Page 241 of Blackwood

“Hold Celeste for me.”

I reach down and take the snake from her shoulders. She coils around my arm like she knows me. Like she recognizes the fury boiling beneath my skin. The kind of rage that doesn’t come with shouting, but with silence. Precision.

Bella crouches low again, knife dragging up the inside of Vince’s thigh. Slow and intentional as her voice turns into velvet-coated steel.

“Go on, Vincent.”

“I was… I was…” he stutters.

Tex growls and grips his shoulders tighter. “Today, dumbass.”

“Fine, you want to know what I was going to do to the little bitch?” Vince spits, voice shaking. “I was going to make the mutt watch me fuck her right in front of him. Watch while his little sister broke in half around my cock.”

He laughs, a wet, broken sound. “Then I was gonna take her home. Chain her up. Fuck her until she forgot her own name. Sell her if she bored me. Maybe kill her. Maybe not.”

His eyes flare, madness bleeding through. “All I know is that bitch right there is fucking mine. Bought and paid for. Signed on the dotted line. Mine.”

Silence. No one breathes. Cade’s jaw locks so hard I swear I hear it crack. I don’t even feel Celeste on my arm anymore. All I see is pure red-hot rage.

Sabine steps forward, eyes narrowed and unflinching, as she gently lifts the snake from my arm. “Here,l’ombre,” she says softly. “Let me hold her. I have a feeling you’re going to want your hands free for this next part.”

I nod. Because she’s right. Hearing Vince call Bella his. Hearing his plans for her. I’m done. He’s fucking dead.

Bella stands slowly. Calm and unshaken. She steps between us and Vince and stares him down like she’s already counted the seconds left in his life.

“Mine? You say that word like it means something. But you see, Vincent, I think the two of them might have a difference of opinion on who I actually belong to.”

She looks at me. I’m fuming. Barely holding it together. But I won’t touch him. Not until she tells me I can.

Bella nods at me, and my voice cuts through the room like a goddamn blade, low, dangerous, final.

“You never owned a fucking thing, Vince. Least of all her.” I take a step closer. “She’s not yours. Never fucking was.” Another step. “You didn’t earn her. You didn’t touch her. You didn’t even get close.”

My chest heaves, breath sharp. “You know why?” I tilt my head, eyes locked on the bastard who thought he could claim her. “Because she got out and she chose us.”

I let that hang in the air, heavy enough to crack bone. “That’s what kills you, isn’t it? The fact that you had to buy what we were given.” I laugh once, dark and humorless. “Fuck, looking at you now, I bet you’ve had to pay for every piece of ass you ever got.”

Then quieter, deadlier. “But Bella? She picked Cade. She picked me.”

I tap my chest, voice rough. “She looked at everything we are, all the wreckage and all the rage, and said yes.”

A pause. A slow exhale. “That’s love, motherfucker.” I lean in, eyes cold and sure. “That’s real.”

Sabine lets out a low, throaty laugh from beside me. The kind that coils around your spine. “Mmm, baby,” she says, eyes gleaming with something between reverence and thrill. “That right there? That’s the kind of love women pray for in dark corners and forgotten churches. The kind they write spells for. Bleed for. The kind that don’t break when the fire comes, it rises with it. Burns with it.”

Bella nods, satisfied. Then turns to Cade. “Cade?”

“You still don’t get it, Vince,” he says, stepping forward. “All you ever did was circle her light, trying to find a way to smother it. You thought fear could make her small, that you could break her. You thought ownership could make her yours.”

He shakes his head, slow. “But she doesn’t break that way. She never did. You didn’t destroy her, Vince. You defined her. Every threat you made just showed her how to become stronger. Showed her exactly what she doesn’t want in this world.”

A breath. Quiet. Controlled. Then he looks at me, at Bella, back to Vince. “Bella chose us, and we’ll spend every breath proving she made the right choice.”

He takes another step, close enough for Vince to see the conviction in his hazel eyes. “Lex and I will be right here. Every. Damn. Day. Making sure your name stays buried in the dark where it belongs. Making sure your shadow never even grazes her light again.”

Cade pauses, voice low but certain. “You wanted power. You wanted to own her. But the only thing you’ll ever be remembered for is failing to touch the kind of woman even gods envy.”

His words settle over the room like a slow-burn spell. The air itself seems to hold its breath. Even Vince finally shuts the hell up.