Chapter 20

Chapter 20
Violetta’s POV

I woke up feeling like something inside me was trying to tear me apart from the inside out. For a few seconds, I didn’t even remember where I was or how I had gotten into this room. Then almost as suddenly, all the horrible memories of yesterday came rushing back all at once.

The slaughtered hollowed soldiers in the forest. The blood coating my hands. Selene standing before me in the dark. The horrific things I had done when my mind snapped.

I sat up slowly, gritting my teeth as a sharp, stinging pain shot through my back. I stood up slowly and walked towards the mirror in the room and looked behind me by twisting my body, which only hurt even more.

They’d taken my wings away.

I could feel my fingers shaking in anger as I kept staring at it, rage growing inside of me.

“Stop,” I whispered harshly to myself, staring down at my fingers. “Just stop.”

My hands didn’t listen, the tremors only growing more violent as the panic began to set in. I squeezed my eyes shut, bowing my head as I tried desperately to regulate my breathing.

Then the same way I had felt again came, slithering through me in such an intoxicating way and spreading from my chest toward my arms and shoulders like a hungry creature waking from a long slumber.

My eyes snapped open in terror. “No.”

A faint, shadowy glow flickered violently across my knuckles, twisting into dark tendrils of smoke that coiled around my fingers. I clenched my fists until my nails bit painfully into my palms, trying to force the power down by willpower alone. I had spent years learning how to control this forbidden bloodline, dedicating countless hours in secret to keep the demon inside me quiet and dormant so no one in the Fae court would ever suspect what I was even despite the fact that I had the hex my mother gave me. But now, that it was gone, I wasn’t able to control it easily. It was so fucking hard—in fact, I didn’t even know how to.

All my control was slipping away.

Before I could try again to suppress the shadow, a blinding burst of light exploded violently from my chest. I cried out from the sudden impact, falling backwards against the headboard as brilliant white radiance flooded the entire room, illuminating every corner.

By the Gods, that was so painful.

It’s no wonder people like me never survived when two conflicting forces were in them. And for me it was worse… it was three.

But just as quickly, the demonic darkness surged forward to swallow it whole, wrapping around the light.

I could barely even breathe.

“Stop!” I tried to scream, grabbing fistfuls of my hair as the pressure peaked, but it was futile. I felt like I was going crazy slowly.

I rushed towards the bed, maybe if I sat down or lay down it would feel better, but I only managed to break a small vase on the table without even touching it at all.

I stared at the broken fragments scattered across the floor. “No, no, no… please, not now.”

There was this unexplainable urge and desire inside of me to just take away from someone. To just force them or trick them into getting what I want. To kill. To take a life… to shed blood. Anything at all.

I pressed both hands firmly against my temples, squeezing my eyes shut as the white light surged again, followed instantly by another violent wave of darkness. Neither side would yield, neither side would submit, and it felt as though two random people were fighting while I who was affected by the two of them was not able to stop them even if they were going to kill me.

“Violetta,” a voice called, the door swinging open.

Selene.

My vision blurred as I snapped my head up. I could see shifting colours as she stepped through the doorway. She froze in her tracks the moment her eyes took in the state of the room, from the broken vase to the furniture that was rattling for no reason at all.

“What happened in here?” she asked. Her voice was filled with so much concern.

“Get out, Selene!” I gasped.

She stared at me, her brow furrowing with worry. “Violetta—”

“For fuck’s sake! I said get out of here right now!” I shouted. My voice sounded distorted to my own ears. Selene however stubbornly didn’t move an inch.

“Please,” I pleaded, in a whimper as tears of frustration burned my eyes. “I can’t control it. I’ll fucking hurt you… I can’t do that.”

Selene ignored me and walked a little closer.

I shook my head frantically, backing myself up so I could stay farther away from her. “Selene, I said don’t come any closer.”

“Well, I’m not leaving you in here like this,” she retorted.

“You don’t understand what’s happening to me!” I cried out.

“I don’t need to understand it to know you’re hurting,” she replied, closing the door.

“Do you have a fucking death wish?” I yelled. It sounded like there were multiple weird voices coming out of my throat. There was another flash of light mixed with smoke that came out of my body as I yelled. I wished for normalcy then and there. Every other person who was just one of these never experienced this. All their powers were contained inside them and they certainly never saw such smoke coming out of them. But of course two different powers couldn’t be in one host.

This was going to be my end. And I might hurt people before dying.

My people were right. I needed to be killed.