Page 97 of Princess Redeemed

But she changes only halfway as she gasps for air.“You may have his heart, his child,” she says on her last breath, “but you’ll never have hissoul.”

Her body stops writhing as the last bit of air leaves her lungs.

I regard her.

Half wolf, half demon, her golden eyes now unseeing.

A pathetic sight.Almost tragic, to be sure.Is it Eris’s fault that she was fated to be Rogan’s mate?That she was half demon?

She didn’t choose her lot in life any more than I chose mine.

She can no longer take Rogan from me.She can no longer hurt me or my child.

But this is far from over.

For I now know the true reason for Alara’s teachings.They weren’t for defeating Eris.I did that on my own.

I offer the corpse a final victorious grin before turning away.

I ache with pain and exhaustion.Every bone in my body screams at me to collapse, but I stay strong.I walk away with my head held up high despite the agony searing through me.

Because the battle with Eris was only a prelude.

The real war is just beginning.

I walk until I can’t hear the wind rasping through her lifeless fur.Until the scent of blood—her blood—isn’t the only thing clouding my senses.But it still lingers.In my mouth.In my lungs.On my skin.The demon in her clings to me like smoke that won’t wash off.I can’t tell if I feel sick because of the blood or because of what I’ve done.

Killing her should have given me peace.

I saved myself and my child from her wrath.

I saved Rogan from being her fated mate.

A moon cuts through the clouds above.The ether is grand, to be sure.Existing existentially but also in reality.I perceive it, and perception is reality, after all.

I tighten my hand around the hilt of the dagger still slick with Eris’s blood.It feels like the only thing keeping me tethered to my purpose—a purpose that’s shifted so quickly that I barely recognize it.

It was never about Eris.

It was never about Rogan’s love, not truly.

It’s always been about my stepfather.About control.Power.

Perhaps even about lineage and survival.I touch my abdomen.

The child inside me stirs.He is the link.And if my stepfather has his way, my baby will be snuffed out like everything else he’s touched.

He’ll come for me.My mother be damned.In the end, he won’t care that killing me and my unborn child will hurt her.She’s lost most of her emotion anyway.To her, I’ll be a simple memory that makes her smile weakly but then drifts away.

Now that Eris is dead, Richard knows the threads are unraveling.His carefully placed pieces have started to fall.

But he’ll find me different now.

I’m not the girl I was when he married my mother.

Hell, I’m not the same woman I was moments ago, before I sank my fangs into a demon-wolf.

I’ve tasted darkness and survived it.