Page 103 of Wicked Salvation

“What do I want?” I repeat, laughing once bitterly. “I want to know where the hell you’ve been hiding.”

She doesn’t flinch. That makes it worse.

I step closer.

“I want to know how you sleep at night after throwing me to the wolves. After pretending I never mattered. After using me like a stepping stone and then stomping me into the ground the second you got a better story to tell.”

“Don’t twist this?—”

“Don’t?” I snap. “You don’t get to tell me what I can or can’t twist, Eden. You twisted it the second you let them shame me. The second you let Lucian get up on that stage and call me a charity case. You didn’t eventryto save face.”

Her lips part, but nothing comes out.

That’s when it hit me.

“You planned this with him, didn’t you?” I look down at the bags in her hands. “You knew all along and this was your plan to get rid of me.”

I root my fingers through my hair, recognition dawning on me like a bullet shot from a sniper’s rifle. “You knew.”

She shakes her head. “Silas, I don’t know what you’re talking ab?—”

“Then why are you holed up in his cottage?!” I shout. “You’ve been there ever since your mother sent you back here.”

She looks at me like I’m unhinged.

Good.

“I gave you everything I had,” I hiss. “Everything. And the second it got messy, you threw me away like trash. You watched me burn, and you walked away.”

Silence.

The kind that dares me to move.

Dares me to strike something.

She doesn’t speak.

Doesn’t defend herself.

And that somehow makes it worse.

“There’s one thing you forgot, Eden,” I whisper to her, balling my fists. “If I can’t have you, nobody will.”

Then I punch her in the face with all the strength I have.

XXIII

EDEN

Pain explodes behind my eyes.

It’s white, blinding and crackles down my jaw like lightning. The whole world tilts before I even hit the ground. My cheek smashes into gravel and my bag tumbles from my hand. My vision swims—boots, shadows, cold stone, blood. The courtyard stones bite into my cheek, tearing skin. My teeth slam together, and the taste of iron floods my mouth, my teeth rattling in my head. It feels like I’m going deaf.

I blink once, then twice as my vision spills.

I can’t breathe.

My skull screams—my whole body screams, actually. The ringing in my ears is louder than his voice, but I feel him, standing over me—radiating rage like heat off a furnace.