Page 104 of The Girl in the Forest

“I don’t want it.”

“We were all asked to leave an old life behind in order to embrace a life with unlimited power.”

This was normal to him. Vampires didn’t see the depravity I did in kidnapping girls and turning them into monsters, or killing them if they proved useless. Centuries ago, they’d started this cycle by using a wounded, frightened woman, giving her endless centuries to nurse her grievances and hatred.

They’d taken the sins of the kings and the queens and magnified them with immortality.

Was this the future expectation the King of the Forest had? That I would be the one who followed the same path to defeat the enemy?

Would fate then be cruel enough to bond an immortal woman to a mortal man—because that is what we would be.

The ice that settled in my spine solidified. “You offer a gift because an unmet queen makes you tremble?”

“She won’t stop,” Berend said. “Once she learned a dread lord was back in the world, it set her quest. She’ll destroy him. She’ll destroy you and all you hold dear unless you agree to stop her.”

“As one of you.”

“Either you will… or the girl will.”

This was madness. I turned to Brin. Blood crusted on her lip. Her cheek had already darkened with an angry bruise. The bolt pinning her hand moved each time she breathed.

My attention shifted to Laura. Despair paled her face and she struggled to hold Levi back. I caught his attention, shook my head once. On the wall, Julien’s foot jerked. Tears were running from his eyes.

I had the space of two heartbeats to decide what happened to each of them, and rage sent my thoughts racing. I couldn’t stop the backward step I took. My first thought was that I should kill Barend. End this now. But he’d be suspicious, quick, and I’d risk missing with a killing strike. He’d flash away, and everyone I cared about would die while I watched.

Grayson would want me to think—to look around, then ask myself why Julien had tears on his face, nearly unheard of for vampires. But Julien understood the risk, if I attacked Barend. Appreciated it better than anyone. And in his agony, he was aware enough to warn me with those laughing brown eyes now dulled with pain.

The smile on Barend’s face reminded me of the Gemini Witches. Then another memory hit me. The queen’s name was Amal.

Two initials, passed down alpha to alpha, for generations. One is the letter A. The other is N. One opens the door. The other reaps the vengeance.

Did the A represent Amal, and not my mother?

Was I here to reap her vengeance?

Or my own? Against Amal.

Barend was waiting for an answer.

Ago growled. “Just turn her. She doesn’t have a choice.”

“Of course she has a choice,” Barend crooned. “We aren’t monsters.”

I wondered what his definition of monster was, if it wasn’t himself.

“I’m offering something you want,” he said, as if he knew what I thought. Or perhaps it was just obvious.

“I want to walk out of here,” I said. “With my friends, and Brin—that child you want to use.” My gaze flicked past Set as I turned my head toward the shackled bodies on the wall. “And I want Julien.”

“What if I told you all that was possible?”

Vampires are treacherous, Noa.

“You can save the lives of your friends. Of the traitor. Walk out of here as one of us. Or you can resist, fight and shed blood. But what if I told you I’m offering something far greater than freedom?”

Heat stung my fingertips.

“What if I could give you what you want most in the world?” Barend took a small step toward me while Ago remained alert, a red glow of expectation in his eyes. “I can give you justice. The chance to avenge the needless deaths at Azul. And Sutter. All those innocents. You can’t stand by and do nothing. Helplessness is death to you. But I’m offering life—and you can feel it, can’t you? How the dead reach from the grave, demanding vengeance?”

---