Page 213 of Claimed By Fangs and Darkness

“Did yougenuinelybelieve that you could keep this up for any substantial amount of time?” Harmony asked her.

Juliette refused to look anywhere else but me, and it was pissing me off. She didn’t deserve to look at me. The fact that she’d tricked me into profoundly betraying Evie made meso violently enraged I wanted to throttle her. But that would require touching her, and I never wanted to touch her again.

Evie’s angry rants came back to me, all the times she’d said Juliette was obsessed with her, wanted tobeher.

“You weren’t even spying on us, were you?” I hissed.

Juliette shook her head.

I raked a hand over my mouth, laughing again in bitter disbelief.

“I don’t get it!” Juliette wailed, irritating our eardrums once more. “You said you’d still love her without her magick. I showed Aster how powerful I could be, and he still wantedher. And now she’s with him, andyoustill want her. What is it about her? She’s rude and impious and violent and deviant and disloyal. She’sfarfrom perfect. What makes herso special?”

“You. Will. Never. Get.It.” I straightened and took a step back. “And I will never explain it to you. Now, you will either help us get Evie back and live out your days with your beloved husband, or you’ll die.”

That was a lie, obviously. She would die either way.

Fat tears rolled down Juliette’s cheeks. She cried loudly and unabashedly, like she had no control of her emotions and couldn’t understand the gravity of the predicament she’d found herself in.

We all stared down at her, unmoved. Not even Harmony curbed her glare.

“Which will it be?”

She stopped crying, her face twisting as if she were irate no one had taken pity on her. “Fine.” She smiled, deranged. “Let’s go getpoor Evie.”

Juliette giggled. No one took the bait. We merely passed her off to be babysat by Allie and a few other comrades. It was safest that way, lest Idris or I lost control and killed her prematurely.

We all sat back down at the table.

“Our clan will be here in one week,” Vesper said. “We don’t know when or how many of Earle’s forces will be making it over the mountains.”

Before I could say I didn’t care, Vesper spoke again.

“But Evie’s too important, and your clan is surpassing even your own expectations.”

Blade, Harmony, and I exchanged a brief look of pride. She was right. We’d already taken half the city, and we crept closer to Nighswander Estate every day. The born who’d once smugly taken over Ravenia’s strongest mortal-dominant haven were now panicking, fighting increasingly erratically. They were making dumb mistakes, as if they hadn’t expected the fight to last this long. How could they when we’d been occupying an entire underground domain for eighty years right under their noses?

“Let’s take them out,” Clarke finished.

“We’ve only been this successful because we’ve been careful not to overextend,” Blade cautioned. “Whatever we do needs to be precise, especially with an army heading for us.”

“I’m coming,” Idris said. “I stood down last time. Please don’t expect me to do it again.”

I opened my mouth to tell himno, but the desperation in his eyes gave me pause. Another damn mirror. I didn’t want to have to worry about a newborn in battle. But who was I to keep Idris from fighting for his sister?

I knew how it felt to lie helpless while the born tortured someone I loved.

“Fine.”

The whole table stared at me incredulously, none more so than Idris.

But we wasted no more time before launching into the plan.

Our masks were off. We had Aster’s wife. We had half of Etherdale under our control, and King Earle had all but declared war.

It was actually simpler than all of that, though.

This was my city, and Aster and Conrad had taken something that belonged to me.