Page 109 of Her Dark Promise

You can’t blame the boy. He has been searching for a way out of here ever since he arrived.

I swallowed hard. I knew that he hated me, but I hadn’t realized that it went this deep.

You forced him and his brother to stay here forever. You can’t blame him for jumping on this opportunity.

I knew I didn’t have any reason to feel this way, but his betrayal hurt. Why did it hurt? My vision started to blur, and I felt his hand snake up my neck. “I think I’ll fuck her, then leave her dead on the earth where her ancestors burned.”

“Get your filthy hands off of her!”

My head bobbed up and down until I found enough strength to see that Emilia was standing next to Callum, holding up a small knife of her own. Shaking from head to toe.

There was a pause, and then the man said, “Another beauty hiding away in that castle?” From the tone in his voice, I could hear him appraising her, but he didn’t recognize her. Had there been more after Emilia? So many little girls he’d hurt that he couldn’t even remember their faces?

I gritted my teeth together, finding my voice. “You will not touch her.”

I screamed out in pain as he twisted the knife further into my abdomen. “Enough out of you.”

“What is that blade laced with?” Bastian asked.

His father chuckled. “Soren never told you that this specific metal and belladonna is a weakness to magic folk? All that history and lore he’s consumed over the years…you didn’t use it to your advantage? Have I taught you nothing?”

“He didn’t tell me,” Bastian said.

Soren knew how to kill me? All this time?

“I always said if I could combine the two of you into one man, I’d have my heir—my real legacy.”

I couldn’t even think straight. The pain was unbearable, it felt as though acid was traveling throughout my body.

The man pulled the blade from my side and pushed me down into the dirt. I pushed my hand into my side to try and staunch the bleeding, but it was coming out too quickly.

I looked up at Bastian, my eyes pleading. I thought I had nothing in this world to live for, but I did. “Please, protect them.”

“Women speak when they are spoken to.” Their father wrenched my head back painfully by grabbing a chunk of my hair and hissed in my ear. He then threw his blade to Bastian.

“Go on, son. Kill her and let’s go home.” I could see the grin on his father’s face out of my peripheral. “Prove to me you are ready.”

I looked over to find Bastian staring down at me with a sadness there that I couldn’t pinpoint.

Just go to sleep, Callie. This is what you have been praying for.

“Not yet,” I mumbled—the poison was doing its job, coursing through my veins. It took everything in me to stay present.

“What was that?” The man asked. “Bastian, is she talking to herself?”

Bastian didn’t answer him, still staring down at me.

This was happening. My powers were locked far away from me, and who knew how long it would take for them to come back. I needed to fight.

“Do it! Get it over with!” His father urged.

“Yes, do it, Bastian,” Callum said. His eyes were cold—locked in. He was holding Emilia so tightly that her arms were likely bruised. “Because that is what you were bred to do. You arewhoever your father makes you. You can never be anything more.”

Bastian shook his head, looking between us three.

Callum didn’t relent. “Kill her, and kill that part of yourself with her.”

His breathing quickened. He looked to his father, his voice desperate when he asked, “What about the Reaping? Joséphine?”

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