Page 18 of The Rebel and the Rose
‘He’ll meet his death on the streets,’ she called after him.
‘At least he won’t go to hell when he does,’ he called back.
She said nothing, then, and he welcomed the damp, stony silence.
He was not in the mood to talk morality with Nadia tonight. He was not in the mood to talk at all. Sleep was gnawing at his edges, and with it, the nightmares that chased him into oblivion.
Chapter 5Seraphine
Sera raced through the winding catacombs of Hugo’s Passage, desperately trying to find her way out. Her feet squelched, the endless puddles of blood clinging to her boots like oil. Somewhere close by, a monster roared.
She pivoted, turning into a narrow side passage, and came upon Gaspard Dufort. Her father. Silver-eyed and seething, he was on his knees, choking on his own blood.
‘Traitor!’he hissed at her. ‘Murderer!’
Panicking, Sera spun around. She tried to retrace her steps but the tunnels were changing. The walls huddled closer, darkness enveloping her like a shroud. When it cleared, she was alone again. Standing in the crypt of Lucille Versini, looking down at the skeleton of a long-dead girl. The tiara on her head still glittered.
Sera reached out to take it.
‘Spitfire.’ She froze as familiar hands came around her waist, drawing her backwards. Ransom’s warm breath caressed the shell of her ear, his voice gruff with want. ‘Let’s play again.’
She closed her eyes. ‘You were supposed to come to me.’
‘I’m here now, Seraphine.’ His lips brushed against her neck. ‘Can’t you feel me?’
Desire seized her, stoking the heat of her magic. She whirled around, twisting her fingers in his collar. ‘Ransom, I—’
A scream built in her throat, and she stumbled backwards, away from the arms that held her.
Lark Delano stood before her, bare-chested and sneering. ‘Murderer.’
Blood seeped through his teeth, and that golden handprint on his skin flared, pricking tears in her eyes. ‘He’ll kill you before he’ll have you.’
He lunged and she recoiled, hitting the edge of the coffin. She had forgotten about it entirely, but now she was stumbling.
No, falling—
Something crackled underneath her, soft velvet caressing her arms as she tried to sit up. There were bones everywhere. She tried to claw her way out, but the spindly arms of Lucille’s skeleton folded around her.
She was tugged down into the coffin.
‘Murderer,’ the skull of Lucille Versini whispered in her ear. ‘You are no better than them.’
The coffin lid slammed shut.
Darkness swept in, the smell of wet earth and rotting wood filling her nostrils. Sera opened her mouth to scream, but dirtpoured in, muffling the sound. There was a terrible burning in her chest, as though the skin there had caught fire. Her lungs swelled with the damp earth, and still she breathed, clawing desperately at the wood above her until her fingernails bled. Ice seeped into her bones, freezing her hands and numbing her toes.
‘I’m not dead,’ she choked out, in a voice that did not belong to her. ‘Let me out!
‘Let me out! Let me out! Let me out!’
Sera woke with a jolt, her hand coming to her mouth just in time to strangle her scream. It eked out in a pathetic whimper. Silent tears streamed down her cheeks as her magic rioted inside her.
Maker, it hissed.Let me out!
A burning scent filled her nose, and she looked down to find a blackened hole in her sheets. She must have fisted them in a panic. Stifling a curse, she glanced around the bedroom. Silvered moonlight streamed in through a gap in the curtains, illuminating her best friends’ faces.
Val and Bibi were fast asleep in their bunks. Val was snoring softly, and Bibi’s slackened jaw was just visible through her spill of red hair.
