Page 113 of Crowned In Venom

My mother’s voice is deceptively soft. Dangerous.

Anya does not respond.

A mistake.

The Matriarch lifts the knife.

I grip the armrest of my chair so tightly my knuckles crack.

"You will not speak?" my mother muses, tilting her head as she glides behind Anya. The blade traces the curve of Anya’s bare shoulder, a whisper of cold steel against warm skin.

Anya remains silent.

Defiant.

I see the way her jaw tightens, the way her muscles coil beneath the surface. Preparing.

But there is no preparing for my mother.

The first cut is slow.

Purposeful.

A shallow slice across Anya’s upper arm—not deep enough to be fatal, just enough to feel.

Enough to hurt.

Her breath catches.

She does not scream.

My hands twitch.

"You thought you could bring ruin to my house?" my mother whispers, her tone almost affectionate. She drags the blade lower, down Anya’s arm, letting blood bead and spill in slow, crimson lines.

"That you could turn my own son against me?"

The silver blade catches the torchlight, a glint of steel and cruelty in my mother’s hands. It is a beautiful thing, forged for precision, meant for hands that know exactly how to draw out pain.

And she does.

Anya is on her knees before her, bound, bleeding, but unbroken.

She should be afraid. Any sane person would be.

But she is not sane.

She glares up at my mother, green eyes burning like embers in the dim torchlight, her face tight with pain but filled with the kind of hatred that does not bend.

She is furious. Daring.

And I am coming undone.

"You’ve been a very foolish girl."

My mother’s voice is a lover’s whisper. Soft. Dangerous.

A chill slithers down my spine, coiling around my ribs like a vice.

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