Bite the hand

Chapter 13: Echoes in the dark

Leo’s voice—“Five... six...”—faded into a dull, underwater thrum.

I didn't pick up the daggers. Instead, I fell. Not onto the concrete, but inward, into a place where the air tasted like ash and the silence was louder than a scream.

I was standing in the Silverfang garden. But it wasn't the garden I remembered. The roses were black, dripping with thick, oily rot. The sky was a bruised purple, and the moon was a fractured eye watching me from above.

"Darius?" I called out, my voice sounding like a ghost’s. I was wearing the thin, white shift from my execution day. I was small. I was shivering. "Darius, I'm here! I came back!"

"He isn't coming, you pathetic little fool."

I spun around. Standing by the fountain—the water now flowing with dark, stagnant blood—was her.

She wore the gown of liquid midnight. Her chestnut hair was a wild, predatory crown, and her hazel eyes didn't hold tears; they held embers. She looked like me, but taller, sharper, as if she had been forged in a furnace and quenched in ice.

Shadowbite.

"Who are you?" I whispered, clutching my torn shift to my chest.

"I am the truth you’re trying to bury," she said, her voice a low, dangerous purr that made the dead roses shiver. She walked toward me, her heels clicking against the stone like the c*****g of a gun. "I am the rage you traded for 'duty.' I am the power you gave away every time you apologized for being alive."

"I loved him," I sobbed, shrinking back. "I was his mate. I was the Luna."

Shadowbite laughed, and the sound was like glass breaking. She grabbed my chin, her grip bruising, forcing me to look at the fountain. The blood in the water began to swirl, showing images: Darius looking at his mistress while I slept; Darius signing my death warrant without a flicker of hesitation; Darius laughing as the "evidence" was planted in my room.

"That wasn't love, Lila," Shadowbite hissed, her face inches from mine. "It was a slow poison. You fed him your light, and he used it to see his way to your replacement. You weren't a partner; you were a placeholder."

"No..."

"Look at the pups!" she roared, pointing to the shadows. "You cry for them, but you were the one they sacrificed! You were the one they framed because they knew you were too 'good,' too 'loyal' to fight back. Your love made you a victim. Your kindness made you a target."

I looked at her, my heart breaking under the weight of the truth I had been running from. The girl who wanted to go home was a girl who wanted to return to a cage.

"She has to die, Lila," Shadowbite whispered, her expression softening into something terrifyingly maternal. "The girl who begs for mercy must die so that we can live. If you go back to him, he won't forgive you. He’ll finish the job. He’ll watch the light leave your eyes and he’ll feel nothing but relief."

I looked down at my hands. They were trembling. I looked at her hands. They were steady.

"I'm afraid," I whispered.

"I know," Shadowbite said, reaching into the air and pulling out the obsidian daggers. She held them out to me, the hilts warm and humming. "But wouldn't you rather be feared than afraid?"

The garden began to crumble. The black roses turned to dust, and the sky shattered. I felt the "Lila" inside me—the soft, weeping, desperate girl—begin to dissolve into the grey mist. She didn't put up a fight. She was tired. She had been carrying the weight of a lie for too long.

I reached out. My fingers closed around the hilts.

My eyes snapped open.

I was back in the concrete room. The daggers weren't on the floor; they were in my hands. I was standing, my back straight, my breathing slow and rhythmic. The tremors had stopped. The "soft" haze in my eyes had been replaced by a cold, predatory clarity.

Leo froze where he stood. His phone was still halfway to his ear, His face was filled with shock, and he stared at me without blinking. It was as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing.

The room fell into complete silence. No one spoke. Even the air felt heavy as everyone waited for someone to say something.

Finn slowly pushed himself to his feet. His amber eyes were wide with a mixture of fear and amazement. He looked at me carefully, almost as if he wasn't sure I was really standing there.

"Lila?" he whispered softly.

His voice was shaky as he took one slow step toward me. Then another. He looked at my face, searching for any sign that this was a dream or some kind of trick.

"I didn't answer him. I didn't look at him. I looked at the steel door.

The lock didn't turn. It exploded.

The heavy door was kicked off its hinges, screeching against the concrete as it fell. Finn and Leo moved instantly, shifting partially, their claws out, but they stopped when they saw the figure standing in the doorway.

It wasn't a squad of hunters. It wasn't Darius’s enforcers.

Miles Thorne stepped into the room, alone. He looked immaculate in a grey silk suit, not a single blond hair out of place despite the violence of his entry. He stepped over the fallen door, his blue eyes scanning the room until they landed on me.

I stood there, clutching my obsidian blades, the torn silk of my dress fluttering in the draft. I didn't flinch. I didn't beg. I just watched him with the eyes of a woman who had just watched herself die.

Miles didn't look disappointed to find me here. He didn't look angry that I had escaped his ballroom. He looked at my shivering, torn form—the remnants of the "broken" girl still visible in the way the silk hung off my shoulders—and a slow, satisfied smirk spread across his lips.

"There she is," Miles said, his voice a smooth, terrifying purr of triumph. "The girl I remember. I knew if I pushed hard enough, the mask would slip and I'd find the real Lila Voss underneath."

He took a step closer, ignoring the low snarls from Finn and Leo.

"You look beautiful when you're ruined, Lila. Truly."