Page 3 of Break Her Heart
“So you can either kill me now,” he said, “or you’ll marry me and find a way to stop it.”
Snow crunched behind me.
“Bronwen.”
My name, spoken in a voice so familiar, cut through the icy darkness like a blade. I turned sharply, my body still shaking from the fight with August. Adar stood just a few steps away,his chest heaving, eyes wide with panic. His gaze darted between August and me, confusion twisting his features into something close to horror.
I had kept so much from him this entire time.You have to trust me, I had said when I formed the plan.
And he did, without a second thought. But he didn’t know that everything that happened was my fault. He didn’t know that the man I told him I was sparring with was a monster. One who dragged us all into this nightmare.
But it was all coming together for him now.
“What did you do?” The words scraped out of his throat like broken glass. His eyes searched mine, pleading for an explanation that I didn’t have.
August’s voice sliced through the air like a knife. “You haven’t told him?” He laughed, the sound splintering against the silence. “You didn’t warn him that he was killing the king?” Each word flung like a poisoned dart. “Or that you were fucking a vampire?”
Adar recoiled, his shoulders jerking as if the words had struck him physically. I saw the betrayal flicker across his face, raw and bleeding. His fists clenched at his sides, knuckles white from the force of it.
August smiled. “Or that you are the reason your parents are dead?”
Fire exploded from my hands.
I wanted to make it all stop. The madness, the pain, the twisted threads of truth and lies that bound us all together. The fire lashed out of me, uncontrollable and savage. I was ready to end it. To move on from the games that had consumed me. To finally kill August.
But instead, I ran toward Adar, grabbing his arm with fingers that trembled with both fury and desperation.
And then we were gone.
2
Bronwen
I watched the fire dance in the hearth. The feeling of victory I felt when I killed Carrow left as quickly as it came. August said I didn’t kill him, but he could have lied. He always kept things from me and this could just be another one of his games because he was mad that I went behind his back and did something.
Hehadto be lying.
Because the truth was too hard to bear.
I reached into the fire, waiting to feel something—anything. The flames danced around my hand, wrapping between my fingers as they nipped viciously at my flesh, but my skin stayed clean, and all I could feel was a little heat.
What did it feel like to burn? I’d watched a man at Market stand too close to a pit where they were roasting a pig. The tail of his coat caught immediately, trailing up his back, but he ripped it off and was left unscathed other than a few burn marks. But a vampire… it was as if they were made entirely of kindling. Acandle could burn them in a matter of seconds. Did it feel the same as it did when a human burned? I’d never know.
The fire didn’t hurt me, but part of me wanted it to. Maybe if I burned, it would feel like penance. Like proof that I could still feel anything at all. I thought pain would bring me clarity. Or punishment. Or something other than this numbness pressing down on me like a weight I couldn’t shake.
I felt nothing. Just heat and silence.
My thoughts were fragmented, slipping away as fast as they came. Everything felt foggy. I couldn’t remember how long I’d been sitting here. Minutes? Hours? The flames blurred in front of my eyes, and for a moment I forgot where I was.
What I would give to have Shadow with me right now. Was he okay? Did the townspeople make him pay because he was the property of a witch? Or was he still in the barn waiting for us to return? Alone and starving.
The thought punched the breath from my lungs. I blinked slowly, a sick heaviness pressing down on my chest.
I needed to know.
The scar on my neck pulsed, faint and steady, like it was listening. A soft reminder that August would always be tied to me in a way I couldn’t shake. I pressed my fingers against it, but it only throbbed harder, like it was mocking me.
Is this what Papa meant when he said darkness would consume me? The darkness that was left in my soul after losing him and Mama?
