Page 48 of Snag
Bellamy’s clothing remains the same, and our heights must already be similar. Either that or the heels she wears make it close enough. But the dire awry’s hair and skin are darker than my own — a dark olive similar to Reck’s coloring.
She does a cute curtsy. “Bellamy Guerra.”
In truth, Bellamy looks more than just similar to Reck, though her facial features are slightly more rounded than his. They could be full-blood siblings. Or twins.
“No,” Reck says, sounding utterly sick. He’s close enough that I can see a trail of blood drying on his neck and staining the back of his collar. The dire awry scratched him, badly. “This is just another fucking trick.”
I take a step closer. Rought flinches as if intending to pull me back, then stops himself. I don’t need to move nearer to the dire awry to confirm what I’m looking at, so I pause in deference to his caution.
Bellamy’s eyes are the same as before. A light lavender, practically white-gray, around her contracted pupils, with a thin dark-purple rim around the irises.
“Not a dire mage,” I say. “A dire … awry.”
“That’s not …” Reck says. “That’s just part of the …”
“Why … ?” I ask Bellamy.
She blinks, thrown by my question. “What?”
“Why?” I tilt my head, deliberately looking at her threads. Trying to untangle the nasty knot of essence all around her, for a glimpse of her life force, of her fate. But those threads are shadowed, even muddy, some of them adeep red verging on black. And though black usually indicates deadened lines of fate, these are somehow still emanating energy.
Even odder, not all those threads are attached directly to her. As if some have been snipped, then tangled up with the lines of destiny or life force that remain.
“What are you looking at?” Bellamy snaps, trying and failing to hide her uncertainty.
I blink away the confusing twist and churn of the dire awry’s essence threads. Though not before I glimpse the blackened gossamer threads connecting to each Guerra sibling she claims. The thread between her and Reck is slightly thicker, indicating a direct blood connection.
“Why reach for the essence in your blood?” I ask. “In the blood of others?”
“Why the fuck not?” she snaps.
“You’ve polluted your —”
“You know nothing,” Bellamy snarls.
I slowly remove my sunglasses. Again.
Bellamy, who might have been too occupied trying to stuff Reck’s cock inside her to fully notice my eyes when we first came upon them in the hall, takes an involuntary step back.
Apparently I’m still having an issue with seeing someone who was destined to be mine in that … situation. Position? Hence my unusual posturing, and whatever is currently radiating from my eyes intensely enough to make the dire awry hesitate.
And that’s not even addressing the sibling connection. Which Bellamy knew about, even if Reck didn’t.
Bellamy is the type of awry who earned us all the name, the designation. A name that, even after centuries of us reclaiming it for ourselves, is used to reinforce our othernessand everything that’s wrong with how we wield essence.
The twisted awry.
Unstable enough to try to fuck our blood relations. Sadistic enough to mentally manipulate a sibling into that act. Triggering some sort of blood-based spell — judging by the scratches on Reck’s neck and the blackened bile his system was attempting to disgorge — to counter any resistance.
I raise an eyebrow, feigning an assuredness I certainly don’t feel. “I thought you got a good look at me last night. Through Kris’s eyes.”
Presh sucks in a breath behind me.
“Apparently those impressions weren’t reliable,” Bellamy murmurs, gaze riveted to me.
“We can chat easier with her in a cage, Zaya,” Reck says, not looking away from the dire awry. If he were wearing the fur of his cu-sith right now, his hackles would have been all the way up. “Standing around in a hall just puts Presh and DeVille at risk.”
Bellamy laughs. “It’s a good thing you’re so pretty, brother, because you’re fucking stupid. You think you can cage me?”
