Page 86 of Glutton for Punishment

I can’t breathe. Something tears inside me. A hungry pressure is building.

Violent.

The room darkens at the edges until I can only see the dread on Cleo’s face.

My hands shake.

“Arwen!” Cleo gasps.

Amaya’s wicked smile falters.

“What is—”

The doors behind me explode open.

“GET AWAY FROM HER—” Maddox roars.

It’s too late. The hunger surges forward. Wild and uncontrolled. Everything inside me screams to consume the threat in front of me.

The void breaks free.

And everything goes dark.

Chapter 25

Arwen

Darkness peels back in fragments as dim light registers behind my eyes.

A muffled ringing. Voices somewhere far away. My name, over and over, distant but urgent. Like someone is trying to pull me through water.

“Arwen! Arwen, look at me! Open your eyes.”

My eyelids are impossibly heavy, but I force them open. Everything is blur and light and shadow at first, shapes bleeding together until one sharpens into focus.

Eyes like midnight. Maddox.

His face hovers over mine. I must be on the ground.

“What…” My voice cracks. “What happened?”

The memories flood me all at once. Amaya. My power. Cleo!

I jerk upright so fast the room tilts violently. “Cleo—”

“Easy,” Maddox snaps, grabbing my shoulders as I sway into a sitting position.

I finally notice the destruction all around me. The Grand Hall is almost unrecognizable.

Dust hangs thick in the air, catching the fractured light like suspended ash. The velvet seats are smeared with gray powder, their gold embroidery now dulled. Chunks of plaster and veined marble litter the floor like rubble. One of the towering columns in the room stands cleaved in two, its upper half gone.

Above it, the ceiling yawns open where stone and timber have split, a ragged opening of broken beams and dangling wires.

Did I do that?

Movement catches my eye. “Arwen!”

Cleo runs toward me, dusty but upright, and I nearly collapse with relief as I try to stand to meet her.