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“Malachi might think you’re special,” she hissed, “but you will never be anything more than human scum.”

My power flared again, and I didn’t fight it this time. A burst of light flashed through the dark hallway.

Kara screamed.

When I opened my eyes, she was cowering away on the floor, crawling backward.

I knelt next to her. “Next time you threaten me,” I whispered in her ear, “I’ll kill you.”

CHAPTER19

Jade

“It’s beautiful,” Tessa whispered, staring in awe at the gorgeous greenery around us. I knew she would like it here. The lagoon had a certain presence of peace that instantly made us feel calm.

I still remembered the first time Adeline brought me here. I thought the exact same thing. Rewyth wasn’t this nasty, criminal hole in the dirt like we all wanted it to be.

Rewyth was beautiful. Nature flowed in and out like breath. I looked around us, admiring all of the changes that had grown and bloomed since I had last been here.

One could spend days in this lagoon and still not appreciate its beauty in entirety.

“It is, isn't it?” I asked.

“You said you saw a…a…”

“Tiger,” I finished for her. “And I didn’t just see one. It attacked me while I was swimming right here in the lagoon.”

Tessa stared at me, eyes wide, like I was the most interesting person alive. She used to look at me with that same look when we were younger. She used to look at me like I was…special. Like I meant something to her.

I missed that look.

“I was fine after Malachi stepped in,” I added, “besides the nasty cut on my leg.”

I lifted up my leg to show her the scar.

“Saints,” she mumbled.

I smacked her arm lightly. “Hey! Who said you could start saying things like that?”

“Please,” she added, turning back to look into the deep blue lagoon. “I spend my days with father. I hear more cursing than the insides of a tavern.”

It was a joke; I knew it was. Yet still, something deep in my chest twisted.

Tessa was my baby sister. She wasn’t supposed to experience this harshness.

I did that so she didn’t have to. I took on all of that so she didn’t have to.

Tessa sat on the ground, dangling her feet into the blue water of the lagoon. “So…I guess it’s really not so bad here.”

“No,” I added, sitting next to her and dipping my own bare feet into the cool water. “I guess it’s not.”

“You seem happier,” she said without looking at me.

What was I supposed to say to that?WasI happier? I was nothing when I lived at home. I was Tessa’s provider, and I was the beating bag when my father came home drunk, but I had no future. No prospects. No life.

Here? I had a target on my back. I was married—against my will—to a king, which now made me a queen in a kingdom full of people who probably didn’t give a shit if I was dead or alive.

But still. I found myself waking up every morning with a purpose. I found myself laughing, even when the dark parts of my soul told me I would never laugh again.