Page 16 of Break Her Heart
“I do not need you touching me.”
He nodded and gestured to the door.
Bronwen placed her hand on my arm. “I’ll see you soon.”
I didn’t know if she said that more to convince herself or me.
“Actually.” August turned to the vampire and plunged his hand into his chest. “I don’t want anyone to know she’s a witch.” He pulled his hand out along with the heart of the vampire.
The other hesitated, torn between fear and duty, his eyes flicking from August’s bloody hand to the open doorway. Then he turned to run.
August blurred forward, so fast I didn’t even see his hand move. One second, the stake was clenched in my grip, and then it wasn’t.
I turned, confused, just in time to see it already embedded in the vampire’s chest. The creature looked down, stunned, as blood poured over his hands.
Only then did I realize August had taken it from me. Not just taken it—calculatedit. Measured the distance. The angle. The moment.
He hadn’t hesitated. Not for a second. He killed them to protect her secret, and he did it with terrifying precision.
He was going to protect her—of that, I was certain now. But gods help us, I wasn’t sure what that protection would cost. The vampire collapsed, crumpling to the floor.
August straightened slowly, wiping his bloody fingers on his coat as if it were a napkin. As if none of it mattered.
Then he gestured to the door. “Let’s go.”
6
Bronwen
The cold pressed in around me, but I barely noticed. My hands were clenched at my sides, fingers stiff from the cold and the tension that refused to ease. The kind that had been building since the moment we went to August.
We had been walking through the town—quiet, snow-covered, shuttered up tight. The full moon glowed brightly, casting just enough light to make the world easier to see. I hadn’t even realized where we were headed until it was almost too late. Until the gate loomed ahead and my boots slowed.
August stopped a few steps ahead, his back rigid. He didn’t turn right away, but I saw the way his shoulders squared like he felt it too: the weight of what waited for me next to that gate. When he finally looked over his shoulder, his eyes flicked to mine. I tried to say something. To form the words.
Please. Don’t make me walk past them.
But they stuck in my throat like thorns.
“Keep walking, Winnie.”
“August.”
He turned to me. “Unless you want me to carry you, either keep your head down or walk with your eyes fucking closed. There is no other way to the castle.”
I gritted my teeth as I fought the urge to take him to the ground.
Now isn’t the time, Bronwen. You can kill him after you stop Carrow.
Keeping my head down, I forced one foot to go in front of the other. I just had a little farther to go, but I looked up before I could stop myself. That was when I saw it. Or rather—what wasn’t there.
The stage was gone.
I froze.
Their bodies should’ve been hanging. I had braced for that. Had tried to prepare myself for what it would feel like to look Mama and Papa in the face, frozen in death. But instead, the square was empty. A pile of charred wood and ash sat where the gallows had stood, blackened snow scattered around it like soot-stained petals.
Someone had destroyed it.
