Eve
Bile rose in my throat. I took a step closer, my fists clenched so tight my nails bit into my palms. A flash of red tinged my vision.
This bloody bitch...
"Don't call him that," I drawled, each word low and razored.
Her green eyes flickered—and for a heartbeat, there was fear. Real, flickering fear behind that infuriating calm.
Then she smiled. Slow. Crooked. Like decay curling at the edges of sothing once beautiful.
"You scared ," she murmured, glancing down at herself with mock awe.
"How low the mighty have fallen," she whispered, mostly to herself. "I've been chipped down to this… this pathetic shell of a woman who should have had it all."
Her eyes lifted to mine again.
"I like the new haircut, by the way," she said, dry amusent in her tone. "Really brings out your cheekbones."
She tilted her head, examining like she was cataloging a scar.
"Who knew they were that sharp? Guess it was just one of those things you hid."
Her gaze drifted upward, tracing invisible lines across the cell ceiling.
"You and —we're the sa. But unlike you, I showed my claws. A little fang, now and then. You? You hid it all. Even from yourself."
She laughed under her breath, the sound cracked and too dry.
I ground my jaw, teeth clashing hard enough to ache. "Elliot—"
She raised a cuffed hand, stopping with the laziest gesture I'd ever seen. Her gaze dropped again, sharp and hollow.
"Don't talk to about Danielle's child." Her voice was brittle glass. "Let's talk about for once."
She leaned forward, eyes glassy with sothing too fractured to be rage.
"Did you know when I told them what he did to … they ignored it?" Her voice cracked, barely audible. "Who does that?"
Then her focus slipped again, like she couldn't hold on to a single thought long enough.
"You granted Rook rcy," she murmured. "Despite what he did to you. You could at least hear out."
Mixed feelings surged up, thick and boiling beneath my ribs. I said nothing, only glared.
Her eyes t mine again, rheumy and filled with dread that mirrored mine. "My little songbird's story can wait, don't you think?"
Again, I said nothing, holding that stare that had once filled with fear.
"Perfect!" she chirped like a happy bird. "Father played chess and won, but we—his daughters—lost. Especially ."
My eyes twitched as she continued without a shred of sha.
"Danielle waltzed through life. Her marriage was a fantasy I could only dream about."
A whimsical expression leaked into her features.
"That man would've burned down the world for her. She just wouldn't let him.
Green eyes like eralds that always seed to gleam. Hair like chestnut. A cheeky smile at anyone she might beam. Father even had a little rhy for her."
She touched her hair, twirling a strand absentmindedly.
"But we had the sa hair, the sa eyes… but I…" Her lips trembled. "I never got a rhythm. Not from Father," she added, her expression turning bitter, her voice acidic.
"Certainly not from Leon. Never from him. I saved him from a life with my bore of a sister, and then he repaid with nothing but pain." She spat the words—each syllable seed to burn its way down her throat.
"I tried everything to please him, but he was insatiable. He craved my agony. Craved my utter ruin like a sadist. The first day he raised his hand to , I knew… I knew... I just fucking knew that hell had just begun. There was no limit to his cruelty. There was nothing that could stop him. No one who could stop him from destroying ." Her eyes glazed over, but her tears refused to fall.
"I might be a psychopath, but I t my match in him. In the worst way possible. I drove myself to cutting… and then he found out." Her throat bobbed as she swallowed. "I knew I had conjured the devil. He locked up like so common animal and starved . He said I was just seeking attention and ruining his reputation. I was pregnant then."
Felicia's voice broke on the last word, but still no tears fell. Her throat trembled. Her mouth twitched.
"I lost him," she whispered again. "And guess who he blad."
She leaned her head back against the stone wall, the manacles groaning faintly with the shift.
"He said I did it on purpose. Said I wanted to ruin his legacy. Called a parasite. Said I had no womb—just a pit."
I stayed silent, but my lungs burned.
She dragged in a rattled breath.
"I got pregnant two more tis after that," she went on, hollow. "I thought if I kept them, maybe… maybe he'd forgive . That he'd stop."
Her lips curled, but the smile didn't reach her eyes.
