FORBIDDEN BLOOM

24 — THE END OF TERROR

VANESSA

I gasped at the sight of my stepmother helpless in the hands of Cipher. The one man who has been determined from the start to make my life a living hell.

The options before me were daunting to make. Let my stepmother die or drive a knife into the heart of the one I love.

“Why are you doing this?” I cried, my thoughts tumbling over one another.

“When Cipher reported to me that you had gone soft for the King, I defended you before the House, saying it was a lie. Do you know how much that cost me?”

I’d never been short of alternatives, but here I was stuck between the wall and a hard place with no escape in sight.

“Don’t make me choose please. I’ll do anything you want me to.”

“Vanessa…save me,” my stepmother’s terrified voice clawed at my conscience.

A part of me I thought was dead and long buried.

Nyra clicked her tongue. “Just in case you’re thinking of ways to sleaze out of this, I need you to know that I have one of my men standing right over Lysandros’s bed, waiting for my order to finish what your lover started.”

“Don’t make me do this, Nyra.” I dared to say her name out loud.

Her expression crumbled for a brief moment before it hardened back into place.

That damned tough exterior.

“Vanessa…” Leonidas moaned weakly, stirring in my arms. “Just do it. Take the knife and use it now. I don’t want the beast to win. If he does, the kingdom would be in more ruins than it has ever been.”

I shook my head, more tears rolling down my face. In front of all these people. Dammit.

“I don’t care. I’m not going to kill you. We will find a way out of it, I swear.”

“And Lysandros? He’s in that state because of me. Just listen to me, if the goddess wills, I will find you in another life. I swear on my blood.”

Running out of more words to say, I simply let the tears flow. Leonidas had chosen for me. It was to kill him and save two people.

As horrible as it was, he was right. Even though I knew that the decision would haunt me for life.

Folding my fingers over the dagger’s hilt with his fingers, he lifted it over his heart at the same time that the beast began to flicker to the surface.

It was stirring and I knew what its return meant.

Shutting off my emotions, I pushed the knife further in, feeling the steel push past flesh and muscle and bone to connect to his beating heart.

He didn’t struggle in my arms. Just went completely still.

The agony of losing him wracked through me unlike anything I have ever felt before. I doubled over his body, sobs after sobs pouring out of me.

It felt like I was going to die with the way my chest constricted.

It wouldn’t stop. So I forced myself to steel and dropped Leonidas’s corpse, refusing to look at his body anymore.

I looked at Nyra who had my stepmother in front of her.

“There. I killed him. Let them go and I promise not to do anything drastic,” I forced out with more calm than necessary.

When all I wanted to do was take that dagger and shove it into her smug face. Over and over. Over and over.

Until it was just a jumbled mass of sinews and flesh and brain matter.

“That wasn’t so hard now, was it?” She nudged the shaking woman. “Go reconcile with your daughter.”

I caught the wicked glint in her eyes right before she grabbed her back and in one smooth motion, swiped the dagger across her neck.

It all happened so fast it was almost a blur.

My stepmother clawed at her neck where blood gushed out like a fountain. She choked and gasped, sputtering on her own blood as it poured past her lips.

She reached for me, gasping, and in the next second, the light was snuffed out of her eyes.

Just like that…dead.

“You raving–”

Nyra waved dismissively. “Don’t pretend like we haven’t spent nights together talking about how you would like to slit her throat.” She wiped the blood clean off her knife. “She’s not that innocent.”

“Still, you had no right to. She made a mistake and regrets it everyday!”

“That is not what she says to me whenever I send her a monthly stipend from your successful jobs. She sold you to the syndicate for a purpose you fulfilled until now.”

“But I already did what you asked and you killed her all the same! What makes you think you’re different from her?” I snapped, already at my wits end.

“What makes you think I like my ends loose?” she threw back in a sweet voice that twisted my insides with so much anger.

More than I could bear.

Fuck the consequences. She was never going to play by the rules. I should’ve guessed it.

I should never have agreed to her terms.

“It is done,” Rose says all of a sudden, drawing our attention.

Nyra rolled her eyes. “What are you yapping about?”

“The ritual has been completed, my darling.” The sick joy in her eyes was impossible to ignore. “Congratulations on killing your father.”

We both froze in place after Rose’s statement.

“What do you mean ‘her father’?” I quizzed, very ready to wreck havoc and damn us all.

She raised a finger and pointed straight at Nyra. “You. The reason why I came to you that night was because of your role to play.”

Confused, Nyra frowned, stepping close to the witch.

“What the f**k is that supposed to mean?”

“Leonidas can only be killed by the one he cherishes the most, using a weapon crafted with the only emotion on the flipside of love, carved by his kin.”

Fuck.

“No. No, that’s wrong. I’m an orphan.” The look on Nyra’s face was one of pure horror, then denial. “I don’t have a family. I–No, my parents drowned at sea. I–”

“Your real name is Nyraxos and I snatched you out of your mother’s hands right after I made your father kill her. Then I slowed your growth for years.”

A cold, dark feeling washed over me at her words. If I thought Rose was evil, I was wrong.

She was an abomination to even exist. Inhumane.

“You took a baby out of her mother’s arms just to keep her all these years for your revenge?” I fumed.

She gave me a malicious grin. “Precisely. You all are just pawns in the grand scheme of my plans.”

Cipher started to back away but before he could take another step, Rose stretched her hand towards him, wrapped invisible fingers around his neck and snapped it.

He dropped to the floor like a rag doll, his neck twisted at an obscene angle.

“You’ve all had your fun.” A smile lit up her face. “Now it is my turn.”

She stretched her hand toward Nyra as well, trying to do the same thing to her.

Nyra clawed at the empty air wrapped around her throat, thrashing in pain as she wheezed.

I watched her struggles weaken, helpless to do something about it. If Rose made up her mind, she wouldn’t stop till she got it.

Suddenly, like luck smiled upon us, Rose let out a whooping cough and blood spilled out of her lips.

Her smile flipped upside down. “No! Not now. Not when I’m this close!”

Telling by the wrinkles appearing on her skin and the way her hair turned white, whatever spell she used to keep herself young was fast wearing off.

Thinking quickly, I grabbed the knife from Leonidas’s body and with every ounce of hatred I felt, rammed it right into her heart.

Twisting it in, I grunted, “If it worked on the beast, it would work on you.”

She let Nyra and she dropped on all fours, gasping for air.

Panic flooded in Rose’s eyes. “If you kill me…you’ll never get Leonidas back…”

I looked back at the man’s lifeless form on the ground, then back at her. “I’ll take my chances.” And I drove the knife deeper until it was buried to the hilt.

She stumbled back, wrenching the knife out of her but it was a second too late. She was in her original form and blood oozed out of her in torrents.

The look of fear on her face in her last moments filled me with glee.

As soon as she dropped to the ground dead, I felt something shift the ground beneath my feet. It was finally over.

But Leonidas…his body was gone.