Page 83 of Starkeeper of the Fractured Crown

She flipped on the faucet and began rinsing her hands. “Nothing you need to worry about. Go back to your stupid fucking Court.This,” she gestured wildly, flinging water everywhere, “has nothing to do with the war or whatever pathetic mission you’re on. You have my books, you have yourstupidgod allowing you to proceed in doing something about the war the witches have declared. You don’t need me anymore. So leave! Just fuckingleave!”

~~~

Kyra

I couldn’t breathe. There wasn’t enough air in this stupid cottage.

This useless, pathetic, ugly,worthlesscottage.

I gripped the edge of the sink, my heart thudding against my ribs, the Asilos Root pulling at my skin where I hadn’t rinsed it off.

I couldn’t breathe. I hated this. Why couldn’t I breathe? What was so wrong with me that I couldn’t even breathe right?

I closed my eyes and shook my head. My lungs hadn’t been damaged, this…thisthingthat caused this was just getting worse. Why couldn’t I make it stop?

I grabbed my chest, smearing the muck across my still wet clothes, shivering so hard, my teeth chattered. Cole had stopped talking, thank the gods. It wasn’t that I didn’t appreciate what he did, I just needed…I needed to think.

I needed to figure out how to breathe again.

I wanted to not talk about Mark. To not think about him. To not hear my mother’s voice whispering in my ears.

“You never did anything for us. You pathetic child. Worthless, useless child. You did nothing. You are nothing. Weak and spineless and unable to provide. Mark is better off without you.”

Better off without you.

Better off.

Better o—

My knees shook, threatening to collapse. Cole was wrong. I didn’t need totalkabout anything, I just wanted it all to fuckingstop!

A hand wrapped around my throat, jerking me back against a solid force.

It took me no time to know who it was.

Petrichor burned my nose as Trick pinned me tightly between the counter and him, his arm trapping my hand against my chest, his shadows pinning the other hand to the counter as his breath moved my hair away from my ear. Hot and heavy.

I continued to gasp for air as his hand tightened around my neck, cutting it off completely, my nails digging into the sink, tears already pouring down my cheeks, creating trenches into the root Cole had applied to my face.

I released a struggled sob. “I c-can’t breathe,” I wheezed out.

“Yes, you can,” he said, his voice somewhere between commanding and angry.

I shook my head, spots dancing in front of my eyes, my heart racing so fast, I wondered if maybe I had already died. “No, Ican’t.”

He turned his head ever so slightly until I could feel his lips pressing against the side of my head. “You don’t listen very well, do you?”

The fear that trembled in my gut, I wasn’t sure where it came from. Him or whatever was happening to me.

He lifted his other hand, a crystal cup held between his fingers, the purple liquid sloshing. His hand, hissleeve, it was covered in blood.

“Do you know what this is, Angel?”

I tried to focus through the tears and spots, tried to see the juice through the crystal, tried to smell it through the bitter scent of the Asilos Root and copper.

“Focus,” he demanded gently.

My nails dug into my chest, into the cold steel of the sink. I could just barely make out chunks floating in the liquid. Chunks of blue, swirls of black.

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