Page 79 of Break Her Heart
“Miss me?” She waltzed through the room, picking up a glass that hadn’t fallen, twirled it in her hand and then dropped it to the floor.
He shot a hand forward and muttered some words in another language but Winnie raised hers and seemed to grasp onto thin air. It was the same thing she had done the night she saved me from the witches.
She poked her lip out. “Oh come on, I thought you’d be smarter than that.”
The man let out an agonizing scream as Winnie pulled her hand towards her and the man flew across the room until he was on his knees before her. A woman and another man ran out of a back room, the man holding a sword. I started to step forward and stop him, but before I could, Winnie glanced at them and the sword’s metal melted in the man’s hands.
The man screamed as he fell forward.
Gods alive, she was perfect. Dangerous. Terrifying. Every time she wielded her magic like that, like the world existed just to kneel at her feet, something primal in me howled for her.
Winnie crouched down in front of the redhead and smiled. “I warned you.”
What was she talking about? When did she have a problem with him before?
“You’ve disrespected my brother. You’re planning gods know what to take him down. Do you know what happened to the last person that hurt my family?” She leaned in. “I burned him alive just so I could hear his screams.”
The man writhed under her invisible touch. “The two of you are not fit to lead the coven.”
She scoffed, but before he could disrespect her more, I spoke. “Do you not realize that the only reason you are free to practice magic is because of her? Both of their sacrifices are the reason you are safe from persecution and yet you still try to fight them?”
The man turned to me. “Your Grace.”
So hedidknow who I was.
“We will never be safe. Their line is the reason we can’t go out into the night. They are the reason innocent people are hunted. It is time to end the lineage. Stop them, and we will be one step closer to stopping the vampires.”
With that, something cracked.
He wanted herdead.
He wantedherdead.
My vision went red, not just from rage but from the part of me that saw only one solution: rip his throat out. Tear him limb from limb. I tasted blood. My own lip, split from how hard I bit down to keep from snarling. They had no idea. No idea who they were provoking.
But they did now.
The woman crouched next to the man with the most wretched-smelling, burned hands let out a cry. “No.”
She saw me looking at her and turned back to the injured man and continued whispering words as her hands hovered over his.
With my fangs bared, I said, “Do continue telling me on how you plan tostopvampires.”
Winnie looked up at me with a sparkle in her eyes but she shook it off and turned back to the idiot nearly crying on the floor.
“I thought about killing you, but that’s not enough for me. Because I have to assume you aren’t the only one with these ill thoughts towards my brother.” She patted him on the cheek. “I’d rather you be a walking warning to everyone else.”
“Please no.”
“You called me an abomination, looked down on my brother and me for what we lacked. But honestly, I think we are more powerful than anything you can fathom. I can take and take and take. Would you like to know what happens when I takeeverythingfrom you?” Winnie gripped his throat and though I couldn’t see what she was doing, the goosebumps on her arms told me all I needed to know.
He screamed so loudly that I wished for a moment I didn’t have exceptional hearing. Winnie let go of him, and he slumped to the floor.
“You becomenothing.” She stood and adjusted her dress. “Let your accomplices know that if they don’t back down, they will have an empty void just like you.” She stopped at the door. “I wonder… when you have kids, will they lack a connection to magic like you?” She laughed. “I hope so.”
We stepped outside into the night air. The salt still hung thick, the wind sharp as it curled around us like it knew we didn’t belong here. She walked ahead of me, fire still in her steps, her jaw tight with leftover rage. The magic still clung to her like heat lightning, crackling beneath her skin. She was high on power, and she wore it well.
I caught up, and for a moment, we walked side by side. The air buzzed between us, heavy with things neither of us daredto say. My hand twitched. I could almost feel the press of her against me.
