House of Kings(28)

“This is so wrong,” Danielle whispers to me as she puts her goggles on, the only Bitten safe from this day. “They did nothing wrong, and now, they’re going to die.”

“I can’t say I agree with the solution,” I say, swallowing hard as I follow the crowd out the door. Half the Bitten step backward, refusing to leave the safety of the dark. But Markov, Sebastian, and three other Court members shove them toward the doors.

They burst outside with screams and hands over their eyes. I see two others, blinking hard, as if to try to get their eyes to adjust. But they just turn brilliant red, already burning in the light, their eyes permanently fully dilated.

Cyrus leads us north on the property a little ways, to where the landscape opens up to a field of snow. A crack of thunder sounds through the sky.

“Please,” Jasmine whimpers. “Don’t make me do this. I will go. You’ll never hear from me again. I’ll never talk to another House for the rest of my life.”

Cyrus just chuckles at her, ignoring her cries. “You’ll command them to kill you. You have your blade, and unlike them, you can see. It seems a fair fight. If you kill all of them, and survive, I may—may not—let you live. It all depends on how entertained I am.”

The Bitten are forced into a circle around Jasmine, and their screams and sobs rise in intensity.

This is so wrong. This is evil.

But this is justice.

“Please tell me you will never deal out punishment like this.” Rath’s voice comes from behind me. There’s disgust and horror in his usually calm speech.

I shake my head. It’s not an answer. Because I’ve done things over the past few months that I once never thought I would consider. I can’t go back to the girl I once was, and I don’t know that I can fight the woman I am being forced to become. The one I’m learning to embrace.

“Let the game begin,” Cyrus says, the manic smile growing on his face.

“Please,” Jasmine asks once more. She stands at the center of the circle, alone, with the blade held loosely in one hand. She looks defeated. Broken. Abandoned.

“Now!” Cyrus bellows, spittle flying through the freezing air. “Or it is your head at the end of that blade and they die anyway!”

She takes a stuttered sob. Deep, sucking breaths cause her shoulders to rise and fall quickly. Which transforms into a growling hiss. And two seconds later, she lets out a howling scream. Her eyes are wild, demonic. They sweep the crowd, but land on me.

I hold her eyes, determined not to be intimidated by the tri-polar want-to-be queen.

One, two breaths later, she raises her chin. Her eyes harden, and she squares her shoulders. Her eyes flare brighter, and she looks around at the mess she’s created one last time. “Kill me.”

The weight of the Debt has never been more obvious than when the poor, blinded Bitten rush at her, all at once.

With one sweeping twirl, Jasmine’s blade slices up the center of a man. Blood sprays through the air, hitting Jasmine in the face, coating her well-water soaked shirt. He collapses to the ground, screaming in agony, though still alive.

Without time to put him permanently down, Jasmine jabs toward a woman with glowing eyes. Her blade sinks five inches into her chest, and she instantly drops, her skin turning gray.

Three others stumble blindly in Jasmine’s direction, hands outstretched. With one war cry and a spin, the blade connects with the first neck, and then the second, and finally the third. Three severed heads hit the ground with a thump, and the bodies collapse to the ground, sending out a spray of blood over the gathered crowd.

A man gets his hands around Jasmine from behind and his fangs sink into her neck. But with a backward swing of the blade, she buries it in the top of his skull. He drops from her, dead.

Her neck bleeding, Jasmine turns to the first man she cut, and drives the blade through his chest, ending his enslaved life.

A bear of a man—my former contractor—rushes her from the side, knocking them both to the ground and making the blade go sailing to the edge of the crowd to land at Sebastian’s feet.

The man’s hands go around Jasmine’s throat, squeezing with enough force to cut off every sound that might try to escape. But Jasmine’s brings her hand forward, her fingers speared together. And it’s as if in slow motion as she thrusts them forward. Connecting with the flesh beneath his rib cage. Suddenly, her hand disappears—into the man’s chest cavity. Blood gushes over her arm as her eyes go wild and gleeful. He gives a gurgled cry as her hand presses up inside of him. With a furious war cry, she pulls, and rips his heart from his ribcage.

Tossing it to the side and rolling as the man begins to collapse on top of her, Jasmine climbs to her feet, her eyes glowing so bright, I can see the red hue through her goggles.