I translated what he really meant. Extermination. Just like I’d said last night. Only, Shade had provided me with a glimmer of hope, something I should have known better than to feel.
He’d tricked me.
They all had tricked me.
Shade recorded a private conversation and shared it with the Council.
Zeph showed up like a knight in shining armor, claiming to want to help me escape, all to lull me into a false sense of comfort while I put on the power-depleting collar.
And now Kols was looking at me like I meant nothing to him. He wanted me dead. He’d told me that last night. It would make his life easier if I didn’t exist, would kill the bond between us and free him to pursue his destiny. So, naturally, he wanted me out of the picture. Why wouldn’t he?
The spiteful part of me almost laid the accusation at his feet here, but the intelligent side of me held it back. If I spoke out now, he could take my life and claim self-defense. With Zeph at his back as a witness, he’d get away with it, too. Would probably use the guards’ lives as cause and claim I had killed them. When, really, he’d do it to silence them.
At least, that was how I would play it.
Which meant I needed to save the declaration for later.
To announce it in front of other Council members.
Because if I was going down, so was he.
Zeph, too.
And Shade, the treacherous bastard.
They were all going to the grave with me.
Kols’s pupils dilated, his gaze narrowing with knowledge as if he overheard the plan unfolding in my mind. Or maybe he saw the desire for vengeance flashing in my gaze.
I didn’t care.
I let him see my anger.
Allowed him to witness my promise for retribution.
I’m not going down alone, I told him with a look.
Because in the end, they’d pay for what they’d done to me. I vow it.
Welcome to purgatory, boys.
You’d better hang on.
It’s going to be a wild ride.
Epilogue
r /> Kols
Aflora glared at me with a hatred I felt to my very soul.
She thought we’d betrayed her. Yet everything we’d done was to save her.
If Zeph hadn’t gotten that collar around her neck in time, the Guardians would have sensed her additional bonds, which would have required me to kill them. Because I couldn’t risk them going back to the Council with those details.
Seeing Aflora’s expression now, it was clear Zeph hadn’t been given a chance to explain.
She appeared ready to kill me. I supposed that worked in our favor in terms of believability, but I could see the wheels turning in her head.