Page 7 of When Day Breaks

I want to lean down and kiss her softly, because she is my wife, but she infuriated me, and I know she won't accept my sentiment. This wasn't out of love or affection. She's on overdrive and she needed to be fucked just as much as I wanted to fuck her.

But as I get up to put my pants back on, all she does is chuckle.

I look down at her, her eyes looking around before catching mine. Her body still shakes with laughter.

"What the fuck is so funny?" I ask her as she leans up on her elbows, her naked body gleaming with blood and sweat, and I can't help but admire the way she looks as she watches me with sarcastic eyes.

"You are so fucking weak," she tells me as she smiles in my direction. "I just killed your sister and the floor you fucked me on is covered in the blood spilled by my hand, and you still couldn't resist, could you? You have no backbone, Rivian. It's no wonder your dad-"

Lucynda's words get cut off by her sudden gasp, her words catching on a gurgle as she's forced forward and bends over, clutching at her chest.

I look up behind her seeing a small petite figure standing in the doorway, the lights barely illuminating her black hair. She steps out of the shadows, dusting her hands against her pants as she checks her shoes to make sure she didn't step in one of the many puddles of blood laying around.

It happens so fast.

I look back down at my wife to see that someone had thrown a wooden stake into her back; Lucynda gasps, frustrated in pain.The person emerges completely from the shadows, rushing to Lucynda and tearing the stake out of her back and at the same time snapping her neck.

Lucynda lays motionless on the ground. I look up, seeingmy sistershoot me a devious smile.

"I'd say that's about enough out of that bitch."

3

battle for blood

Unknown

The castle is in utter chaos; the grounds are littered with scared Nocturnes trying to figure out what to do. But I have no time to be caught in the demands of the king, trying to rectify his mistakes in the form of even more betrayal. Whatever his plan is for this kingdom, it will still fail. I'll make sure of it.

I have no plans to let him continue on doing whatever it is he thought he was on track to accomplish. Though seeing the Hollows Trace compound lit with flames threatening the very air we breathe is a wrench thrown at my agenda.

What caused this war? After Travois got locked up, an eerie quietness blanketed the town for a few solid days before all of . . .this.

But who did this and why? Might it have anything to do with the guest that Rivian demanded to be brought in from Valor Cove? It dawns on me that he carries more secrets than he should be privileged to, but there's nothing I can do about thatat the current moment. Right now, I have to figure out how to negate this threat while maintaining the purpose of the other.

This cannot be the reason why all we have done will fail.

I make my way into the cemented building, an hour outside of Shadow Creek. I know being seen here might raise some eyebrows, but with the current state of the Nocturne species, war on the brink between two Societies, the cause of fire that I'm sure the Faction has to be all over, I doubt anyone will even catch me sneaking in.

Creeping through the halls, I cling to the cold and dark walls as I make my way closer to my target. I know I probably shouldn't do this; he doesn't know that I'm here. But I need to do this. He'll want my loyalty and I'll want his.

No matter how fool-proof we've made this out to be, I am not too naive to know that something can and will most likely go wrong. As I find my way closer to the metal bars of the enclosure—keeping out those who have been detained, waiting for punishment to be decided for them—I stay focused and aware so as not to alert anyone else of my presence.

I take the key I stole from the unoccupied desk up front—shame people can be so careless these days—and quietly unlock the jail-like cage, my target seemingly asleep on his small cot.

But I'm a smidge too loud, something I berate myself for the split second it takes for him to jump up and rush to me, grabbing me by the collar of my shirt and pulling me into the bars. My face smashes against the metal, icy and hard. I grunt knowing that I am in trouble.

But I realize I'm in even more trouble when the cold pressure from the bars turns to searing hot pain in a matter of seconds. The bars burn against my skin, likely laced with some kind of flesh-eating element that the prison was able to maintain. I've never felt it's effects before but fuck if I didn't regret this decision already.

"What the fuck areyoudoing here?" His jaw clenches as his tone deepens with confusion and anger.

"I'm obviously letting you out, asshole," I say behind smashed cheeks and pursed lips, my skin eroding slowly off my face. Thank God it will heal.

He yanks me closer to him, pressing me harder against the silver bars of the jail cell, feeling my cheek bone nearly touch the bar through my skin. He looks hungry, and tired; the way he's looking at me right now makes me feel as though he could rip my body through the bars if he really wanted to. Anger valid, of course.

"How do I know you're not the one who put me in here?"

Good. He doesn't remember his compulsion, and even if he did. I'm not the one he'd remember. We were worried he'd broken through it when he was shackled up in front of the Faction but it seems like my abilities are stronger than my counterpart gave me credit for.

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