Page 44 of A House of Fangs & Deceit

“And she’s not telling us about it.” I let out a frustrated sigh.

We told each other everything. Always.

“I think she’s afraid,” Rynn whispered.

“Of what?” I snapped before catching myself. It wasn’t Rynn’s fault that I was pissed off at Cali. I sat on the edge of the tub and let my shoulders sag as I took a few deep breaths. “She is fearless. Always has been.”

“Our Cali has always been fearless,” Rynn agreed, “but we know what all Furies fear.”

We will lose our souls to the fury.

So much history had been lost when our ancestors cast the spell to give up their humanity and become monsters instead.

We’d managed to put together bits and pieces of it, along with clawing our humanity back, but there was still so much we didn’t know. Like why the Furies had been impacted worse than the rest of us.

The Velesians had been the first to gain back some of their humanity. Even their second generation had been mostly stable, and because of that, they had the greatest numbers of any of us. The Moroi had struggled, with some of our bloodlines having fared better than others. They were the ones who established the Houses and helped the others battle their bloodlust.

But the Furies… so few of them remained compared to the Velesians and Moroi, and the ones that did were always at risk oflosing themselves to the never-ending fury within their souls.

Fear clamped its hands around my heart. “Do you think Cali is losing herself?”

“No,” Rynn said quickly. “But I think something about her magic is scaring her. She’s the most powerful Furie of her generation. Possibly ever.”

She raised her hand, displaying the silver band she wore around her wrist. The shadow magic within it was what allowed Rynn to appear as her shadow self. Only Furies had the ability to wield shadow magic themselves or imbue other things with it.

Rynn explained, “It normally takes several Furies working together to craft magic like this, and Cali was able to do it on her own, on basically a whim.”

“She was scared about us being apart,” I murmured, remembering our last day at Drudonia and Cali clamping that band around Rynn’s wrist.

But despite her power, it still hadn’t worked for me. Moroi could wield blood magic but not use shadow magic. The Furies wielded shadow magic but couldn’t use blood magic. The Velesians could wield neither, but they could use objects that had been spelled with either magic. No one knew why.

“You know how the other Furies are around her,” Rynn said sadly. “She can’t go to them with her concerns. They’ll just spout more useless garbage about how she needs to tone down her emotions and not form strong bonds. Blah, blah, blah.”

I snorted. The Furie elders were not pleased about how close the three of us were. More than once, they had told Cali to end our friendship. Fat chance.

“We need to go and see her. In person,” I insisted. “She won’t be able to brush us off so easily then.”

“Agreed.”

I unwrapped my hair, letting the towel drop to the floor,and snagged my brush off the counter. “And maybe then you can tell us how you’re really feeling about joining the Alpha Pack.” I cocked my head knowingly.

Rynn froze. “I’ve already told you I’m fi—”

“If you say ‘you’re fine’ about it, I’m going to scream.” I pointed my brush at her in warning.

“Fine.” She grinned at me when I arched an eyebrow at her. But after a few seconds, the grin slid off her face. “I’m getting nervous about it.”

“Have they been pressuring you to come?” I asked carefully.

If she said yes, I wasn’t sure what I would do, but whatever it was, it would probably be a political nightmare. My aunt had raised me after my parents died, but she was often busy ruling House Harker and supporting the Sovereign House.

Cali and Rynn had equally sad and complicated family histories. We were each other’s chosen family. There was no stronger bond than that, as far as I was concerned.

“The opposite, actually.” She fidgeted with her hands before catching herself.

While Cali and I didn’t care about her nervous tells, we had been working with her on them. Of the three of us, Rynn managed to be both the smartest and the most inept at communicating. Given that she was supposed to join the Alpha Pack and serve as an advisor… that was a problem.

We’d come a long way from those original humans who had turned themselves into monsters, but we were still predators, and showing weakness was never wise.

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