Page 142 of Shattered Jewel

“Tie him to the altar in the same way he pinned my butterfly.” Cav circles him, as lithe as a snow leopard stalking its prey. “I’m not done with him.”

Kaspian crouches beside the Scourge Sovereign’s corpse. He prods it with a single finger, lips curling. “Efficient work, beastie.”

He surveys the carnage. Blood pools on the marble, seeping into hairline cracks. The tang of copper hangs heavy in the air.

I clamp my teeth together, fighting a surge of nausea. The adrenaline ebbs, exhaustion and trauma taking its place. Every breath sears my lungs, every movement ignites agony.

Kaspian’s unsettling focus centers on me. Silent on his feet, he lifts me into his arms when I see it—a glint of light in the corner of my eye.

The ruby Heart.

Axe notices, reluctantly picking it up and handing it to me.

It feels oddly warm in my palm. Alive.

Perhaps it isn’t cursed after all.

Perhaps, it’s just misunderstood—like me, like Axe, like everyone in our battered group.

Axe’s hand covers one of mine and gives a reassuring squeeze, his knuckles split and clotted with blood.

Wordlessly, Wilder rests his hand on one of my legs as Kaspian cradles me to his chest. Cav lands a kiss at the top of my head, stroking my long hair.

All of their touches sends my abused skin and my shredded soul alight. Partly from exhaustion, but mostly from that familiar spark that always ignites between us.

Sasha flanks us, her expression flitting from pride to panic as she fully comprehends what the hell we just did.

Cav’s lips brush my hair as he leans in to whisper, “We broke the curse.”

Kaspian pauses, his arms tightening around me. “Where to now, beastie?”

I look at each of them in turn. My warriors, my friends, my loves.

“Home,” I say, my voice steady despite the adrenaline seeping out of me. “Let’s go home.”

Kaspian carries me, limping through the archway. Sasha assists Axe while Cav and Wilder mutter ominously about staying behind and taking care of the rest, including the High Sovereign, who is currently struggling against Wilder’s bodily restraint.

It’s difficult not to wonder what Cav and Wilder will do to him. Part of me wants to ask them to stop this cycle of violence, but that isn’t who my men are, and I won’t ask them to be anything different.

The Sovereigns took these boys when they were so young, barely teenagers, and broke them down until they were nothing but shards, with the intention of sharpening them into deadly blades. These “guardians” became fucked-up father figures to the boys, not by choice, but when their own fathers gave them over. Because of tradition and order stemming from over 300 years ago.

The consequences of this are so overwhelming, it completely overshadows the fact that I just killed a man.

The memory of the Scourge’s eyes, wide with shock that an Anderton descendant was draining the life from him, and the way his face caved in, flashes through my mind.

I want to cry, to scream, to beg for forgiveness. But I also want to justify my actions, to believe that what I did was necessary.

The weight of it all presses down on me, threatening to crush what’s left of my humanity. A wave of guilt, quickly followed by a sickening sense of relief, and then numbness, spreads through my body like ice water.

We move out of the manor and into the dark, away from pathways and past the imposing stone buildings of Titan Falls University, their gothic spires a monochromatic blur against the inky blackness above us.

We move as one.

I look down at the ruby heart still clutched in my hands. Light plays across the facets, refracting, fragmenting.

Sasha follows my study . “What should we do with that thing?”

“I don’t know.” My voice emerges hoarse, scraped raw. “Lock it away. Destroy it. Put it back to where Sarah wanted it to remain forever.”

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