Page 94 of A Reign of Malice
My gaze lifts and finds Sloane’s.
She’s still bloodied and bruised, but her eye looks as though it’s already starting to heal on its own. She trembleswith unleashed fury, every part of her seeming to burn with a fire that refuses to die.
“No.” Her attention falls on Aeson, her voice sharp as nails behind him. “You’re exactly what we tried to destroy in the Great War. You’re what we were supposed to evolve past.”
Aeson’s head snaps toward her, distracted just for a fraction of a second. That’s all she needs.
With a savage cry, Sloane snatches a jagged piece of the splintered dining table and hurls it like a spear. It spins once, twice, before slicing into Aeson’s shoulder with enough force to knock him off-balance.
He snarls, stumbling, but doesn’t fall.
As he works to get the wood out, I succeed in freeing the knife from my leg.
I expect to see Sloane moving forward, intent on finishing the job herself, knowing that I’m hurt, but she stays back and nods at me as I stand.
She’s giving this moment to me and me alone.
Agony nearly blinds me as I walk, but I welcome the pain, determined to use it as a weapon, especially once I notice the newest wound is clean. That last dagger wasn’t cursed like the others.
I launch forward, every ounce of my strength focused on the single objective I’ve carried for two centuries—kill him.
I’ve pictured this moment every day that I was locked away, imagined a million ways to end him. It never mattered how I did it. Just as long as it was done.
Aeson barely raises his arms before I slam into him, blade first. It drives upward into the soft space beneath his ribs, tearing into his gut, deep and final.
He gasps, but I’m not done.
I slam him back, his spine crashing against the stone wallwith a sickening crack. My hand finds his throat, the other still clenched around the dagger’s hilt. He thrashes, but I pin him there, keeping him helpless, choking, and cornered.
Black blood seeps from his mouth and pours from the wound, dripping down in rivulets that sizzle against the floor, eating into the stone like acid.
I twist the blade harder.
“This,” I snarl, inches from his face, “is for my pack. For every wolf you made kneel and every lie you told. For every future you stole, including mine.”
His hands claw at my arms, fingers shaking, lips moving without sound, but none of it penetrates my ire.
“And this…” I lean closer, meeting the madness in his eyes with some of my own. “This is formymate.”
I twist again until I feel the crack of something deep inside him. A bone, or maybe his heart. Either way, it’s final.
Aeson’s eyes widen. He gurgles. Blood spills from his mouth, hot and foul. His legs kick once. Twice. Then nothing. Only then do I release him.
His body slides down the wall, smearing black across the stone before crumpling in a heap. A worthless, ruined shell of a corpse, one who was once a power, unmade by the very truth he tried to bury.
Silence descends like fog, heavy and absolute.
I sway, my body buckling, and crash down beside his fallen form. The blade clatters from my grasp. My breaths come fast and ragged, blood pouring from too many wounds to count.
But I’m alive.
And more importantly, so is she.
Sloane’s at my side before I can even think to reach for her. She drops to her knees, arms wrapping around me, cradling my face in her hands. Her skin is warm, herheartbeat a thunderous echo that grounds me in the here and now.
“You did it,” she whispers. Her voice shakes with exhaustion, disbelief, and even awe.
I don’t know if she means killing him or surviving it.
