Page 68 of The Evernight Court

It grew until it was the size of a fucking basketball—fire, orange and yellow and red flames dancing around each other, so real I felt the heat of them against my face.

Then I pulled my fist closed, and the magic retreated inside me just as fast as it had come out.

The fire was gone, no sign of it left behind, and my hand was perfectly intact, my skin pale and unbroken.

I did it, I did it, I did it,I thought over and over again as I fell back against the wall with this crazy urge to cry. I just wanted to cry to let go of this heavy burden that was on my shoulders andbe gladfor one thing that had finally gone right.

But I couldn’t. I couldn’t cry, nor could I let down my burden, and I could behappyabout it even less. Genevieve had my blood, and I had no clue what the hell she wanted to do with it when she wasn’t even a vampire. I just prayed to God that I wouldn’t come to regret giving it to her the way I already knew I would.

For now, I would not even think about it at all. For now, I’d focus on making the best out of this magic no matter how much it had cost me. For now, I’d focus onnotbeing a coward anymore.

And the perfect opportunity presented itself to me when I went to the tower kitchen and realized that I still had no food left. So, I took two of the biggest kitchen knives in the drawer, hid them carefully in the back pockets of my pants, and I walked out of the tower with my head up, determined to pretend I wasn’t afraid until I actually wasn’t.

Shadow was there, across the main hallway, sitting at the edge of the painting, watching me as his long tail swooshed to the sides. I stopped, gave him a moment to attack, but he didn’t. Hewouldn’t.

Valentine had had me alone in the middle of the woods that day, and he hadn’t attacked me. Shadow hadn’t attacked me, either. On the contrary. If my memory could be trusted, Valentine had stopped Emil yesterday from fucking drinking me dry right in front of Tristian. He’d spoken, and he’d distracted Emil long enough so that I’d been able to slip through the door of my tower.

Valentine hadsavedme, and I had no clue how to even feel about it yet.

Shadow didn’t follow that I could tell when I continued down the hall toward the kitchen. I was all alone—until I turned the corner that led to the doors of the dining room and found them open. Six brides were on their way in, among them Amita and Cynthia.

Rachel saw me, and she immediately stopped everyone by nudging them and pointing at me.

Suddenly they froze, just like I had, and for a good moment, none of us made a single sound.

“You arenotwelcome here,” Paris suddenly spit, raising her chin as if to dare me to say a word.

“Murderer,” said Rachel under her breath.

“You deserve to die,” Amita told me. “It’s your fault Master Grey was banished.”

“Youshould have been banished instead!”

“Why don’t you go die now? Why don’t you jump off that tower you’ve claimed for yourself?!”

“The Masters are generous to let you live. I’d have cut off your head myself!”

“Murderer—you’re a murderer!”

They spoke fast while they held onto each other, enraged and afraid and disappointed that I hadn’t disappeared from their sight yet.

I had a lot to say, too. I was going to remind them that they were all there that morning, and they saw exactly what happened, that Romin was a goddamn coward and that’s why he chose to banish Grey. That I cared more about Grey than these women who called themselvesbridesdid—they were already fucking the other brothers not two weeks after he was gone!—and thatit’s not my fault, it’s not my fault, it’s not my fucking fault!

But I kept my mouth shut anyway, not just because I didn’t believe my own words, but because it wasn’t going to make a difference. No matter what I said, it wasn’t going to make them hate me any less, so why bother?

“Rot in your tower!” they cried when I turned to leave, reminding myself that it was not worth it.

“Better yet—rot in hell!”

On and on they called as I ran down hallways without really looking where I was going. I just needed to get away from them, and I needed tonothear them at all. I needed to forget they fucking existed because their words, their opinion didn’t matter.

Exceptminedid.

And unfortunately for me, I agreed with them wholeheartedly.

My eyes were full of tears and my vision blurry, so I didn’t really see where I’d ended up until I forced myself to stop and breathe and reminded myself that the brides could go fuck themselves when there were the likes of Emil and Tristian in this very castle who could ambush me any second and do to me what Emil had done just last morning.

That sobered me up really quickly and I reached for the handles of the kitchen knives in my back pocket as I blinked the tears away and focused on my surroundings.

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