Page 76 of Beg the Night

I watched as a single glowing butterfly fluttered across the open sky above.

“Where are we?” I asked, struggling to wake completely. “What is this?”

Sinner let out a sigh. “We’re outside in the woods, but her mystics have enclosed us in some kind of magical room. We have to be under the full light of the moon for the ritual to work, apparently. These walls will stop us from leaving or running away.”

A piercing pain radiated through my skull as I took it all in.

“Oh my god.” As I rubbed at my temple, the reality of the situation hit me. Yes, I’d known what would happen tonight, but being here made it all too real. The moon was nearly at its apex, and we were sitting on this bed that was made for, what? For a fake, stupid romance that was supposed to merge our powers?

My heart took off at a sprint. Shit.

Don’t freak out. You’ve already freaked out way too many times tonight.

“Oh my god,” I groaned.

“I know,” he added, his head lowered. “Stay calm, okay? Can you do that?”

His hair—the thick locks that had been perfectly slicked back for dinner before—was in a disheveled mess. His shirt hung loosely off his body now, the ties across his chest almost entirely undone so I could see a large portion of his torso. His ridiculous shoes were gone, too, and so were mine.

I nodded slowly and forced air into my lungs. “I can stay calm. I can do that. Panicking won’t help anything, right?”

“No. It won’t.”

I closed my eyes for a few moments, and when I opened them, Sinner was watching me intently.

“What?”

“I need you to tell me the truth, Athena.”

My stomach sank at the seriousness of his tone. “What truth?”

“Is it true?”

I stumbled over my words, unable to summon an answer.

“Is what your sister said about your power true? About your family?”

I shook my head, giving him a pleading look. “I don’t want it to be true.” The words were a whisper. “It can’t be true. I couldn’t live with myself if—if?—”

“But if she’s right…” He leaned in until I could feel the heat of his breath. “If it’s true, then you’re even more powerful than me. Powerful enough to get us out of here. Powerful enough to get my sister out of here.”

I was already rejecting his words, head shaking. “I can’t do it.” I tried to match his whisper, but the words were too loud in the silent forest. Desperate for him to understand me, I clutched his arm. “If I could do what my sister says I can do, don’t you think I would’ve done it a long time ago? Like when I was first captured?”

“Fear could suppress your?—”

“I amnotscared!”

He flinched at my words. He’d never reacted to me like that before.

I crawled off the bed and scrambled away from him. The forest floor was cold under my bare feet, and the cool night airthat soaked through the barely-there fabric of my flimsy dress didn’t help, either. “I just need…I need time to think about this.”

He stayed where he was on the bed, head tipped back. “I’d assume you have twenty minutes. Maybe less. The second that moon reaches the apex, they’ll force us to claim.”

“I know. I know.”It was impossible to freaking forget.

“And they’ll hurt Mags if we don’t. That’s why they kept her. That’s why they?—”

“I know!” I spun around with a roar, my heart cracking wide open. “I’m very aware of what is at stake here, okay! You don’t need to remind me!”

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