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I tried to see Hush, but Claude blocked my view. She’d be all right. She had to be.
These bastards! I bit Vine’s finger. Blood spurted over my tongue.
Vine cried out and recoiled, and for a breathless moment, I breathed freely again, but then the ropes came in, lashed around my mouth, and gagged me silent.
Vine straddled my hips, tore open my shirt, and stroked his hands up my bare chest. Vicious fangs gleamed in his wicked smile.
I thrashed my head, even as Vine’s tongue swept around my nipple, and then he bit down. Pain snapped through me, washing all the pleasure away. Oh gods, what had I done? How had I let this happen?
A purple beetle scurried across the overhead canopy. Hush… was back? But how?
Vine’s tongue teased, his teeth pinched, and his hands roamed, seeking to reignite my passion.
I turned my head, looked beyond Claude’s looming presence, and saw the pieces of Hush scattered across the rug behind him.
So who, then, was this new beetle?
Another one appeared above, then another. They scuttled over the canopy, emerging from between the silk creases and folds. Dozens more. The buzzing turned to a mechanical clatter.
The pair of fae didn’t see them. Vine was focused on licking up my chest, and Claude watched Vine.
A wave of tiny clockwork beetles poured down the bedposts, over the sheets and my legs—their countless feet scurrying—then up and over Vine in a sudden, relentless wave. The clockwork sound of so many beetles roared. In a blink, a surge of purple devoured him. He opened his mouth to scream and beetles poured in.
Claude made a dash for the door. A wave of beetles reared up and rushed after him. He flung open the door, expecting freedom, and stopped, blocked by Devere.
Devere’s eyes burned with vengeance. I’d never seen him look so fierce.
Claude withdrew, gasping, “No.”
Then the beetles were on him too. They surged up his legs and kept on rising until their weight pulled him down. He vanished, drowned under their flood.
Vine was gone now too, vanished under the weight of the receding beetles, as though he’d never existed. I shifted, only a little, and Devere’s murderous glare landed on me. Had he come to kill me? The floor moved in a ripple of countless purple carapaces.
Devere marched into the room, and the beetles separated around him, clearing a path.
He approached the bed, studied its tousled sheets, studiedme. The burn of shame scorched my face and sickness simmered in my gut.
“Hush,” he chided and reached out, removing the gag.
I flinched, but he touched the rope at my wrists, and they fell away. “I’m sorry.”
“There is nothing to be sorry for.” He scanned the floor, and as the beetles withdrew into the crevices and cracks, they revealed the crushed remains of Hush.
“He…” A sob clogged my throat. “Hush came, and he did that to her.” By God, I was a fool. I’d done this. I sat up and stroked my burned wrists. My hands trembled as I tucked my flaccid dick away. Shame churned my insides. This was not how I’d wanted our reunion to go. I hadn’t wanted any of this, and now Hush was in pieces, my pride and self-respect with her. “Devere, please… I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”
Devere knelt and carefully collected Hush’s pieces, then laid them gently in his palm.
“Can you fix her?” I stumbled from the bed, finding my legs to be unhelpfully lead-like. I wiped useless tears from my face. I was a mess. When would the horror end? After all this time, after months of trying to prove I wasn’t mad to get back to him, I’d ruined everything.
He turned and strode for the door, clearly having no interest in me or the mess I’d made of everything. He didn’t remember. He thought I was Rochefort’s valet, and probably other things to Rochefort, considering what he’d walked in on.
“Well?” Devere asked, stopping in the doorway. He glanced over his shoulder. “Are you coming?”
I blinked, and this time, I let the tears fall. “You… remember?”
The smallest of smiles lifted his lips. “Valentine, you do not belong here. We must go.”
Relief shuddered out in a jagged sigh. I stumbled after him. He strode down the corridor, leaving me to half jog and stagger to catch up. I waited for the corridors to change, for the stairs to move, or for Vine and Claude to return, but nothing changed, and nobody came. Then we were out in the cold night air, with snow swirling around us and a carriage waiting. We climbed in.
