War Storm (Red Queen) - Victoria Aveyard Page 0,223

The other is stronger, bigger, leaping to knock me over.

I try to dodge, and end up falling flat on my back, with a wolf lunging for my throat. It lands hard, almost two hundred pounds of muscle crashing into my chest. I gasp, feeling the air rush from my lungs.

Teeth clamp around my neck, but they don’t bite down. The points dig in, enough to bruise. Enough to pin me in place.

Overhead, all around, the lights quiver in their metal holdings, and hinges shudder on doors.

I can’t move, can barely breathe.

I made it ten whole yards.

“Don’t lift a finger,” my mother crows, stepping into my very limited line of vision. Above me, the wolf trembles, yellow eyes boring into mine.

My father shudders at her side, a storm cloud of rage. He keeps one hand to his head, stemming the flow of blood. His eyes are worse than the wolf’s.

“You stupid girl,” he breathes. “After all we’ve done for you. All we made you.”

“But for one flaw,” my mother replies. She tsks, clucking her tongue over me. Like I’m one of her prize animals, bred for her personal use. I suppose that’s not incorrect. “One deep, unnatural flaw.”

I try to gasp against the wolf’s grip, if only to choke back a sob. My stomach coils and churns. Let me go, I want to beg.

But he never will. He doesn’t know how.

And perhaps that’s the fault of his own father, and his father before.

I don’t know why, but I think of Mare Barrow. Of her parents, holding her close, saying good-bye as we left Montfort. They are nothing, insignificant people, of no great beauty, intellect, or power. I envy them so deeply it makes me sick.

“Please,” I manage to force out.

The wolf holds firm.

Father takes a step closer, his fingers painted in liquid silver. With a flick of his hand, he sprays me with his blood. With what I did.

“I’ll drag you back to the Rift myself.”

I don’t doubt it.

I stare up at him, struggling to breathe, fingers scrabbling over the floor. Even my own armor betrays me, melting off my body under his command. Leaving me bare and without weapons. Vulnerable. A prisoner still and always.

Then my father flies away from me, crashing backward, his face pulled into unfamiliar surprise. He’s being dragged by the chromium painted up and down his body. He slams into the nearest wall, head cracking backward. My mother screams as he slumps forward, eyes rolling in his skull.

The wolf above me meets a different fate.

A blade cuts through its neck, and the severed head flies, landing with a sick squelch a few feet away. A hot spray of fresh, scarlet blood coats my face.

I don’t flinch. A familiar, cool hand closes around my wrist, giving me a tug.

“You trained us too well,” Ptolemus says, helping me to my feet.

We run together, and this time, I look back.

Mother bends over Father, her hands running over him. He tries to rise, but the blow makes him stagger. He’s still alive.

“Good-bye, Evangeline,” another man says.

Julian Jacos steps out from an adjoining corridor, and Anabel is with him, her fingers drumming together. She doesn’t spare a glance for me as she approaches, hands raised. Such lethal power in so small a woman.

“Run away, Larentia.” I fight the urge to cover my ears, even though Julian’s melodic voice is not directed at me. Still, the singer’s power shudders on the air, palpable as a sugary taste. “Forget your children.”

Her footsteps are quick and scurrying, like one of her spying rats.

“Larentia!” my father gurgles, barely able to speak in his dazed state.

But he can certainly scream.

I leave him to Anabel and Julian. To whatever fate they have in store for the king of the Rift.

Outside, the fog has truly fallen, coating the Square in a gray haze too thick to be born of nature. Wren stands silhouetted, waiting for us, her trim form a sharp outline against the other shadows slouching into formation. Cal’s forces, maybe even an entire legion, judging by the many shapes.

At the sight of us, Wren waves a hand. “This way,” she calls, before turning to the fog and the soldiers.

Something weighs at the edge of my perception, heavy enough to register even from a great distance. The Lakelander ships. They have to be. Overhead, unseen, jets scream back and forth. Somewhere, missiles whine and bloom, spouting bursts of flame where the armada must be. I feel trapped by the fog, blinded. All I can do is focus