Page 86 of Reign

My mind tells me it’s over—I’m restrained in a boat and Chase is slammed to his knees by his supposed friend. Sabine’s won. I’ll die here tonight as the villain, the source for all the wrong seeping into Briarcliff Academy, yet it will fester long after I’m gone.

Except, my heart won’t concede.

“You need me!” I shout, my voice amplified by the lake. “You can’t let me die.”

“I killed your mother, didn’t I? Blood heirs didn’t matter to me then. Why should it matter now? Falyn dear, go out and assist our sweet Callie.”

Falyn appears from the second boat bay, her tall, honed body clad in Briarcliff’s unisuit. Her rowers’ knee socks pad silently while holding a scull above her shoulders, its shadow above her head doing nothing to obscure the enticement in her eyes as she locks them with mine.

“Think about this,” I say to her, aiming for calm. “Falyn, think about what you’re about to do.”

Falyn replies, “You’re not the queen of the Virtues. I’m here to ensure you never will be.”

Chase moans something under his gag, guttural and violent. Falyn tosses a smile James’s way but ignores the struggling beast he restrains.

The scull lands in the water. Falyn sets up her oars, then slips in. She pushes off the dock with a silent, deadly curve. Aiming for me.

My eyes dart from her to Sabine. “You can’t! You won’t. There’s no one left for you. If you end my bloodline, you’ll end yours, too. Piper’s dead. Addisyn isn’t eligible to inherit the society because of her crime against her sister. You’re left vulnerable, aren’t you? You need me. You need me on your side to keep your influence!”

Sabine stills, the water lapping underneath the dock amplifying in the silence.

“The societies follow monarchy rules,” I continue. “As much as you’ve tried to break them. You’re out in the open, without daughters, without heirs. Without me, you’ll have no claim to the Virtues. None.”

Sabine’s lips part on my last sentence. “My Virtuous girls will never go against me.”

“It doesn’t matter what they do.” I break off to track Falyn’s oars swishing into the water, gaining on me. I go back to Sabine. “The Virtues didn’t write the original oaths. The Nobles did. They will take control once they find out what you’ve done to me and their prince. And they’ll dispose of you as easily as Daniel Stone will.”

“My dear, have you not been listening? It isn’t me who will end the Noble legacy.” She tips her head and smiles. “It’s you.”

My face grows stiff. Stone cold. I whisper, through numbed lips, “No.”

Sabine lowers her chin. Falyn’s scull knocks against mine. She takes hold of my hull.

“Don’t do this—” I plead with Falyn, but a sharp movement brings my attention back to the dock.

Sabine laughs. “You’re beside yourself. I can understand, after what your broken mind has made you endure. Ranting about secret societies. Scaring the children with the myth of a sex ring on school grounds. Traumatizing parents with your hallucinations. This time, it’s not merely your stepfather you’ve made suffer. Your delusions have become too much. You’re hurting people, dear child. Blair. Sylvie. Ivy. You’ve experienced so much grief, have ruined too many lives, and you’re desperate to end your time here on Earth and join your mother. However.” She pauses. “Your selfish nature won’t let you die alone, now will it? You’d never leave Chase, your true soulmate, behind.”

My breaths stutter out of my mouth. Tempest. Where’s Tempest? And Eden and Emma? They could’ve arrived and been waiting upstairs when Chase and I were taken…

“Where are my friends? What did you do to Eden and Emma?”

My frantic exhales are the only sound in this cold, quiet lake. Even Falyn is motionless, her spindly fingers curled against my scull in wait.

“You kill the poor boy first,” Sabine continues, ignoring my question. “Then, you row out to the middle of the lake and capsize your boat.” Sabine’s eyes widen. “That’s the kind of news that will overshadow a fragile, broken girl’s paranoid ramblings, don’t you agree?”

My breathing turns into hyperventilating. “Ivy’s pretend vacation will have to end soon. When she doesn’t show—”

“Oh, you killed her too and buried her body in the woods. A sad little text message from your phone will admit to all that.”

“Monster,” I whisper, but Sabine hears, because she slowly, methodically, grins.

Sabine reaches into her cloak, and a silver shine catches against the moonlight.

She holds the dagger high. “I believe your DNA is already on this.”

“NO!” My terrorized yell grows in sound, shattering like moonlit shards across the rippling lake.

A sickening hurricane builds in my chest, ready to burst out of my lungs—

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