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“Mercy is for the weak,” Rowe whispered.

Sucking in a deep breath through my nose, I lifted my arm and twirled the whip above my head for a second before flicking it out toward Jasmine. I knew that no matter what I did, she was smart enough not to turn her back on me. I didn’t need her to. The whip wrapped tightly around her neck, choking her. Grabbing the whip with my right hand, I gave it a swift jerk, breaking her neck. She collapsed facedown in the dirt.

I released the whip with my right hand and pulled the sword that had been stuck in the earth free. With my teeth clenched, I walked over to where Jasmine lay. Pulling the whip free, I quickly decapitated her, ensuring that she was truly dead, before placing the sword back in its sheath.

I turned back toward the cave and found Rowe standing over Alaina as she writhed on her side, gasping for air as if her throat was closing in. Hatred was splashed across his face as he watched her, and for a moment I had to wonder how far that hatred extended. Did it include all of our kind? Or just those who were hunting him?

“I don’t understand,” he admitted when Alaina gave her last shuddering gasp and went completely still at his feet. Her green eyes stared wide at the forest, blind forever. “What did you do?”

I finished coiling up the whip as I joined him next to Alaina. Kneeling down, I turned her over onto her stomach and pulled open one of the large tears in the back of her shirt, revealing the tattoo of the tree that graced the back of every naturi. It was a symbol of our tie to the earth, one we were all born with. Rowe bent close to examine her back and then fell to both his knees in surprise, tearing open her shirt so her entire back was exposed. There were five slash marks through the tree, cutting deep within her flesh.

His narrowed gaze snapped back up to my face. “I still don’t understand. These wounds aren’t deep enough to kill.”

“I severed her connection with the earth,” I said, hating to utter those very words.

Rowe stumbled to his feet, moving back away from me. “That’s impossible. That’s just fucking impossible.” I noticed that his eyes were no longer on my face, but on the whip still coiled in my hand.

Rising slowly to my feet, I extended my hand to him, offering him the whip. Keeping it coiled, he examined the end and found pieces of iron embedded within the leather straps. But it was more than just the iron that caused their link to the earth to be broken. The whip was imbued with powerful and ancient magic.

As soon as Rowe wrapped his hand around the handle, the whip jerked from his grasp and slithered across the ground. It wrapped around my left leg, the handle coming to rest against my hip. “I’m the only one who can use it.”

“Convenient,” he replied, twisting the word with a sneer. “You’ve created an efficient weapon of death that can be used by only you.”

“I had no choice.”

“No choice? O Great Protector of the people, how could you create a weapon that only kills our people?”

“Because Aurora asked me to.”

Rowe’s brow furrowed with surprise as he looked at me. I avoided his piercing gaze to coil the whip once again and hang it at my side. I didn’t like to think about it. I was the protector of our people. At least I had been. But even before Aurora proclaimed that I was a traitor to the crown, I had become an efficient killer of my people.

“Why?” he asked softly.

I drew in a slow breath but couldn’t raise my eyes to meet his gaze. Rowe had this image of our people and what he had been fighting for when he struggled to open the door once again. I hated to be the one who destroyed that image. And yet, hadn’t Aurora already tarnished the image when she turned her back on him?

“During the final couple centuries of Aurora’s rule,” I said, “while we were trapped, the cohesion of our people started to break apart. Factions built among the various clans, questioning her rule. People were dying; our children were struggling to survive birth when we were lucky enough to bear children. Aurora’s authority was being threatened.”

“She asked that you hunt down anyone who was questioning her rule,” Rowe said, finally drawing my gaze up to his face.

“They were accused of treason and immediately dispatched. The old spell weavers helped me develop the whip. I needed something unique and that would immediately strike fear in the guilty. Unfortunately, it was too effective with some of the races.”

“What do you mean? It doesn’t kill everyone?”

I shook my head. “It doesn’t affect everyone equally. It breaks a naturi’s tie to the earth. For the earth clan, death is nearly immediate and extremely painful. For the water clan, they can no longer return to the water, which leads to a slower death. The animal clan can no longer shift or call to the animals around them.”

“The wind clan?”

“We lose the ability of flight. Our wings are permanently severed.”

“But we can control the weather still?”

“Yes, as well as weave other spells if the naturi is strong and old enough.”

“You used it on a weaver!” Rowe gasped. The ancient spell weavers of our people were only second closest to the earth next to the ruler of our people. They were held in the highest regard, thought to be untouchable.

“The one who created the whip. Aurora feared his ability to create such a weapon against his own people.”

“What about the light clan? What does it do to the light clan?” he demanded.

I shook my head, frowning. “I don’t know. Aurora never accused her own clan of treason.” I dreaded the day that I would have to discover that bit of information.

“I’m sorry,” Rowe murmured, shocking me.

“For what?”

“That you were forced to hunt our people. It would have turned them even more against you.”

I forced myself to shrug despite the lump that had grown in my throat. Other than Cynnia, Rowe was the only one to understand what I had been forced to do. I was born to be the protector of our people and had turned into their executioner. And I was good at it.

Pushing such thoughts aside, I focused once again on the mission that lay ahead of me. I hunched forward, balanced on the balls of my feet, allowing my wings to once again spring forth. I stretched them wide, enjoying the feel of the muscles pulling while the wind brushed against my feathers. Turning around, I saw Rowe struggling to do the same. The iron collar was doing its job by inhibiting his ability to use magic, but it allowed him to call forth the black leathery wings that were a part of him.

“We need to get moving,” I said. “You’re not the only one I need to convince to side with Cynnia.”

Four

“Damn it, Mira!” Danaus taunted in a low whisper, a smirk pulling at one corner of his mouth. “Are you going to need a tissue or can you pull it together?”

I threw the hunter a dark look, but otherwise kept my comments to myself. The ceremony in the small clearing in the woods would start soon, and Barrett had generously allowed us to attend since we were the only people James saw as both friends and, in a twisted way, as family. I wasn’t going to be the one that started trouble.

Yet, I could understand Danaus’s teasing all too well. As we stood there in the quiet forest, a ring of werewolves around us, I tried to focus on the bare-chested James next to Barrett and the rest of the Rainer family. Unfortunately, my mind drifted too often to my recently lost Lily and Tristan. Two people I had taken into my family, into my heart, who were stolen from me through violence and treachery just a few months ago. Watching James being inducted into the Savannah pack, I tried to reassure myself that he would be safe and that no one would strike at him in an effort to get to me. He was now a part of Savannah, but there was a safe distance between me and him.