Chapter 225

Violet’s POV

It was dark.

The moonlight was just bright enough to highlight my mother’s high cheekbones, the ones I’d inherited, the feature that gave me enough pause to wonder whether or not I was looking in the mirror as I took in my surroundings.

“It must have been painful for Dad,” I said out loud, “to see his dead wife in me every day. I forget how much I look like you.”

Mom only smiled at me. She caressed the back of the couch we sat on, admiring the material.

“I always liked blue,” she said. “You got that from me, too.”

“It’s new,” I shared. “We just got the couch in yesterday.” But I furrowed my brows as I wondered if that was true.

What day was it?

“Violet.” My mother’s voice drew me out of my head, the urgency in it causing me concern. “War is coming.”

I sighed, letting my gaze fall out the window where the nearly full moon lit up the royal gardens. “I know.”

Movement caught my eye, and I watched my mother clasp my hand in both of hers. My brows furrowed again as I felt nothing. Not her warmth, not the silkiness of her skin, nothing.

“You have to leave,” she said, a fire burning in her eyes as her voice lowered to an almost inhuman octave.

I retracted my hand from hers that I couldn’t feel, startled by the demon-like sound. “These are my people now, Mother. I will not abandon them.”

“You must leave,” she repeated, her voice deepening further as her eyes turned wholly black. I recoiled instinctively as her body seemed to grow in size in front of me, but I did not leave the couch, feeling as though I had to stand up to her. After all, this was my own mother.

But wasn’t my mother dead? Hadn’t I even commented on that at the start of this conversation?

“No one else can protect them,” I raised my voice to be heard above the wind that was somehow roaring in my ears even though not a leaf rustled in the gardens below and not a hair on my face was blown out of place. “I will not abandon my people!” I bellowed.

The demon my mother had become raked me over with a disappointed look in those black eyes as worn, black wings extended behind her. “Not you,” she sneered in that other-worldly, grave voice. “No one cares what happens to you.”

Then she reached for my chest, her fingers falling right through me. “I’m warning her,” she specified lowly, and as she withdrew her hand from my chest, something tugged within me. I leaned forward with the movement as if my mother had latched onto something attached to me.

She yanked, struggling to extract what she wanted, and the motion sent a stabbing pain through me. I began to panic, fearing that she was ripping my spine right out of my body.

But that would kill me. Why would my own mother kill me?

I grasped the back of the couch I had been so proud my mother approved of, using leverage to pull away from her. But no matter how I pushed back, she held her grip on that something within me.

After a quick game of tug-of-war, my mother batted the wings that had unfurled behind her, giving her even more leverage as she heaved. That stabbing pain returned, and it felt as though something vital inside me tore straight through my chest. I screamed, looking down in a panic to assess the damage.

There was no blood, no wound, just a whisp of light clenched between my mother’s fingers as she continued to extract whatever this was. I screamed louder, clawing at my mother’s wrist trying to stop her, fearing that she was stealing my very soul.

Harder, she jerked backwards, and the pain in my throat from my screaming was nothing in comparison to the rending splitting my chest in two, until the whisp of light she wrapped her fingers around took form, enough of it revealed for me to realize what it was.

A snout.

It wasn’t my soul she was stealing. It was my wolf’s spirit.

In my panic, my senses didn’t even feel like my own. My own name echoed all around like a taunt. Violet, Violet, VIOLET.

Images from my memory flashed in my eyes: Rylan Blackwell’s wolf spirit being ripped from his body and King Owen’s being ripped from his. They were the past but also my future.

The scent of copper flooded my nose, and I didn’t look down this time, convinced there was a gaping hole where my wolf’s spirit was being plucked and too cowardly to witness the blood that was surely pouring out.

Then that voice echoing my name off every wall in the bedroom blared even louder straight from my mind, from where I couldn’t escape it.

Alari, come back to me. I love you. Come back to me.

My eyes were open, yet I somehow opened them again, light flooding my eyes that had grown used to the darkness. I blinked as I writhed beneath a force holding me down, willing my eyes to adjust, to find my demon-mother so that I could fight against her.

But as I roared, the searing of my throat was the worst pain in my body, and I realized the stabbing sensation in my chest was gone. Confused, I stilled my kicking legs just as my eyes adjusted to the light.

I took in the handsome face above me, twisted with fear even as his eyes burned with love and desperation.

“Violet,” he said firmly. Alari, he echoed in my mind. I love you. “I love you.”

I let my body go slack beneath him as I took in my surroundings.

We were on the floor next to his side of the bed. It was still dark outside, but our bedroom light was on. He had my wrists pinned at my sides with his hands, my thighs pinned with his knees.

I blinked as something dripped onto my cheek, drawing my attention to my husband’s neck. To three long scratches dripping with blood.

“You’re hurt,” I said, surprised at how hoarse my voice sounded.

Theo sighed, not quite in relief, as he unpinned me, falling on his butt to my side. “Riley?” he called in concern.

“I’m fine,” Riley’s disembodied voice came from somewhere in our room. “It’s already clotting.”

I didn’t understand. Didn’t understand why Riley was in our room, why Theo wasn’t going to him if he was bleeding.

I hoisted myself up, surprised by how heavy and dizzy I felt. Unable to rise farther, I crawled around the edge of our bed where I found Riley on the floor, back against the end of our bed, a bloody hand pressed to his belly.

But the worst part was what I beheld in his eyes as he watched me come into view: pure, uncontrollable fear.

As if I had done this to him.

Somehow, Riley swallowed, that fear still leeching from his pores as he opened his mouth. “Feeling better, my Queen?”

I hadn’t thought it could get worse than realizing I had hurt the people I cared for. But knowing I had done so, that Riley feared me, and still wished to serve me – that was the worst nightmare I would ever endure.