hold my hand up to the light—
—show him the knife, dirty and dripping.
He gasps sharper than before. His lungs wrack but he gasps again. Not to speak. To live.
I bring the knife down torture-slow. Touch it down on his high proud cheekbone. Trace it to his jaw. Hold it against his throat exactly where I held the broken bottle.
I smell mint and aftershave and hot blood.
He chokes on one more word. A weak drowning mew: No.
I laugh. It ripples out of me like I’m a tiny joyful child again. Like nothing in the world could ever go wrong.
I slide my knife-hand down and lock it around his arm.
Shut the bitch up, said good-king Duncan one week ago. Cold eyes. Commands his whole pack followed.
And Banks said, Fuck, Dunc, you know how to pick them—
Duncan’s eyes hold onto mine now the way they did last week, when I danced and spun in the glossy St Andrew’s crowd with my long hair flying and my eyes shimmering drunk and green.
He chose me. Chose who made the drink and who caught me by the statues. Chose who dragged me down the hall and who guarded the door. Chose who came with him into the white-sheets room.
Chose what happened to that little whore with the jade-green eyes.
Tonight, I choose what happens to him.
I pull his other hand away from the wound between his ribs. Weave our fingers together and press his palm to his lips. He thrashes weak and desperate.
I bring my lips to his ear. His pulse rushes shallow at his temples.
I whisper, sweet: “You picked the wrong girl.”
He goes frozen.
I pull back so he can look into my eyes. He stays as still as his dead-king statues for five tripping heartbeats and then I know—
—he knows I’m her.
He knows I’ll kill him.
Now he fights. Hard, with everything he still has. His blood pours out faster. His lungs moan and cry.
He knows who I am and he knows why he’ll die here tonight.
I lean close again. I press his hand down against his mouth, against his nose, against the tide of blood that seeps between our woven-tight fingers. He fights. I fight back.
He won’t win.
His pulse climbs faster. Spinning white firecrackers pop all around us and last week and this week melt together but his blood washes everything else away.
I press his hand down.
His lungs rattle out a sound so twisted and broken I know it’s his last.
He goes still. His silver eyes are dull and fixed.
He knows.
I pull my hand free. His falls limp against the pillows.
I kiss him on the lips.
I say, “Sleep well.”
Clean
I walk dizzy out of Duncan’s room. There’s a spinning hum in my ears and the halls shift and breathe.
Duncan is dead.
I pull his door almost-shut. I kneel next to Porter and wipe the handle of his knife against my shirt. I wrap Porter’s hand back around his knife. My fingers linger on his—let Duncan’s blood paint guilt on his hands. When I step back he’s a ruined traitor slumped in the shadows. Broken under his fear.
They’ve fallen apart. The whole glorious ravaging pack.
Something creaks downstairs. I turn toward the sound: waiting, ready, listening with ears that can hear ten times better than they ever did before tonight.
Nothing else moves. Inverness is as quiet as a crypt.
“Who’s there?” Mack calls, a tremor in his voice.
I leave dead Duncan and dead-asleep Porter. I tap at Mack’s door and he calls out again—Who’s there?
I slip in and lock the door behind me.
Mack sits exactly where I left him. Folded against the wall. Shaking. “Every sound—” he says, and his eyes don’t waver away from the blood on his hands, and he doesn’t blink. “I think they’re coming. They know. God—”
And his whole body shudders.
My heart is still pounding, flying, soaring. I can still feel Duncan rigid and terrified and then limp. Still see the sharp silver light in his eyes going out. Still taste his fear when he knew that little whore with the jade-green eyes was the very last thing he’d ever see. That all his power was gone. That all his power was mine.
I don’t have time for Mack’s stupid weak doubts. I want to grab him off the floor and kiss him and shriek triumph into the starless sky with him.
I reach out. “Mack. Get up. Go wash your hands.”
His eyes shift to my hand and he shudders again. “The whole ocean couldn’t wash this blood away,” he whispers.
“Mack,” I say, and it’s harsh and biting but I don’t care. I don’t regret one single second of this and neither should he.
Kings don’t flinch at the kill.
“Look,” I say, and a drop of blood drips off my hand and onto his. “My hands are just as red as yours. And I’m glad.”
Something stirs downstairs. I feel it more than see it, shivering up my wings.
Mack feels it, too. His eyes snap up. They’re wide with fear. “Who is it?” he whispers.
“I don’t know.” I pull at him until finally he stumbles to his feet. “But you need to get the blood off your hands before they come upstairs.”
The fear pushes him in front of me and into the bathroom. He reaches for the switch but I knock his hand away. “No light,” I say.
Together we walk to the wide sink in front of the mirror. We stand far apart but holding hands. Sealed together with Duncan’s blood.
“How can you smile?” His voice is doubt and horror.
“Because it’s done,” I say. “Because he deserved it.” I turn on the water and the handle chirps out a giddy cry. “Come on. We’ll wash it all away.”
The water is cold as ice and steady. It turns red under our hands and swirls in dizzy circles around the drain.
It’s beautiful. We’re beautiful. This night, dark and deadly and stained with blood, is a masterpiece too perfect for any museum in the whole world.
I bring Mack’s hands back out of the water. “See how easy it is?”
“No,” he says. “Look at us.” In one rushing burst he pulls his shirt over his head and holds it up. “Blood. There’s always blood. We have to burn it. Take it out to the balcony—” And he’s starting on his thoughtless stupid plan already. Ducking for the metal bin next the counter and sending it scraping across the tile.
I grab his hand again. “It’s nothing,” I say, and I drop his shirt into the sink. “You ran out before he even started bleeding.”
“But look at you.” He’s staring at me in the mirror. “God, Jade, you’re—”
“I’m fine,” I say. And now I’m the one who can’t look away. The version of me in the mirror is every inch of the sharp-clawed ruinous creature I wanted—
begged for—
begged to be one week ago. There’s no guilt in my eyes. Only cold pride at the dark stains on my shirt and my skirt and my skin.
I am the broad-winged angel blotting out the blinding white of that room. The reaper who deals out the fates boys like Duncan deserve. I’m death and retribution.
I murder and save.
“Jade,” Mack whispers. Weighted down with concrete dread. “Are we the villains?”