LOGINWe’re taken right back outside, right into the heart of the chaos. Groups of physical fights are happening, with the undead and living followers ganging up against each other. In the span of time between when we burned Roanna and now, Penwood has fallen into anarchy. We’re tossed to our knees, the gritty Penwood floor scraping my skin once again, but I don’t care about getting hurt. I care about the woman in one of the men's arms, hanging like a ragdoll. Olivia. My Livvy. I know she’s not dead, but right now, she resembles a corpse. Her hair and skin have faded, silver drops dripping from her nose onto the ground. Her hands hang loosely from the man’s arms, as if she’s never going to move them again. Every second that passes feels like another moment that could be leading to my Livvy’s death. And these motherfuckers aren’t doing a thing about it. “Please!” Talon raises his voice above the screams of the crowd to talk to the men who hold him hostage. “Please, she needs help. Let
We try to stay out of the room as long as we can, but the silence from the other side of the door goes on for what feels like forever. After mere minutes, me and the boys’ patience becomes paper-thin. I push into the room, the boys and Alex following frantically behind me. At the same time, Olivia falls off Nester. I don’t need to know what happened before I rush forward and catch her. She jerks into me, eyes alight with panic that has my heart tightening. My grasp on her softens as I pull her into my chest, cooing, “It’s okay, we’re here. I’m here.” Her wild heartbeat rivals my own. I hate seeing her like this: out of control, alarmed. It’s not who she is. Olivia Blackwood is the queen of having a handle on things. The rest of the boys kneel around us, shushing her and purring to let her know everything is okay. She pushes her head into my chest, her heartbeat leveling as she whispers, “I’m okay. You guys can let me go.” I think the time for letting her go has long pas
I fall back, crashing into a dark, barren floor. I feel like I hit the ground, but I can’t see anything in front of me to be sure. My body aches from the slam. The only thing that exists in this room is me and the person standing over my kneeling body. Nester. “Well, well,” he says, his voice full of venom. “I didn’t think I’d see you here.” The hairs on the back of my neck raise. I try to push myself away from him, but Nester’s fingers dig into my cheeks. Hard. My body stiffens as he snaps me up to face him. His shadowed eyes bore into mine, the only things blacker than the darkness around us. “Where are we?” I gasp, my heart about to pound out of my chest. “In my head,” he responds. “In my memories. I can’t be fucking sure; all I know is your fucking silver poisoning put me here.” Okay… so I think he’s still really mad about that. His fingers tighten around my cheeks, making my words come out stilted. “You were going to enslave our entire town.” “And I was going
The path to Nester’s room is trailed with bright, red petals, a big contrast to how dark and dull Penwood is. They’re Roses.Of course it had to be roses.I’ve never thought about those stupid flowers as much as I’ve been forced to since coming to Penwood, but now it seems roses are my entire life.I walk over the stupid petals as the boys trail behind me. Each step they take rattles my heart. I begged them not to follow me, but I guess I should have learned by now that there’s no asking them to stay away from me.“Careful,” Ryker whispers. “We don’t want to make too much noise and wake the bastard up.”“He’s being drugged with silver. In what world could he possibly wake up?” Hunter asks incredulously.“That’s not the reason you shouldn’t yell,” Ryker counters.“I wasn’t yelling.”“Yes, you were.”“No, I wasn't.”I whirl to the four of them, pinning Hunter and Ryker with my death glare. “If you guys don’t shut up, you can find your way back to where we came from.”They stiffen, look
I didn’t protect Talon. All those years. All those empty alcohol bottles. All my care for him, and I couldn’t protect him. My guilt and hatred choke me. I should have known. How could I not have known? Liana’s voice is the only thing that snaps me out of my head. “I’m not participating in any fucking civil war,” she seethes, pacing the length of Olivia’s bedroom that we all gathered in. Only the adults went to the room next to us, which is for the best because I don’t think my dad could handle all of Liana’s cursing. “I don’t think that’s up to you,” Axel answers from the other side of the room, sitting at the desk bolt upright. He looks like people are going to burst into this room at any moment and try to murder him. He would not be so paranoid to think that. But he also keeps stealing glances at Talon, laying on Livvy’s bed. His white hair spills around his face, with his whole body turned to the wall. I don’t know if he’s sleeping, but he definitely needs the rest. I can
It takes 4 minutes before Roanna stops screaming.I count each excruciating second with a pounding heart. Nester’s mark pulses, only adding to my distress. The entire time, I want to look away, or hold my breath against the stench of her burning flesh… but I don’t. I don’t for Talon’s sake—my boy who has been hurt by her more times than I can count. The only time I turn is to glance at him, and I don’t know if it makes me feel better or worse. He stands statue-still, his body more rigid than the ground we’re standing on. I’m not sure he’s breathing. Eventually, Roanna’s corpse collapses at his feet. Talon doesn’t jerk back. He keeps staring at her, as if he’s waiting for her to come back to life so he can kill her again. My pack and friends don’t react. We stay so still that It’s only the crowd that remind me the world is still moving.They gasp. They gag. When Roanna collapses, a woman screams so loud my heart lurches. But no one tries to stop the burning. I’m not sure if it
“I hope you grabbed everything, dear?” Theresa tells me outside her door the next day. I decided it’d be best if Talon spent the day in his house, calming down from everything that happened. Now it’s the next morning, and we’re both stable enough to return to our unstable lives. “I think so.” I sm
Hunter’s mouth is magic against mine. My whole body goes hot; my lips, my nerves, my core. Everything. He pulls away as quickly as he bent down and I gasp, “Hunter.” I can already see some sort of apology building in his mind, but I shake my head, pulling him closer, “Don’t. Please, kiss me
I’ve never wanted someone the way I want Hunter right now. Everything feels woozy. But, even though the world is a blur, my desire for him is as sharp as ever. “Hunter.” I beg, my fingers still hooked in the waistband of his jeans, ‘Hunter, please.” “Olivia, don’t.” His voice is strained. I w
Cinnamon and strawberry. Every time I blink, I see her. That creature. That… that thing. Staring up at me with those brown eyes, trying to seduce me into forgetting how evil the humans are. I will never forget, not after what they took from me during the war. “Axel!” Ryker cries,







