SAGE
By the way, he had ruined it... I thought, suddenly rembering Adam’s statent. And his provoking question.
He knew I was Maya. Sothing about a mark... How had he noticed that?
Whatever, he had ruined it.
The thought burned hotter than the magic thrumming beneath my skin.
I had wanted this mont to be mine. I had wanted to peel the truth back slowly, to savor every second of dawning horror on their faces, to choose the exact instant I would say the nas that haunted them.
Maya. Dora. Sage. One soul, three lives, an unbroken chain of pain they had forged with their own hands.
And Adam had taken that from .
The fury rose fast, cracking my composure and smile clean through. I snarled at him before I even realized I was moving, the sound ripping from my throat like an animal’s warning.
"Why do I hurt you?" I scoffed, my voice trembling with sothing dangerously close to hysteria. "You hurt first. All of you."
I swept my gaze across the room, taking them in one by one. The brothers. Their brides. Their friends who had watched, whispered, laughed, or looked away.
My magic responded to my rage eagerly, flaring outward in a vicious pulse.
They dropped. Every single one of them.
An invisible force slamd them to the floor, pinning them in place. It wasn’t a clean restraint. It was punishnt. I twisted the spell deliberately, weaving pain into it, setting it to strike in rciless intervals.
Every ten seconds, agony lanced through them like a blade, sharp enough to steal breath, cruel enough to leave them conscious through every second of it.
Gasps filled the room. Groans. Choked cries.
They hadn’t even had ti to fight back, surprise freezing them in place before instinct could catch up. I laughed, the sound wild and bright and utterly unhinged, echoing off the walls.
"If the vampires are coming," I said lightly, "then I suppose I should make myself useful before they arrive."
I walked back to the bed and sat, crossing my legs with deliberate calm, as if I weren’t presiding over a roomful of suffering bodies.
I studied their faces the way one might study artwork, detached and curious.
Naomi was crying.
The sight almost made pause.
Almost.
Her tears streaked down her face silently, her lips trembling, eyes squeezed shut as another wave of pain tore through her. Was that guilt I saw there?
I tilted my head, considering it. Guilt for what, exactly?
We were no longer friends.
"Is it the bullying?" Timothy gasped suddenly, his voice breaking through the pain.
I snickered, unable to help myself. "Oh. You rember."
I flicked my fingers.
The spell intensified around him, the next surge of pain hitting harder than the rest. Timothy cried out, his body convulsing against the invisible restraints.
"Do you rember," I asked sweetly, leaning forward, "barring your sister from playing with ? Do you rember telling her I was dirty? That she shouldn’t be seen with soone like ?"
He couldn’t answer. Pain stole his voice completely, leaving only a strangled sound in his throat.
I straightened and turned my attention to Claire.
She was the only one not crying, or begging for release.
Her eyes burned with pure, undiluted hatred, even as her body trembled under the spell. It almost impressed .
"What?" I asked, eting her gaze evenly. "You want to kill ?"
Her jaw clenched, teeth grinding together as another wave hit.
"Surprised I didn’t die after you accused of stealing a necklace I didn’t even know existed?" I continued conversationally. "You were so convincing. So righteous."
She still didn’t speak, but the venom in her eyes was answer enough.
It made laugh harder.
"Why are you doing this?" Noah finally ground out, his voice hoarse with pain and strain. "We apologized. We made a truce. You even dated Adam."
I turned my head slowly toward him.
"From what I’m hearing," he continued desperately, "he marked you. He defended you before our father that night. So why are you doing this? Is it really just the bullying?"
I scoffed, the sound scathing. Why were they still pretending?
"You don’t rember beating to a pulp that sa night?" I asked, my voice dropping. The room seed to hold its breath.
My gaze slid to Adam.
He was on his knees, pain etched into every line of his face, but it was the confusion in his eyes that cut deepest. He looked... lost.
"You led out of the cells yourself," I said softly, almost conversationally. "Took to the barren lands. I thought you were helping escape."
A bitter laugh tore out of . "I was so stupid."
Silence followed, broken only by labored breathing and the rhythmic pulses of pain.
The triplets looked genuinely confused now.
That made sothing ugly coil in my chest.
Weren’t they tired of lying?
Or worse—had they truly convinced themselves they hadn’t done what they had?
Were they trying to make doubt my own mories? Again?
Rage surged again, blinding. I stood abruptly and gestured at Adam. The magic tightened around him, yanking him to his feet.
I doubled the pain coursing through him, ignoring the way my own chest constricted in response, the way the bond scread in protest.
"Tell them," I barked. "Tell the truth for once in your miserable life."
He looked shattered.
Not like a powerful alpha or a man in control, but like soone who had lost everything and didn’t yet know how to stand without it.
For a fleeting second, doubt flickered. I crushed it.
"Tell them!" I shouted, my voice cracking. "Tell them what you did!"
Adam swallowed hard, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth as the pain wracked him. His eyes t mine, steady despite everything.
"My truth hasn’t changed," he said hoarsely. "What I told you, when you were Dora, was the truth."
The words hit harder than any spell.
I stared at him, heart pounding violently in my chest.
Truth.
That word had followed through every life, every na, every scar.
And for the second ti since this night began, uncertainty whispered through the cracks of my fury, soft and dangerous, asking a question I wasn’t ready to answer.
What if... they truly didn’t do it?
What if the monster I was fighting wasn’t standing in front of —but buried sowhere far deeper, in the tangled wreckage of magic, mory, and revenge?
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