Page 32 of Wicked Salvation

“You’ve defaced school property.”

He turns to look at her. “Then you’d better report it to the Headmaster, Tyne,” he sneers. His emerald gaze is back on me. “I just wanted to let you know that I wouldn’t be coming to class today.

“You didn’t have to break a window to do that.”

He shifts the bat to his other hand. “I know. But this was easier.” With each word, his gaze gets even sharper, something dangerous flashing in them the moment they land on the glistening diamond on my finger. I’ve never felt afraid of Lucian before.

Until now.

“Anyway, I have some reparations to collect.”

Then he turns, disappearing down the hall.

As Sister Hamilton tries to regain control of the class, I’m frozen in my seat.

When she leaves to fetch someone to clean up the broken shards of glass, that’s when it hits me. She called himLord Augustine-Beaumont.

Lucian has a peerage.

And the school is named after him.

VIII

LUCIAN

People say betrayal is like a knife in the back.

They couldn’t have been more wrong.

It’s nothing like a knife—it’s rot. It starts in your gut and spreads through your body. By the time you realize what’s happened, your spine starts to shatter, your lungs crackle with each breath, and your teeth? They’re suddenly too brittle to eat, to drink, to talk.

Now, I can’t breathe without tasting blood.

It’s not from violence—not yet, at least. No, I taste blood ever since she left my cottage, when the realization hit that she gave herself to me, knowing that she had accepted that bastard’s ring only hours before.

I saw it.

A diamond big enough that she feels like it’s worth something.

A diamond big enough that she doesn’t suspect he’s fucking broke, and she’s falling into a trap that will leave her dead sooner than later. It might not even be fucking real, knowing him. Just like the fake cross she has hanging around her neck.

My steps echo in the hallway as I walk away, baseball bat slung over my shoulder, my other hand in the pocket of myslacks. I get curious looks, from students and faculty alike. But they know better than to say anything to me.

I’m not going to touch Silas, yet.

No, he’ll be last. He has to suffer—watch it all disappear before him.

I won’t touch him, but I will touch everything.

The way he looked at me after I laid him out on the floor of his dorm room, I saw the flash of fear in his eyes. But the scheming snake knew that he’d already done the one thing that would throw my world off balance.

I was hours too late.

If I had pressed her at the funeral, maybe?—

No, Eden made a choice.

Despite it all—her grief, her fear, the fact that she thinks Silas is her ticket to acceptance—she still chose to accept that abusive asshole’s ring. For a moment I considered what would have happened to her if she had the courage to say no.