"But they died too. Both of them. And every ti, I got hell for it. He said my body was a grave. That I was cursed."
She chuckled, dry and deranged. "He even made bury one. With my hands."
My spine stiffened. I felt sick.
Felicia's eyes t mine again, and for a split second, I saw sothing almost childlike beneath the wreckage. Sothing reaching.
"I didn't start out like this, you know."
I clenched my jaw, the taste of iron rising behind my teeth.
"You steal a rattlesnake," I said coldly, "and think it won't bite you?"
The silence that followed was sharp.
Then—
Felicia laughed.
Not a fake laugh. Not manic.
A genuine, cracked-open laugh that sounded too human for everything she'd just said.
She laughed so hard she wheezed, tipping her head back, unbothered by the shackles or the stone or the venom in my voice.
"Oh gods," she gasped. "That was good. That was really good."
I stared at her, fury bubbling like a volcano under my skin.
She caught her breath, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye with the edge of her cuff.
"You see?" she said, smiling at like we were just two won catching up after years apart. "You've got bite after all. Told you we were alike."
"I'm nothing like you," I snapped.
But even as the words left , I wasn't sure if they were entirely true.
Because I had seen what monsters could make of won.
And I was starting to understand that Felicia wasn't born a serpent.
She'd been made one.
And now she was poison, through and through.
Felicia's laughter faded like smoke—lingering, acrid.
"We are alike," she said softly, that brittle smile still stretched across her lips. "You stole the husband of an unburied woman and expected not to get burned."
It wasn't the sa.
But I didn't say that.
Because even if it wasn't the sa, it still burned.
She watched my silence like a hawk. Like it was a victory.
"So," she went on, tilting her head, "when I got pregnant the fourth ti, I thought maybe the curse had passed. Maybe the gods were tired of punishing ."
Her gaze dimd.
"And then I found the room."
I didn't move.
Felicia didn't look at as she said it.
"He had photographs. Of her. Danielle. In a room behind a false wall in the study. Like an altar. Candles. Journals. Clippings. Her perfu bottles." Her laugh turned glass-sharp. "He was obsessed."
She lifted her eyes again, and this ti, it was venom.
"He had left her for . . And still—he worshiped the ghost of her like I was nothing but her shadow. He wanted everything Hades had, you know. The power. The na. But most of all… he wanted Danielle."
My lips parted, but no words ca.
"Oh, you're stunned?" Felicia sneered. "Imagine how I felt. Knowing my sister could steal sothing without even trying. Without even knowing. That all I had to offer—my body, my blood, my soul—was nothing compared to her breath in a room."
Her voice cracked.
"He swore to silence. But he stopped hiding it. He stopped pretending. When he made hate to , he would moan her na. In public, he was polite to , but to her—gods, he treated her like royalty. Like a relic. Better than Hades did, even. Said she was graceful. Said she was bright. That she could charm without trying."
I was frozen. Breathing felt like swallowing needles.
"He said she didn't wear too much makeup. Didn't dye her hair. Said she didn't need to. She was pure." Felicia's mouth twisted into a snarl. "Said she had ta the beast that Hades was. Turned him into a puppy of a husband. That she was a lovely enigma."
Her voice trembled.
"Then she got pregnant. And another round of hell began."
I already knew where this was going.
"My daughter," she whispered. "The baby girl who had survived everything… she couldn't survive that. Not his jealousy. Not his wrath. I lost her."
Felicia closed her eyes.
"When his father found him—hurting —he made him stop. But only because he didn't want the scandal. He made keep quiet.
"You think you're the first woman he's hurt? You're just the first to complain. Next ti, bleed quietly. You're carrying the future of this house, not your own." He had said.
But why would I be surprised? All I had to rember was what he did to Hades.
"I couldn't even tell him I'd lost the baby. Again."
Her eyes opened. Calm. Still.
"I wanted to save myself."
Then she looked at . And for the first ti, I saw her with terrifying clarity.
"If he could plot to kill his own brother to get his ex fiance," she said, "who was I?"
I said it before I even thought it.
"So you took the first shot."
Her smile returned—slow, savage.
"Exactly."
Reviews
All reviews (0)