Page 187 of Claimed By Fangs and Darkness

I choked and gurgled on the acrid taste.

Aster let me go and stepped back a few paces. I heaved, coughing as my lungs burned.

His fists clenched at his sides. His eyes widened, and his nostrils flared. I stared down at my nearly nude form, watching in horror as my veins turned black.

I made a startled yelp, rubbing at the dark lines spreading across my fair skin.

“Get. It. Out. Of. Her.”

Aster’s voice was clipped. His breathing was ragged now as he stepped out of the circle, leaving me alone with Juliette.

“Yes, Sir,” Juliette said sweetly, nearly a chirp.

I heard bones hit the stone again. My body fell limp, forcing me to collapse on the ground.

“Wait, no,” I said, pleading. “Removing a blood bond is dangerous. The mortality rates are high. I could?—”

“Silence!”

Don’t cry. I didn’t want to give Juliette the satisfaction of seeing me lose it. But Aster wanted her to remove my bond with Kylo, to drain me of his blood mark.

Kylo would no longer be able to hear the beat of my heart. He wouldn’t know I was hurting or losing blood.

He would no longer be able to find me. He wouldn’t know if I was alive or dead.

Terrified and angry, desperation took hold as Juliette rolled me over onto my back. I stared up at her triumphant gray eyes, fighting the urge to lose it completely.

I’d never felt more hatred. My helplessness consumed me. I couldn’t move, couldn’t use my power.

I couldn’t stop them.

“Please,” I wailed. “She’s going to kill me.Please.”

“You’re not going to die,” Aster snapped. “If you don’t stop fighting this, you’re going to make me think youwantto be marked by those thugs.”

“Don’t you want to be pure again, Evie?” Juliette asked, lifting a dagger with an engraved silver handle. “You told me you wanted to be back on the path of light. Let us help you.”

“Good girl,” Aster praised.

Juliette lit up like Aster was the sun she orbited, her gaze slow to move from Aster back to me. “I forgive you for lashing out. I know it was because you were ashamed of your secrets. But the truth is going to set you free.”

What game was she playing? Why had she only spilled half of the truth, and not the other?

I couldn’t even strategize properly, not when the dagger was moving closer to my heart.

“Don’t,” I croaked, no louder than a whisper. “Please don’t.”

I held Juliette with the truth of my vulnerability. My lip wobbled, my face reflecting the grief of what was to come. She hesitated only a moment before she began to cut into my flesh.

My scream was swallowed up by a cool, white mist that enveloped us.

Chants left Juliette’s lips. Bones rattled. In the mist, I saw ghosts of Juliette’s previous workings, the demons she’d birthed from blood and bones, the power she’d stolen from other witches’ deaths, their eyes collected in jars. I saw myself, smiling and twirling in front of a golden mirror.

My body was slick with my own blood. A foreign substance once again trickled down my throat as I gagged and thrashed my head. It was the only thing I could move, my limbs held down by an invisible weight.

I didn’t know if the warmth on my cheeks was blood or tears. My vision was swallowed up by darkness.

Behind my eyelids, I saw Kylo’s silly little dimple. I saw the moment he’d marked me with his blood, as we were both drenched in rain, tangled together on the forest floor. I remember the way I’d relaxed as his blood reached my stomach, knowing he would now be able to keep me safe forever.