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“You won’t—”

“Stop saying that!You don’t understand!I know I have to get to Rhea, but if I get a taste—just one—”

“You were taken by surprise,” he said stubbornly.“You know what to look for now—”

“No!You keep acting like what happened was an accident when it wasn’t!It was just like before, when I told myself I was being careful, that I could handle it.”I laughed, and it was ugly.“You saw how well I handled it!”

“I saw you prove youcould.The fact that we’re alive says that much.”

“You saw me get lucky!”I countered savagely.“All those gods flying at me like that jolted me enough that your words could get through.If they hadn’t…” I shook my head.“The addiction didn’t sneak up on me, Pritkin.I wanted it, just as I wanted to drain all of them.Just as I want to right now.Even after all of that, even after killingwar mages, men who had survived fifty years of hell until they met me—”

“Until theyattackedyou,” he said again, steadfastly loyal and blind because of it.He wouldn’t think the worst of me, and I didn’t know how to make him understand.How to tell him that the animal under my skin was already growing antsy.That it had fed and fed well but had used most of it up getting away, and now...it was hungry again.

It wanted to feed.

It was why I’d been out here, sitting on my ass and doing nothing, because Iwasn’tdoing nothing.My hands were dirty from me burying them in the ground, clenching my fists around it as if it could hold me in place and keep me from racing off to the city that I could just see glimmering between some hills in the distance.I’d been busy not doing that, not tearing into whoever I met on the way, not cannibalizing them to feed my ever-growing hunger, not…

Being her.

But it had taken everything I had and, weirdly, had made me understand her better.I never had before, never had figured out why my mother was so distant, so indifferent, socold.Never realized that she was still sunk in her addiction and so hungry for power that it had consumed her every thought.

But there’d been no mad little gods running around then, after she’d banished them all, and no way for her to feed without the demon lords coming down on her in her weakened state like a plague.She’d almost died in the last battle with the other gods and couldn’t risk it, couldn’t do anything but get weaker every year, and yet the need had clawed inside her.I knew it had.

It did in me.

“Listen,” Pritkin said, and this time, he did touch me, gripping my forearm and dragging me close.Close enough that I could see the trust in those green eyes when he looked at me, the utter belief that I was going to betray.Not because I wanted to, but because that’s what I was, what all the gods were.Ravenous, selfish, predatory.

Monsters.

“Listen.”He shook me a little.“You are not your mother.You proved that by risking your life for us—”

“Pritkin, you don’t—”

“Idounderstand.”It was low-voiced, but it was savage.“I understand you better than anyone else I’ve ever known.They say you only really see the truth of someone when they’re tested, when their back is against the wall, and they are scared and hungry and desperate and filthy, when they have nothing but their courage to draw on, and even that seems likely to fail.And I have seen you like that, Cassie, more than once.

“I know you.I knew you then, in that damned warehouse with gods screaming toward you across the desert and a group of people who had just been trying their best to slaughter you waiting in the wings.I knew what you’d do.

“Leaving people behind, being ruthless, and not caring what harm they cause are things our enemies do.You’ve gotten this far by being the opposite, by never abandoning your people, by giving a damn, bysacrifice.It’s something they cannot and will not ever understand.It’s why you draw people to you.It’s why youwin.”

“I haven’t won yet,” I said miserably as he hugged me close.Because, no, he didn’t get it.And I didn’t have the words to convince him or the strength to try anymore.He’d realize the truth eventually, but by the time I saw the dawning horror in his eyes and the betrayal on his face, I’d be so drunk on power that I wouldn’t care.

I thought that might be the very worst part of it.

Chapter Twenty-Three

You should listen to her,” someone said, but it wasn’t Pritkin.I looked around and realized that someone else had joined us while I’d been distracted.And while Pritkin had, too, I guessed, because he jumped slightly and whirled.

Only to recognize Mircea emerging from the dark.

“How long have you been there?”he demanded harshly.

“Long enough.”Mircea came forward, shedding shadows like a cloak.

His face was so different, almost bisected by that awful scar, but his eyes were the same: warm, dark, almost mesmerizing.And not just because they were vampire eyes, but because they were his, and I hadn’t been sure I’d ever see them again.He took my hand and smiled the smile he’d always reserved just for me.

“Cassie is absolutely right.Jonas and the rest can scheme all they like.It won’t work.Not as things stand.”

Pritkin said a bad word.“You don’t know how strong she is.You don’t—”