Page 48 of Sophie's Ruin
“Dead. Sophie killed them.” My heart squeezed when I uttered the words. The three clan leaders had deserved to die, but I wished I had been strong enough to kill them, so Sophie wouldn’t have had to do it. I didn’t want blood on her hands—it didn’t matter whose blood it was.
“I’m going back to New Haven then,” Waylon proclaimed, his voice ringing out in the clearing. “I need to see if any of the border guards are still alive and spread the word that the Dark Witches were defeated.”
“We will go with you,” Isabelle said, glancing at Wren, who nodded in agreement. My brows knitted—I truly didn’t like seeing her with him. “Unless you need help?” She looked back at me.
“No, go. Celeste will help me,” I assured her, even though there was this feeling in my gut telling me that helping Sophie was something I had to do on my own. “Be careful.”
“You, too,” Isabelle said, still gripping my arm as if she was afraid of letting go.
A moment later, she did let go of me, and I headed toward the house, passing Waylon on the way there.
“Bring her back,” he said, as I walked by.
“I will,” I told him, hoping I wasn’t making a promise I wouldn’t be able to keep.
25
SOPHIE
Iwill hunt every last one of them like the savage animals that they are,I thought with a snarl as I walked through the Black Forest without a destination in mind. At least, it had stopped raining.
“Sophie?” came a male voice from behind me.
I spun around and faced the woods just as Damien stepped out of them. He was garbed in a black cloak, the darkness of his clothing highlighting his white hair and pale skin. With eyes fathomless and black, he looked much like a vampire, and I saw red for a second before I breathed through the blinding rage, telling myself to calm down.
“How did you know I was here?” I asked when he approached.
“I heard a whisper in the wind. Did you summon me?”
I thought about it for a moment. “I did want to see you.”
“Then you must have projected it into the world around you.” His bottomless gaze flicked over me. “Something’s different about you,” he observed.
I lifted my chin. “I saved my lover.”
“Alone?” His brows shot up.
I shrugged. “I had my magic.”And the darkness.“So, no. I wasn’t truly alone.”
Damien appraised me from head to toe. The look he gave me was one of impressed appreciation. He suddenly struck me as someone who was drawn to power and wanted to be in the orbit of the one wielding it.
“Tell me what happened,” he asked in a hushed tone.
I told him everything in every gory detail. He didn’t recoil from any of it. If anything, he seemed to be feeding off the pain and suffering I described. The look on his face was one of depraved pleasure as I talked about killing Camilla, Moreau, and Beatrice.
“The other three clan leaders…they escaped,” I finished the story as rage surged again. I couldn’t believe I’d let them get away.
“I see,” Damien said low, his eyes dimming as if he were disappointed the bloody retelling had come to an end. “What do you want to do now?” he asked, and seemed to have stopped breathing, waiting for my answer.
“I want to find them and make them pay,” I told him vehemently. “I need your help hunting them down.”
Damien’s face lit up at my words as his mouth curved into a sinister smile. Malevolent energy emanated from him, and I knew it should raise the tiny hairs on my body, but I was unaffected. I’d been growing closer to the darkness, getting more comfortable with it. Dark things didn’t affect me anymore like they’d used to. I knew Damien’s reaction should bother me, butI couldn’t bring myself to care. I only cared about revenge, and Damien could help me get it.
“So, what do you say?” I asked him.
“Well, Sophie…to accomplish what you want, you need powerful magic, and powerful magic rarely comes without a price?—”
“I’ll do whatever it takes,” I interjected. I would not stop now. And I wouldn’t be stopped, either.
