Page 172 of Her Dark Promise

I was pulled back and away from Callum. I tried to fight them off, using my powers to send them away, when someone grabbed my face, forcing me to look at them.

Soren’s eyes were looking at me with pity, and I said as my voice cracked, “Why won’t you let me help him? You will see… He will wake up.”

“No, he won’t. He’s gone, Rose.” Soren’s words were so soft.

I pushed him away from me, unable to control the energy flowing through my body. I felt hot all over. I looked back down at Callum’s cloudy, vacant eyes. My sweet little bird.

Bastian collapsed next to us, body shaking as he grabbed Callum’s shoulders and crushed himself against the lifeless body, arms hanging limp by his side. At the sight, all of my anger, regret, sadness, hope, and love left me. I couldn’t feel…anything. The shadows dispersed, and all I could hear was clapping.

My eyes slowly roved over to Emilia and focused on her. I was too out of it to notice before, but I froze. This all had to be a nightmare. Another one of my more vivid nightmares. Her eyes were a bright, golden color, alight with mischief and violence. She was laughing to herself, holding a blade dripping with blood and clapping her hands hard enough to permeate the silent ballroom.

“I forgot how powerful you were. You are a wonder.”

I knew that voice, knew that laugh. I hadn’t silenced her; she’d found a new host.

“Goddammit, Emilia! Why would you do this?” Bastian’s voice cracked, spit flying from his mouth as he screamed.

“Bastian, that’s not Emilia.” I still didn’t want to believe it; I needed her to say it. Say what I knew to be true.

Soren stiffened next to me. “What do you mean?”

I swallowed. “Circe?”

She gave me a knowing smile.

All the color drained from my face. “How… How is this possible?”

“Are you truly this dense?” Emilia’s voice was no longer her own. It was stronger, more confident.

“Circe?” Soren looked confused and then immediately tried to stand in front of me. “That can’t be possible,” he said more to himself, working through how this could happen.

I ignored him and bared my teeth. “Then spell it out for me.”

She ignored him, not seeing him as a threat, and talked directly to me over his shoulder. “Do you not remember the promise I made to you?”

I remembered every word. How could I not? It had haunted me in every nightmare.

Her smile slowly got bigger and bigger as I recited her words from so long ago. “All you know will fade like mist. As you have shown the heart of a beast, so shall you live as one. Silence your prison, loneliness your true companion. Isolated. Unloved. Cursed. Only when our tangled thread unbinds, can you reclaim what was lost.”

“Poetic, is it not?”

Just hearing her voice made me want to strangle her, but I couldn’t, not when she had latched onto Emilia. How did that even happen? Or a better question,whendid that happen?

“Get out of her!”

“Why would I do that? She already permitted me entry into her body.” Circe said nonchalantly. “I would have rather had you, Callie. I bound myself to you all those years ago, believing I could return one day. I’ve tried to break you. Consume you. You were supposed to be my vessel… But Emilia… She was so easy, especially when your attention turned to the maggots.”

That couldn’t be true. “Stop lying!”

“It is no lie.” Circe played with Emilia’s hair for a moment and then looked down at her hands. “You only took her in to replace Annabelle, and she knew it. She knew she was just a little doll for you to care for.”

Did Emilia feel that way? My heart skipped a beat thinking about all the horrible thoughts Circe had implanted inside her mind. “You will leave her body alone. You will depart from the castle and leave forever.”

She barked a laugh. “I will do no such thing.”

Soren was still in front of me, and I saw out of my peripheral sight that Bastian had come up on the other side of me, ready to fight. Each was poised and ready to attack.

Circe looked at both of them and laughed. “You think you can take me on? How foolish of you to presume it would be so easy.”

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