Page 97 of Roses & Ruin

Now, Rose.

I start to shake so violently, I wonder if I’m having a seizure. My eyes roll into the back of my head.

Memories assault me: The icy steel of a knife slicing my eyeball. Falling from the steeple, the iron gate rushing toward me. The drag of the curved knife along my cheek.

My fingers slacken. I reach deep inside myself, summoning whatever strength I have left. Because somewhere inside me is a small, gritty diamond that refuses to die, a spark that always returns. Not because of some bullshit curse.

But because of love. Because, despite a fate meant to keep us apart, Hayden and I choose each other again and again and again.

I find that little part of me, that sharp, indefatigable spirit that has been around for centuries, and I draw her up from the depths. Delia is wrong. So wrong. She never got it, never understood.

Love makes us strong. Hayden’s and my love makes me strong.

Rose, she commands, sinking her claws into my brain. Fucking stake Hayden right now.

A wooden clatter cuts through the howling wind. Delia, Hayden, and I stare down at where I’ve dropped the cross. My shoulders heave with my gasping breaths, sweat pouring down my face, soaking my sweater. I give Delia a lopsided smile.

“No,” I say. “No, I’m not staking Hayden.”

“What the fuck?” she breathes, her eyes burning as they linger on the cross. Her fingers go slack around Hayden’s face.

He looks up at me, his eyes brilliant as stars, hope spreading across his features. My smile spreads wider as I pant hard, wiping tears and sweat from my good cheek.

“That’s not possible.” Delia’s eyes start to twitch. “No vampire has ever…and you’re just a human.”

“You know what?” I say.

I had a big speech planned. One where I tell her how horrible she is for this betrayal, this heartbreak. But right now, I can only think of three words I want to say to Delia.

I clear my throat.

“Delia?” I say. “Fuck you.”

I only have a moment to register Delia’s predatory snarl before the world rearranges itself in a confusing flurry of movement.

The next thing I know, the cross is back in my hand, and Delia presses tight against my back, her chin hooked painfully over my shoulder. She grasps me at both wrists, her grip impossibly strong. I’m caged in by her body, her elbows pinning me to her chest. “Not gonna work, Rose. It’s cute, I’ll admit it. But truth is, you’ve been pathetic from the very first time I killed you.” Delia takes a deep breath, grazes the point of her fang along my jugular. “Wanna know the fucked-up truth? He’s got no reason to love you. No one does. The only reason anyone has ever loved you is because I made it happen. I forced you together.” She squeezes my wrists in a furious pulse. I cry out when she snaps a bone.

“Don’t worry.” She laughs. “You only need this one to work.” Her fingers tighten around where I’m gripping the cross. “Now,” she says. “Let’s try this again. No human’s gonna defy me. You will listen to me, Rose. After all,” she murmurs, “you always do.”

End this right now. I compel you.

I meet Hayden’s eyes, and his expression is absolutely annihilated. Around us, the wind batters us senseless through the broken windows, the icy room sinking into our bones.

“Okay,” I simply say. I squeeze my eyes shut, take a deep breath, and fully give in to her compulsion.

With all the strength I can muster, I plunge the wooden cross as deep and far as it will go into my chest.

Hayden screams as if it’s his chest being pierced.

Delia makes a surprised, wet sound in my ear. Her chin drops heavily on my shoulder. I can feel her confusion in the way her head lolls.

I would say I’ve never known a pain like this, and of course it’s excruciating, but I’ve been stabbed, impaled, poisoned, drowned. Little did Delia realize she’s been training me to face terrifying, painful agonies for two hundred years.

“Hurts,” Delia whines. She makes a weird gurgling sound, and her arm goes around me, her fingers prodding at my belly, up my chest, searching. Delia finds what she’s looking for when her fingers close around the point where the cross is buried and bloody inside my chest, where I’ve joined us together. She breathes out a laugh, liquid bubbling around the exhale. I feel something hot trickle down my collarbone. “It…always…hurt this much?”

“Every time,” I rasp.

“Don’t wanna die,” she confesses. She presses her icy temple against mine, and I clasp my hands over where she’s got her arms wrapped around my waist.