my arms. I didn’t need to move my body to cast my magic, but I wanted him to see what I was doing. The fight he brought upon himself. “Your first broken promise cut deeper than any wound. No matter how many times I hurt you, you’ll never know what that felt like.”

His yellow essence blazed to life, seeping and swirling out of his cloak. “Nova…”

“If you die, I can rest,” I whispered as I channeled power into my fingertips. I kept pulling and pulling. There was no bottom to the power inside me, which was good because to hurt August in his skeletal form, I had to go big.

“Nova…”

“He wants me to kill your family like he did mine.” I didn’t say who because he’d understand I meant the one who controlled me. “It seems it won’t just be you dying when your power fails you this time.”

“Nova!” he shouted.

I screamed, “Boom!”

My magic jarred the ground. Trees uprooted and flew around before bursting apart. My curls blew back. My skin felt like it would peel right off from the force of the explosion. I could see nothing by a cloud of gray before me.

I stood still, unwavering in my power.

I was a storm of power. A lethal weapon to all . I knew that more than anything as I blew my mate into nothing but air. I would enter Grim’s woods and do as all those who imprisoned me wanted me to be. A being of destruction. August Reaper could have freed me so long ago… But because he didn’t, I’d be his family’s downfall that day.

Harvest’s chuckle rang in my ear.