PERSEFONE POV
I heard the first howls and immediately focused my attention on my brothers’ pack, on the raw, pulsing ache of Bloodclaw waking up around me, and then Ermes started laughing.
The sound filled my ears like rot.
At first, I thought I had finally broken something essential inside him. Not his body. I had already done that more than once. His ribs were bleeding under my roses, his wrists were torn where golden roots held them open, and his throat had turned rough from screaming, begging, lying, and then screaming again when I decided his truths were not painful enough to count.
For one stupid, hopeful second, I thought his rotten, sociopathic brain had finally given up.
But this laugh was wrong.
Wet.
Hysterical at the edges.
The kind of laugh that did not belong to relief
