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One thing was for sure: she needed her dagger back.

However, when she looked at Sebastian’s thigh, the dagger was gone. Her hand fell from her neck, limp. Had Graeson grabbed it after he forced Sebastian to the ground? She couldn’t recall. Everything had happened so fast.

Sebastian coughed, spitting a combination of saliva and blood onto the floor. The prince tried to fight back. He tried to force Graeson off him, but he was quickly weakening. He was losing this fight. He knew it, Graeson knew it, Kallie knew it.

Then, the light from the torch hanging on the wall bounced off a piece of metal near Sebastian’s hand, and Kallie didn’t think. She tumbled across the floor and reached for Sebastian’s wrist, twisting his arm.

A sharppopsounded. Bone snapped, and the dagger slipped from Sebastian’s grasp. It clattered onto the floor as Sebastian hissed from the pain shooting up his arm.

Meanwhile, Graeson continued to throw punch after punch. With each strike, Kallie’s heart rate increased as her father’s words cycled in her mind. And she hated to admit it, but she needed Sebastian alive.

She crawled forward and knelt beside Graeson. Sebastian’s gaze was unfocused, lazy. His eyelids fluttered as he tried to keep them open, but he was losing consciousness. And quickly.

“Graeson,” Kallie said.

Graeson, however, made no move to stop.

“Graeson,” she repeated. She touched his shoulder, and he flinched. Kallie bit down on the inside of her cheek and steadied herself, forcing the strength back into her voice. “Enough, Graeson.”

With his fist in the air, ready to strike, Graeson froze. As he looked over his shoulder at her, his eyes narrowed as if he didn’t quite trust her. And he shouldn’t. He never should have.

Right now,hewas not her concern, though. The man beneath him was.

Her gift hummed as her fury rose inside of her. “He’smineto deal with,” Kallie said through clenched teeth, her fist pressing into the ground.

Graeson looked her up and down, and his lip curled. “So be it, little mouse.”

He leaned back, but his legs remained atop Sebastian, holding him down. Kallie knew Graeson’s efforts were pointless, for Sebastian was going nowhere with his body limp and battered.

Still, the prince was alive, and that was what mattered. His breathing was shaky, but he still breathed. He would not die, not today. Kallie had made sure of that.

Death would be too easy for him anyway, too quick of an end for everything he had done. For the way his gaze always lingered too long on her body, for the way his hands roamed too freely when they were dancing.

Now, she only had one other thing to do. She reached out, fisting his ginger hair in her hand, forcing him to look at her. Her gift sang at the base of her core, hungry. Just as hungry as Sebastian was when he fought Fynn, when his thirst for blood was palpable.

Kallie tipped up her chin, quirking a bow, and released the command. “You will forget this fight. You will forget coming down here. You will forget what you tried and failed to do to me tonight.”

Her voice became steadier and stronger with each pull of her gift. She was not powerless. Even when her hands were tied or her voice was taken away, she was never powerless. And as she commanded the captain of the fiercest military in Vaneria, she reveled in the power, in her gift. Kallie would never let someone take this feeling away from her. She would never let them take her voice away again.

The faint haze slithered across Sebastian’s green irises just before his eyes rolled over.

As her gift flew through her, a fire within her blazed, and its flames begged to be coaxed, to be fueled with more anger. And Kallie questioned her decision to let him go. Because this? This wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough to stop here and let Sebastian wake up in the morning.

Fynn never got to wake up.

Fynn hadn’t been able to carry on.

Fynn was dead because ofhim.

Sebastian didn’t deserve a false peace, a false victory. Fynn deserved better, and Sebastian deserved so much worse.

Her fingers wrapped around her dagger, quickly finding their natural place on the worn leather handle. The right corner of her mouth tipped upward, a malicious grin forming. Eyes blazing, the fury pushing her forward, encouraging her. She reared her hand back and—

“Kalisandre?”

Chapter47

KALLIE