Page 100 of Midnight Reign
I feel sick. The implications of what she’s saying are too horrific to contemplate. “Randall.” It all comes back to our father, the arsehole who stabbed me in the heart. “I thought he tried to kill you?”
She smiles. It’s sinister, and I gulp back the naïvety that I bought her lies. “No, he tried to make me live. But I needed you to be on my side, Adelaide. We bonded over a common enemy.”
“Bonded? You are more deluded than you look.”
Crimson’s eyes flash with anger at my words. “You ungrateful little bitch,” she snarls. “I’ve given you power beyond your wildest dreams, and this is how you repay me?”
I stand my ground, even as fear courses through me. “I never asked for this power. I never wanted any of this.”
She takes a step closer, her presence overwhelming. “It doesn’t matter what you want. This is who you are, Adelaide. The sooner you accept that, the easier it will be.”
I shake my head vehemently. “No. I refuse to believe that.”
Crimson’s laugh is cold and cruel. “There is no other way. This is our destiny, written in blood and darkness. You can’t fight it any more than you can stop the sun from rising.”
“Enough!” I shout, putting my hands over my ears. “You can’t keep me here. The guys will move worlds to get me back!”
She snorts, and time stands still. “Who, these guys?” She gestures to the ground, and I see a vision of them standing over my comatose form. Their expressions are blank. “They only wanted you because ofmypower, girl. You don’t have fuck all. You are a nobody, a nothing. A half-arsed Vesper who can’t even do that right.”
Tears well up, and I choke on them. “No, that isn’t true. They love me.”
“No, they loveme. They love what I gave you. Do you think the Dark Fae Prince was thinking aboutyouwhen he had his cock inside you? No, he was thinking about me, about my power, about how I would make such a good princess for him. You have no power, Adelaide.”
“I do,” I bleat, dropping to my knees as her cruelty crashes over me. “I do. I know I do… Please!” I implore the guys to say something, to prove to Crimson that she’s wrong, but they stand and stare at me before sighing.
“Well, I guess that’s that,” Zephyr says. “She was a fun time while it lasted.”
“Now we will wait for Crimson to return, and we can have a creature with real power, instead of this pathetic half-human.”
Corvus’s words cut deep, and I let out a sob.
“So glad we don’t have to pretend anymore,” Ignatius says.
“Yeah, that was rough. Bonding with her made me feel sick,” Zaiah adds.
Then they turn and walk away from me, leaving me alone, cold and alone.
My sobs wrack my body as I place my hands on the vision. It dissipates, and I fall forward, pressing my forehead to the scorched earth.
“You see, dear girl? You have nothing. No magick, no power, no guys. Nothing.”
I crumple to the ground, Crimson’s words echoing in my head. Despair washes over me in waves, threatening to drown me. She’s right. I am nothing without her power. The guys never really cared about me at all.
Crimson stands over me. “Pathetic. You are pathetic. A girl would rather cut herself than be powerful. You are a disgrace.”
I close my eyes, scrunching them shut against the brutality of her words.
The metallic scent of blood fills my nostrils, making my hunger rise up.
I open my eyes to see things have shifted. I’m whole again, for a start. The sky is still a roiling mass of black and red, but now the ground beneath me is a vast, endless ocean of blood that is lapping over me, soaking me, staining me.
Crimson bends down next to me. “You see, sister?” she says, gesturing at the hellish vista before us. “This is the price of your resistance. The longer you fight, the more this world will suffer.”
“No,” I say firmly. “This is your doing, not mine. You’re the one causing all this suffering.”
She sighs, shaking her head as if I’m a particularly slow child. “Adelaide, Adelaide. When will you understand?”
I shake my head, disgust and anger warring with the pity and sorrow coursing through me. “You’re insane. This is annihilation.” I want to give in. It will be easier, but something stops me.
