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The hedgehogs—the evil beasts—move as one to overrun the snake. Montejanus lights up like a blow torch.
I head toward Dupree, taking in the bastard’s smug smile. He thinks he can defeat me? I should’ve listened to Gilly’s hatred of him.
“To get to me, Theo, you’ll have to step inside this realm, and I know you won’t leave your mate,” he taunts.
The asshole’s right. Whatever abomination of royal magic he’s using to open the door to the deepest pits of the After Worlds without authorization from the king or one of his direct descendants, it also serves as a shield unless I pass through the portal.
To attack him, I’ll have to go in there.
In those seconds, he could close the portal, trapping me for however long it takes to remove my cousin’s head. Do I risk Val’s life even for a few heartbeats?
“Come out and fight, you coward,” I call to him. “Or are you too scared to face me?” Dupree’s arrogance has always been his weakness.
“You’ve already lost your crown,” he answers. “Ready to lose your mate?”
“Enough of this,” another voice says from behind him. A voice I know. A voice I’ve known for years.
Gilly.
No, it can’t be. She and Dupree working together? Against me?
Mysister—my biggest supporter for decades—is betraying me?
My world comes to a standstill, time slowing as the snake monster, the portal, Nic, and the others fade into the background.
“Come on,” Dupree drawls, not taking his eyes off me. “Let me taunt him a little more. What’s big brother ever done for you except be born first so he took your throne?”
Any doubt that I could’ve been mistaken about Gilly’s intentions vanishes with his mocking reference.
Hurt and anger collide, and I need to act, to destroysomething. I lunge forward, ready to end Dupree here and now, but Gilly beats me to it. Acrackgoes off as she fires a gun—an obscenity in this world of deities—into his skull. With a quick flash of a sword, she finishes taking what little is left of his head.
It’s not the well-strategized, brains-over-brawn polish Gilly’s known for.
It’s gruesome and messy and craven.
Dupree hits the ground with a thud.
Gilly looks at me with a gaze so cold that I don’t recognize my little sister in her sociopathic stare. The silencer added to the muzzle of her 9mm explains the lack of a deafening gunshot. Where did she get a gun, let alone a silencer, in the After Worlds? How long has she been thinking through this takeover?
She couldn’t have staged the abduction at her manor when she hadn’t known I would be there. Surely not. Was she capable of such deception? Of putting on such a stellar performance that I’d been gutted by her absolute anguish?
No, this had to have all come together since her kidnapping.
Maybe killing Dupree was part of a master plan she has hidden from us. She has taken down the traitor. She could convince our father to give her the crown. Perhaps this is all over, except it feels so verywrong.
“Gilly?” With thousands of questions running through my mind, I don’t know where to start.
“He served his purpose,” she says.
“Which was?” Val asks from behind me.
I almost gag her with my tail. The last thing I need is my mate provoking my homicidal sister while she’s holding a gun.
But Gilly pop off another shot. Or seem overly concerned with the havoc going down around us between the hedgehogs swarming the snake, Montejanus lighting it up like a monstrous barbeque, and the wriggling nest of snakes behind her who could burst through the portal at any second. Unless…
“You’re controlling the monsters.” The idea seems impossible even as I say it aloud.
“Score one for the firstborn.” Gilly smiles a grim stretch of her mouth that’s all fangs. “Maybe I’ll let you live to see my triumph after all.”
