Page 92 of Mate of a Monster

The serving girl doesn’t hear him. She’s too far gone, her head thrown back, her fingers tangled in his hair. But I hear it.

I hear all of it.

Another woman digs her nails into her own throat, carving crescents into pale skin.

“My daughter,” she gasps between giggles, blood on her teeth now. “I told everyone she ran away. I buried her in the garden. She cried so much. So much.”

The bone walls groan as hairline fractures spider across the pale surface, like something inside the architecture is struggling to breathe.

“Beautiful,” the Nightkin exhales. “This is what they are underneath. This is what they’ve always been.”

On the dais, Legend hasn’t moved.

But his body is failing him. He blinks slowly, as if he’s struggling to make sense of reality as every second passes.

The fake bond between him and Arabella must be screaming. I can see it in the way his chest hitches, in the way his hand twitches toward his sternum like he wants to claw something out. It glitches and flickers: a bond that was never supposed to exist trying to hold together against a force that eats lies for breakfast.

Come on, fate, you stubborn bitch. Help a girl out.

Arabella’s fingers dig into his arm hard enough to leave bruises, tiny cracks spreading through her porcelain composure like the ones climbing the bone walls. Her lips move, whispering something I can’t hear over the chaos—something desperate, something commanding.

It’s not working.

Zev hasn’t moved from my side. His hand stays firm on my waist, his breathing even, his eyes clear. Whatever the Nightkin is pouring into this room, it slides off Zev like water off stone.

“You good?” he asks, voice low, breath grazing my neck. I swear to God if Legend doesn’t come fast, I’m gonna pounce on Zev.

“Never better.”

Above, the dragons shriek.

It’s not their battle cry, but a frequency that vibrates through the windows and settles in my marrow. It’s anger and rage and amusement. The glass rattles in its frames. The sound feeds the chaos, amplifies it, sends another wave of bodies crashing together in the center of the room.

Chaos. It tastes like fucking chaos with the subtle powering notes of…calm.

I stand perfectly still at the center of it all, Zev warm at my back, taking it all in.

Legend’s growl moves through me like poison, and my eyes almost roll back. “Haide…”

“Mmm?” I ask, a smile deep on my face.

“Spread it further,” the Nightkin purrs, his voice sliding through my blood like warm honey. “To her. The little light witch standing so perfect in her white dress.”

My stomach clenches.

I watch Legend’s throat work, and something in my chest cracks open. He’s looking at me like I’m a stranger. Like I’m the thing he should have killed the moment he found me on that island.

“He already hates me,” I think back, the words bitter even in my own mind. “If I do this, if I touch her with this and it doesn’t work…there’s no coming back from it.”

“He doesn’t hate you, Hellpet. He doesn’t know how to feel what he actually feels. Now trust me, but more than that, trust yourself.”

My jaw tightens.

Trust. Such a simple word for something that tears you apart when it breaks. I trusted Legend. I trusted the bond. I trusted that what I felt was real, and he ripped it all away in front of everyone who mattered.

Now I’m supposed to trust the demon living in my chest.

A laugh bubbles up my throat, sharp and humorless.