Page 150 of Wrath

Everyone must die.

Everyone.

So I attacked, attacked, attacked, attacked, until I forgot who I was and what I was fighting for.

FIFTY-FOUR

Z

Iparried my sister’s strike as I bounced backwards on the balls of my feet. I just needed to wait for an opening. I only had one shot at this. Until then, I couldn’t let her know my plan.

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this!” Aaliyah screeched, her voice abnormally high-pitched.

I half expected her to stomp her foot like a toddler. With a screech, she lunged at me again, swiping at my stomach with her blade. However, despite all the power she possessed, she was clumsy with the weapon. It was evident she’d never had to wield one before. I didn’t know why she even bothered, but maybe this was personal for her. Maybe she wanted to see my blood well and know she was the cause.

“Are you going to kill me, Aaliyah?” I taunted, diving out of the way of her wayward blade and ignoring the pain careening up my side from the fall.

My sister’s lips curled upwards. “If I wanted you dead, you would be dead.” She swiped yet again, and I parried it. “This is nothing but…sibling rivalry.”

“Then stop playing and get to it,” I snapped. “No more games.”

Something flared in Aaliyah’s emerald-green eyes. Something dark and insidious and capable of causing every hair on the back of my neck to stand straight up.

“Life’s a game, sister.” She dropped the blade to the ground and took a step forward, all pretenses forgotten. A wind that hadn’t existed prior blew back her red hair and black dress. Power crackled on her fingertips. “Everythingis a game. And the only options are to win or lose.” Her voice dripped with twisted delight. “You see, that’s the difference between you and me. You play by the rules. I cheat to win.”

Then she attacked.

I just barely avoided her first assault—a wave of raw magic that caught on the nearest tree, turning it into a flaming torch. I could feel the heat on my skin.

“Is that the best you can do?” I asked with a smirk, even as my heart leapt into my throat.

But I refused to show her even an ounce of the fear I felt.

Aaliyah screamed and bombarded me with blast after blast of dark magic. The final one caught my shoulder, and pain exploded through me. The whole world disappeared, and my breathing became ragged. All I could hear was the thrumming of blood in my ears and the erratic pounding of my heart.

“Why won’t you let me love you?!” Aaliyah screamed.

Above us, thunder boomed, and lightning shot through the sky.

Anger curled through my veins like flames. “You don’t know how to love,sister.”

I said that final word like it was an expletive. Something dirty.

And as I stared at my sister, the pity I felt before…vanished. This woman had hurt so many people, and for what? For me?Maybe that was what she claimed, but at her core, Aaliyah was selfish. Everything she had done had been for her. She wanted the love that had been denied to her for so long. For some reason, she thought I was the one capable of granting it to her.

She’d hurt my mates.

She’d hurt my family.

Rage coiled through my chest like barbed wire. I felt like the reaper of death, and if she or anyone else touched me, they’d fall dead at my feet.

Aaliyah might have unleashed her monster army, but she forgot one very important thing.

I was the biggest monster there was.

When Aaliyah blasted me with another wave of power, I didn’t roll to the side like I had before. Instead, I charged forward, ignoring the way the magic sliced at my skin like a dozen—no, one hundred—no, one thousand—no, onemillion—knives. I wondered if I would even exist after all of this was said and done. It certainly felt like I was being slashed to ribbons.

I ignored the pain. Ignored the nausea. Ignored the bile creeping up my throat. Ignored the fear weighing my heart down. I focused instead on my rage.

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