Page 73 of Obsidian Throne
Instead, I forced myself to go slowly, even as another crack rang out. I kept myself calm with visions of Ava’s head being severed from her body, as my hand crept so, so carefully toward my thigh.
My fingers wrapped around the siren hilt, and I slowly slid the weapon out of its sheath, hating myself for masking the sound with yet another crack of the whip.
By the fifth lash, Evander’s back was taut with pain, his muscles seizing. But he still didn’t cry out.
And neither did I.
The man behind me shifted, and I froze, but he didn’t seem to notice anything out of the ordinary.
My dagger was nearly clear of my pocket now, so I stared at Kirill until he returned the look. Shooting him a single significant blink, I only had a second to hope he understood before I plunged the dagger directly into the gut of the man holding me.
The soldier’s arm twitched reflexively, his fingers unclenching from his weapon as I dragged my blade upward through his flesh. Kirill wasted no time raising his sword, turning on the nearest dissenter.
Chaos broke out.
Ava froze at the same time Evander turned, already going for his sword. Which was good, because Samu was halfway to my husband, his own weapon drawn.
But Kirill was already fighting his way there, and I only had eyes for Ava.
The despicable coward turned to run, but I was faster. I ducked and twirled my way out of the trajectory of clashing steel until I caught up to her, yanking her back by her hair.
She hit the ground with a solid thunk.
Before she could even consider trying to escape my grasp, I moved over her, straddling her waist while I pinned her arms beneath my legs. Her eyes widened in terror, her lips trembling.
It might have been my favorite expression she had ever worn.
“Beg.” My voice was emptier than I had ever heard it, issuing that one-word command.
My heartbeat thundered in my ears, one fractured beat after the other. Each measured breath I took was a cacophony, but they weren’t loud enough to drown out her single breathless question.
“What?” she said.
All I could hear was her mocking Evander about begging. I saw her standing over a child with that same whip she had used just now. Saw her hurting my husband and using me against him.
Cold, unrelenting fury washed over me.
Vaguely, I registered Samu falling beside me, registered stillness in the air around me that probably meant the rest of the fighting was over with.
“I want you to beg for your life.” I bit out each word with more vitriol than the last.
Ava swallowed back whatever vestige of sick pride she had left, nodding. “Please, don’t kill me. Ibegof you. We’re family.”
Perhaps it should have been harder to look into her eyes, eyes that were nearly identical to my sister’s, my father’s, my aunt’s…and want so badly to see them empty and lifeless.
But this woman…
“You don’t deserve to be anyone’s family,” I said in the same calm deadly tone I usually heard from Evander’s lips. “And I want you to know, when you die, that you were completely alone. That everyone despises you. That when I tell your daughter and your grandchildren how you died begging and screaming, they will be nothing but satisfied to hear it.”
She bucked and kicked, but I had been training every day for weeks, and she was as weak on the outside as her despicable, cowardly insides.
I plunged my dagger into the sensitive skin at her elbow, long enough to hear her scream and make my prediction of her death entirely accurate.
Then I stabbed it through her throat.
CHAPTER FORTY
EVANDER