Starkeeper of the Fractured Crown

He watched me for a long time before he finally nodded, giving me only a slight sense of relief. “See youlater.”

I sent a silent prayer up to anyone who was listening as I turned back to my mom, shoulder pounding in pain. “You shit him out of your uterus, but your role ended there.I’mmore of a mother than you have ever been. He ismine, and you will not touch him.”

“Let him run, Raphael will find him soon enough,” she stated coldly, not even sparing a glance towards him as he crawled out the window. “But you? I never wanted you in the first place.” She lunged.

I jumped to one side, stumbling into the nightstand.

Mom had already readjusted, slamming the pan into the back of my head, knocking me to the ground, my head hitting the edge of the nightstand as I fell.

“Kyra!” Mark cried.

My head spun, dots dancing in front of my eyes. I couldn’t remember how to move, how to breathe. “Go,” I tried, the taste of copper filling my mouth.

Blood dripped from my lips as I tried to push myself up. I had to keep her from getting to him. He just needed to make it to the woods. Just to the edge of the woods. Cole would find him. He would smell him, sense him, hear him. He had too.

The pan slammed into my spine, and I collapsed under the force, coughing, feeling something snap inside of me as my vision sparked in black.

“Don’t get up,” Mom ordered. “Mark and I will be moving into the castle without you.”

“Run,” I choked out, unsure if he already had. “Run.” It’s all I could say, all I could think.

Mom slammed her heel into my calf, breakingthrough the thin pants, sliding straight into the muscle, ripping a snarl from the depths of my soul.

I twisted around, pulling at my calf until I found her eyes, until I could show her just how much I hated her.

Mom tore her heel out of my leg, and I hissed through my teeth, turning onto my back and collapsing. It was all the strength I had just to do that. “He will never remember you when we’re finished with him,” she growled, slamming her pan into my chest.

Gods, she looked more animal than human now.

“He won’t remember what you looked like.” She slammed the pan into my ribs, another crack vibrating through me. “He won’t remember your stories or your laugh.” Another slam. “He won’t remember your name. Kyra.” Slam. “Gabriella.” Slam. “Skye.”Slam.

I coughed, shaking violently, the world spinning as my eyes rolled up, taking in the ceiling, praying I could see the stars just one last time.

The pan slammed into me again, and my body jerked. “Youworthless, unwanted, unlovable,beast!”

A tear slid into my hairline as my mind numbed the pain, the taste of copper consuming my tongue.

Mom hit me again, something in my hip shattering. A sack full of fragile bones. Someone on the Impossible Street said that to me once. Now I wasn’t sure if he had been commenting on that because I was starving or because he had seen something I had been too naïve to see.

A roaring filled my ears as I coughed again, blood splattering up, hitting my face a moment later. Mark needed to be okay. He had to be safe.

A force shoved me onto my side, the pain forcing meonto my stomach.

I couldn’t breathe anymore, nothing in my mind but fog and darkness.

I could see the hall from where I lay, my vision going in and out of focus, the black growing. I reached out for it. I didn’t want to die in this house. Anywhere else, but not this house.

She got on top of me and flipped me back over, the pain beating through me with each breath.

Sweat poured down her red face as she held up that pan. She grabbed the necklace and jerked me up several inches. “A good whore should die full,” she spat and shoved me back down.

My brain was foggy, my limbs not moving right. Nothing was responding the way it needed to.

She reached for the ties on my pants, pulling at them.

What was she doing?

Blood spurted from my mouth, bile creeping up my throat. I think a rib may have punctured my lung, but I couldn’t feel it.