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“She’s not…” Nash started.

“-I don’t care.” My jaw tightened. “She must be implicated.”

Blade’s eyes flicked between us, trying to decide where she landed. None of us would ever know when our guest would be ready. But despite how hard I tried, I couldn’t get away from her.

And I was starting to think that I didn’t want to.

The longer she stayed here without participating in our rituals, the more dangerous she became.

She could still run, return to her life and pretend she doesn’t feel the same thirst for violence that we do.

But I could see it in her eyes, the way she watched the blood drawn into the cobblestone.

It’s why she asked to come back to us.

“She wants to kill.” I growled, holding her gaze.

Her mouth parted to speak, but no words came out.

Under Blade’s knees, the man pressed up. He wasn’t giving up.

From the way Blade’s chest heaved, I knew she agreed. She knew as well as I did that Tess wanted it, she needed it.

Moving behind her, I took in her smell — sweet and floral. It made the throbbing between my legs impossible to ignore.

Standing behind her, I pushed her shoulders forward with a stiff nudge.

She tripped as she stepped around Nash, her eyes darting between all of us. The drying blood on her face made her eyes look even wider as she looked down at the man squirming on the floor.

My voice was no more than a hiss as I pressed my lips to her ear. “You want to live at Feverpoint? Time to become a Freak.”

29

TESS

Cyrus’ voice sent a shiver down my spine, but I could hardly hear her through the pounding in my ears. All I could focus on was the squirming man pinned at my feet: his sweaty face, the indignant, rageful curl of his lip.

“Fucking pussies.” He spat, but the bloody glob splattered more of his own face than any of the Freaks. “Can’t even kill without a woman’s help? What kind of men are you?”

The laugh that burst past my lips startled me. The irony of the insult was just too good.

What a pig.

“What’s so fucking funny?” He snarled, as if he was in any position of power here.

“Inside joke.” Blade dug her knee in deeper until something popped.

Howling in pain, the man thrashed against her, desperate for a release that wasn’t coming. “You fucking soy boys! I’ll kill you, I’ll⁠—”

“Do it, Sweet Lamb.” Nash’s painted mask turned toward me. “He deserves it.”

I knew she was right, though I hated to admit how badly I needed the release. Killing someone… I’d fantasized about it plenty. Assholes from Velvet Paradise, douchebags from the trailer park, the monsters back at Heirs. But actually committing to it?

My grip on the knife wavered as I watched his chest rise and fall.

What if I can never come back from this?

But seeing my doubt, Nash’s voice dropped to something more animalistic. “He’s here because he did something so heinous that no punishment in the world of law and order could suffice. Only our wrath can deliver his Justice.”