Page 111 of Break Her Heart
It didn’t stop me from hearing the dagger pierce his flesh. It didn’t stop the way my heart felt like it was being torn out of my chest. A groan slipped from his throat and then… nothing. No cry. Just silence and the weight of my world ending. My mark burned—throbbed—and then went quiet.
I opened my eyes.
August was bent forward as the vampires unhooked and unwound the chains, letting them fall from his body like they no longer dared hold him. He turned slightly, and the moonlight caught on the jeweled dagger buried deep in his chest, making it gleam like something proud of what it had done.
I held my breath, refusing to believe what I was seeing. Maybe it didn’t work. Maybe he fought it off somehow.
He reached for the hilt, fingers curling around it with slow, deliberate certainty, as though savoring the feel. Then, with one unhurried pull, he drew the blade free, the sound of metal sliding against flesh whispering through the clearing.
He straightened to his full height, and when he turned to face me—
“Oh!” His laugh was sharp, delighted, inhuman. “What a wonderful welcome back gift!”
He closed the distance between us, each step slow and savoring. My pulse spiked. No.No, no, no.I tried to kick myself backward, heels digging into the dirt, but the ropes and the ground fought me at every inch. My mind was a frantic snarl of thoughts—run, fight, scream—but my body refused to obey. He was still coming, shadow stretching over me.
He crouched in front of me, studying me like a prize. “We are going to have a marvelous time.”
Then he stood again and flexed his fingers, watching the way the joints moved with an almost reverent fascination. He turned his hands over slowly, palms up, then down, inspecting each one like a man trying on a new suit and marveling at the perfect, stolen fit. His gaze roamed down to his arms, his legs, his chest—assessing, claiming. Then he stretched, like someone waking from a long sleep inside another’s bones and finding them exactly to his liking.
“This body,” he purred. “So strong. So perfectly broken in.”
He dragged his hand over his chest where the wound had been, fingers tracing the edges of the fresh, scarred symbol burned into the skin—twisted and sharp, etched in the same cruel language carved into the blade’s hilt. When August looked up again, the light in his eyes was wrong. Too bright. Too eager. And whoever was behind them wasn’t August.
It wasn’t just the way he spoke.
It was the way he smiled—with joy, not cruelty. The pure, victorious joy of having taken what he wanted.
August was gone.
And Carrow was here.
37
Bronwen
It had been a week. I thought. There were no windows. No lights. Sometimes no sound. Time had twisted strangely in there—stretching, curling in on itself. I had only known I was still alive because someone kept shoving bread and water under the door.
I had expected to die on the spot. I waited for him to drain me. Snap my neck. Crush me beneath his boot. But instead, he told them to lock me away.
I thought I had started to lose myself after the third day. My thoughts had looped endlessly. Was it really Carrow? Could August still have been in there, buried beneath the weight of someone else’s soul?
I tugged at the metal gloves encasing my hands until my wrists ached. They’d knocked me out again after the ritual, and when I woke in this cell, the gloves were already locked in place—heavy as shackles, their cold bite digging into my skin. Theyweren’t meant for comfort; they were meant to prevent me from pulling magic.
But magic wasn’t the only weapon I had. I would make every creature in this cursed castle pay—if I could just get out of this room, get my hands on anything sharp or heavy enough to use. Surely Carrow wouldn’t leave me here forever. If he’d wanted me dead, he would have ended me the moment he saw me.
Sometimes I wondered if he was trying to drive me mad before he killed me. Papa’s words replayed—Darkness will consume you.Was this the darkness he meant? At least Adar wasn’t with me. I wondered what he thought when he couldn’t find me after Benedict had taken me. I just prayed he was safe.
The door groaned open, and I shielded my eyes as candlelight spilled into the darkness. I braced myself for the usual shove of bread and water, but instead the light kept moving closer.
When my vision adjusted, I saw him—and my stomach twisted. Benedict.
“Get away from me,” I bit out, my voice so hoarse it hardly sounded like mine.
He stepped toward me, and I scrambled back until my shoulders hit the cold wall, my pulse pounding.
“Bronwen.” He lifted a hand as if he meant no harm.
“I am going to kill you,” I said, meaning every word.
