Page 9 of Break Her Heart
I dropped, breath knocked out, pain like lightning caging my ribs. Her fucking twin. He knew exactly where to strike. Precise. Just like her.
It wasn’t wood, and yet the pain was excruciating. Fire raced through me. It was poisoned and completely wrong. I could barely breathe. My limbs betrayed me, folding as shadows closed in. My mind scrambled to hold onto anything.
Her face. Her scent. Her name.
Her face. Her scent. Her name.
Gods, I would kill for her.
Ididkill for her.
And still she betrayed me.
I laughed, even as the world unraveled.
The pain flared, impossibly bright, like someone had poured molten iron through my veins.
“So you’re not here to apologize, I see.”
Darkness took me.
4
Bronwen
He woke slowly, his eyelids fluttering like a bird struggling against the wind. His chest rose and fell in shallow, uneven breaths. Sweat beaded along his forehead, darkening his hair at the temples. It took far longer than I expected for him to open his eyes—too long.
And part of me hated that I’d worried about him.
He was alive. Or whatever a vampire’s version of alive was. But the way he slumped in the chair, the lines of strain etched across his face, made me wonder just how close Adar’s blade had come to truly ending him. My stomach twisted.
The spelled chains clinked softly as he stirred, his wrists and ankles bound to the chair. We’d reinforced them just as Papa had done for every vampire he caught. Nothing too aggressive, but enough to keep him from tearing us apart the second he woke.
Because I knew August’s strength. And his temper.
I glanced at Adar, who stood near the door, arms crossed over his chest, eyes fixed on August like he expected him to break free at any moment. There was tension in his shoulders—wary and waiting. But there was satisfaction, too. His fingers traced the dagger’s hilt, itching to use it again.
“What did you stab him with?” I asked warily. Adar’s methods were often… thorough.
“Something Jonah brewed,” he replied, his tone clipped. “Works well enough on humans. Makes them spill their secrets like wine over a cracked glass.”
“But he’s not human.”
“No. But it will work.”
I swallowed, my gaze returning to August. His head lolled forward before jerking up, his eyes flickering open at last. They looked different. Still red like they were when he seemed to lose control over himself, but also glassy and unfocused. As if he were struggling to recognize where he was.
“What…?” His voice was rough, shredded from the sound that was a mix of a laugh and a scream I’d heard before he went under. His gaze snapped between me and Adar, the tension in his body growing even as the chains held him tight. A shudder ran through him, the kind that rippled beneath his skin like it hurt to breathe.
The drug was supposed to make him tell the truth. That was what Adar claimed. But it had been made for humans, not vampires. And part of me wondered if we’d just poisoned him instead. It was usually given orally because humans are much easier to force to take it, but with August’s strength, we knew we had to do it a different way.
A sound tore from August’s throat. Not a groan, not a snarl—laughter. Broken and wild. His head tipped back, the spelled chains rattling as his shoulders shook.
“Is this it?” he choked between laughs. “This is your plan, Winnie? Tie me down and dose me like some lowly prisoner? I expected something…cleverer-er? No, that’s not right. Cleverer! Cunning. But this?” Another round of laughter spilled out, breathless and sharp.
The sound of it settled something inside me. It was familiar, even if it was maddening. Proof that he was still himself and not hollowed out. Definitely drugged. But still himself. Actually, more like the August I knew before I killed Carrow. I released a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.
But when I glanced at Adar, his expression was different. Uneasy. The way his fingers tightened around the dagger at his side told me he was closer to lunging at August than laughing along. His lips curled in disgust.
