Page 42 of Beg the Night

“How could you say any of this? How could yousupportthis? You know how awful this is! This isn’t right!”

Her only reaction was a deep inhale and a lift of her sharp chin. “There is no place for right or wrong here, Thena. Just survival. You want to survive, don’t you? You’ve always been quite the survivor.”

My heart raced at her proximity.My sister.After all this time, she was alive. And she was with them. I could barely believe the words coming out of her mouth. She wasn’t here to break me out, to help me. No, her purpose was to ensure my compliance.

I looked to where Sinner and Director were speaking near the edge of the party, talking in hushed tones like Katherine and I were.

Always so secretive.

I’d been dragged here with nothing. Nobody. I had no intention of giving them anything they wanted. But the deep pit in my stomach told me the tides were shifting. There were more forces working against me than I’d realized, one of which, it turned out, was my heinous sister.

“If I agree to go through with this—which is still pretty damn unlikely—you need to do one thing for me.”

She stiffened. “What?”

“There’s another girl in the dungeons. She barely has any power. Margaret. You have to let her go free.”

Katherine’s mouth fell open in disbelief. “Are you kidding? You really think Director will agree to let a mystic woman walk free?”

“She’s a low level, probably a one. I think your bitch of a boss would be more concerned about Sinner and me participating in the claiming than about keeping a low-level mystic around. If Director really wants this to happen so badly, she’ll let her go.”

She studied my face, lips pressed together and eyes narrowed to slits.

For a moment, I considered asking her more about what she did for the Ministry, how she’d ended up here, how long she had been with them and what power she was using to assist them.

Before I could, though, she exhaled loudly, pulling me from my thoughts.

“You’ll claim with him willingly on the next blood moon?”

God, this felt so wrong. Everything in me was telling me to run, to lie, to hide.

But if I was really being forced into this fate, maybe one good thing could come of it. “If you let her go, yes. I’ll do it.”

A few seconds passed, but eventually, she nodded once. “Fine. I’ll see what I can do, but I make no promises.”

Rather than walk away like I expected, Katherine lurched forward and gripped my forearm, her expression full of fear. “You’ll die if you don’t go through with this. I know you. I know you’ve been trying to fight, trying to find a way out. But there is no way out. Bond with him, use your power, and fight the battle you were born to fight.”

I yanked my arm free from her anyway. “I don’t trust you.”

“Good,” she whispered. “Don’t trust anybody. It’s the only way you’ll make it out alive.”

Director was on the stage now, garnering the attention of the crowd. Katherine—like the good little dog she was—looked proudly toward the stage.

Disgusting.

Director rambled on about the war, spitting lies and claiming false victories while the crowd blindly cheered. As soon as it ended, I turned to find Margaret.

Before I could locate her, a piercing sound split through the air, stopping my every thought in its tracks.

“I’ll see you soon, sister.”

A breath later, the world went black.

Water.I needed water. My mouth was caked with thick saliva and my eyelids felt weighed down. I pried them open eventually, though my vision was blurry. What the hell happened? And how long had I been asleep?

“Finally.” A deep voice echoed off the walls and ricocheted inside my skull.

Fuck. Sinner’s voice tended to do that.

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