**Darcy's POV**
The green fire died in the bowl, leaving behind a wisp of acrid smoke and the scent of ozone and burnt life. The psychic scream faded, but its echo still vibrated in the marrow of my bones. The pack members were shaking, their eyes wide with a mixture of awe and terror. They had felt it, too. That brief, violent pulse of power. I had been right. She was a vessel. And I had just cracked it open.
Susparia hung limply in Kael and Jax's grasp, a puppet with its strings cut. The rune on her chest was a black, weeping wound, her eyes vacant and unfocused. She was broken, but not completely. There was still a core of resistance in there, a stubborn ember of her former self. I needed to extinguish it. I needed to turn her very existence into an act of violation so profound that t
