Page 80 of Wicked Court

“Cav. Stop,” Axe commands, his voice laced with a desperate need to protect her.

I don’t heed his words. Elara struggles against me, her snarl a thing of true beauty. “Let go of me!”

I murmur into her ear, my voice low and dangerous, “Can’t do that, butterfly. You’re too precious to let slip away just yet.”

Axe’s tone hardens. “Cav, let her go.”

He knows better than to intercede, but it’s physically costing him. Axe absolutely vibrates with the need to hit me.

The sight of Elara, trembling beneath me on the forest floor, stirs something within him.

Damn it all to hell. His connection to her is worse than I thought.

I could crush him, silence him forever, but I don’t.

“Elara hasn’t been truthful about the necklace.” I turn my attention to the half of Elara’s pinched, frustrated face that isn’t pressed against the ground. “You’ve been crafty again, haven’t you?”

She arches against my hold. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. It’s there. The necklace is behind the portrait.”

“Yes. That part was true.”

“Then why are you pinning me to the ground, asshole?”

I don’t answer her question. Instead, I reach into my pocket since she’s easy to subdue one-handed, and pull out the jagged ruby necklace, its crimson facets mockingly twinkling.

“Is this the necklace you had in mind to give us?”

“Yes,” Elara answers tightly. My weight isn’t doing her lungs any favors.

“Lovely. Your honesty is so refreshing.”

Shoving the necklace back into my pocket, I fix my gaze upon her once more. “So why don’t you tell me why it houses only half of the fucking ruby?”

“Half?” Axe queries, casting me a sideways glance.

“Half,” I confirm, my tone smothered with insincere solemnity.

My words are barbed hooks, and I watch them sink deep. She doesn’t understand, can’t possibly comprehend the war we’re all ensnared in. All she sees is the monster before her, not the protector keeping the darkness at bay.

I release Elara abruptly, vaulting to my feet and studying the storm of emotions playing across her face. Axe moves as if to help her stand, but I meet his gaze with a silent warning. He halts.

“That’s the ruby,” Elara says as she struggles to her feet, her voice heavy with exhaustion. “The necklace from Sarah Anderton that the Wraithwood family has been hiding for centuries. It’s the only ruby I know of.”

“Where’s the rest of it?”

Elara matches my shout. “I don’t know!”

I force myself to take a deep breath. “Kaspian recovered an old journal in the black market. It described the ruby in detail. This”—I shove the necklace in front of her again, tangled in its chains—”is not all of it. The Heart is divided. And our precious butterfly here”—I spare Elara another disdainful glance—“kept that crucial detail buried under her usual layers of feigned ignorance.”

Elara’s eyes widen slightly before they shutter closed with denial.

Her voice wavers when she answers, “That’s...I don’t know anything about that. I only just found the necklace. I thought it was ugly, but I never thought it was missing anything.”

Ignoring her protestations, I regard Axe, who has remained ominously silent. He watches us with an air of warring emotions that troubles me more than I’d care to admit.

“It doesn’t matter,” Axe says, his voice low and filled with a weary resignation. “We can look for the other half without her.”

“No.”

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