Page 230 of Claimed By Fangs and Darkness

“Since we first met,” she said slyly before winking. “I knowall.”

I nodded. “I believe it. How’s the memoir coming along?”

When Mena clapped, her golden bracelets jingled together. “Marvelously! I’m still piecing together the early years. But I know this book is going to be ahit.”

Vesper joined us, and Mena’s eyes became radiant.

“Youmustbe an early reader, Vesper. We have twin flame souls, you and I.”

Vesper grinned. “Absolutely. In fact, I’d be offended if you let anyone else read it before I did.”

“Hey,” I said. “This whole thing wasmyidea.”

Mena fanned herself. “No need to fight over me, dolls,” she said, enjoying herself far too much.

“You can go second,” Vesper said with a crooked grin.

“How generous of you.”

Behind her, both Hekate and Serpent Clan members intermixed with the revolutionary mortals. Every tattoo and set of fangs was on full display. Bexley and Harmony were finally making out in a corner, and Lachlan and Clarke were making eyes from across the room.

I knew Evie was safe, but I still found her with my gaze every few minutes just to be sure. My love would always be asobsessive and all-consuming as it had been in the beginning, when Evie had pretended she hated me but fell as hard and fast as I had.

After a grand feast, several toasts to Gwendolyn’s legacy and the burgeoning revolution for Etherdale and beyond, Evie and Idris danced with Mena. I smiled. My heart swelled with emotion.

Mena and the two children she’d welcomed into her life with open arms were so fucking cute together.

As I watched from the shadows, I reflected on the catalyst that had set me on my path: the day the born had forced me to watch them murder my best friend.

They thought I would kill myself, and in a way, they got their wish.

But they had no idea of the monster who rose in my place.

Evie broke away and found me in the corner of the room where I’d been watching her. “Hi, creep.” She looped her arms around my neck. She was impossibly soft and warm.

Evie had died too, that day her brother cracked open his skull, and the sky bled darkness and wrath. She killed the girl who hid from love, from belonging, from her own destiny. She killed the woman who made herself small in the face of controlling, mediocre men.

She let go of the fear that had held her back for a decade, and she made her life as big and ruinous and extraordinary as any of her favorite fantasy romance novels.

I brushed my lips against her forehead, inhaling deeply. “Hi, angel.”

72

EVIE

Vesper was finally ready for her tarot card reading. She sat with me on the roof of her apartment building, letting out a deep sigh after a long day leading her clan.

We were one month into the war, and Kylo’s journey to Valentin was rapidly approaching. It would be incredibly risky for him to take to the sky on a long journey between two war-threatened lands. But it was a risk he needed to take.

The Serpent Clan had settled in remarkably well, and Etherdale was relatively peaceful save for the occasional skirmish between lingering loyalists and revolutionaries. All born either went into hiding or fled the city, and battles had been pushed over the mountains. Our border was impressively secure as we worked to clean up the city and train new recruits.

Kylo, Idris, and I were not the only ones gifted with incredible magick. We had gods on our side, righting the balance of the world that the born had disrupted for too long.

I grieved the mortals who had lost their lives to this war, some willingly, and others who had merely gotten caught up in violence out of their control.

But change was inevitable, like every death and rebirth cycle Selena guided under the phases of the moon. We’d rolled over and taken what our oppressors had given for hundreds of years. They destroyed our books, brainwashed us with religious propaganda, groomed our children, and abused and trafficked us while laughing and clinking flutes of elixir. They’d tortured students in basements while partying and living lavishly above their heads, surrounded by meaningless art and soulless conversations.

Their power and magick was inherited. Ours was earned.