Page 84 of Serpentine Valentine

He deserved pain.

Horror.

Madness.

Fear.

All the things he’d made so many women feel under his attack.

I’d avoided him on campus for so long because I knew if I saw him, I’d be unable to resist. I’d storm up to him, take his handsome face between my hands, and snap his fucking neck.

And that wouldn’t do.

No, I wasn’t going down for his death. Not the death of a monster.

After all, in the Greek mythology I loved so well, no one was ever punished for killing the monster. They were rewarded. Perseus with Medusa, Jason with the sea monster, Hercules and the Hydra.

My reward was to end Morgan and live on, free and unencumbered by the threat of him.

So breaking his neck would never do, and I knew exactly what would.

I just had to be patient.

Everything was going to plan. After months of scheming, of training and yearning for exactly these outcomes, I should have been on top of the world.

Instead, I felt like I was being buried alive.

All because of a girl with pretty rose gold hair and eyes the color of Slytherin green.

I dropped my book open on top of my face to smother myself in the comforting scent of parchment and dragged in a deep, shuddery breath.

“Lex.”

I tipped my head back, the book sliding off my nose and falling with a thud to the ground. Effie stood in the aisle, and even viewed upside down, I could tell something was wrong.

So wrong.

I swiveled to my feet in an instant, fists already curling closed to fight.

“What happened?” I asked, but my heart was already dropping into my belly, sizzling in the acid buildup.

“Luna,” she said in two broken syllables, and just like that I was punched out of my body, all physical sensation forgotten, just a shell of a woman. “Someone attacked her.”

I didn’t stop to ask who, to wonder where, to plan to fuckingendwhoever had dared to lay their hands on my beautiful, pure Luna.

The only thought in my head was her.

Getting to her.

Saving her.

“Where is she?” I said, but my voice was wrong.

Dead.

Because whatever was struggling to stay alive inside me would perish the moment I discovered she was anything but okay.

“At Phoebus General Hospital.”