Page 121 of Crowned In Venom

His name is a broken thing on my lips.

The Matriarch tilts her head, watching us.

And she smiles with that crazy look in her eyes.

A slow, cruel, victorious thing.

As if this was always meant to happen.

As if she has won.

And I realize?—

I am screaming.

37

ANYA

"Enough."

The Matriarch’s voice slices through my screams like a blade to the throat—cold, sharp, final.

I barely hear her.

Varkos is bleeding out in my arms, his weight heavy against me, his body going limp.

"No, no, no—" My hands press against his wound, useless, helpless, shaking.

His skin is too pale, his breath too faint.

I don’t realize I’m still screaming until I’m yanked backward by my hair.

I barely feel the pain—only rage, only terror.

"He won’t die."

The Matriarch’s words freeze the blood in my veins.

I twist, thrashing against the hands holding me back.

"You’re lying!" My voice is raw, desperate. "You just— you?—"

"I won’t let him die," she continues, her silver eyes gleaming with something cruel. Something victorious.

"Not after everything I have done to keep him alive."

A cold chill slithers down my spine.

"What…?"

She smiles.

A slow, poisonous thing.

"Did you really think the poison would kill him?" she muses. "That he was strong enough to end me?"

She kneels beside me, her hands stained red with her own son’s blood.

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