I stand on trembling legs, flinging the iron brand as far away as it will go. My hands are still slick with blood as I work loose Ana’s bonds. She is shaking even more than I, but the overwhelming terror has fled.

“Holy shit, Kiki.” She says it over and over again. “You’re incredible. Goddamn incredible.”

When she is free, I help her slide off the altar, though I’m not sure how much help I truly am. Without the tide of rage flowing through me, my strength feels like it’s rapidly depleting. It’s like I’ve used up all the reserves God has allotted to me for several lifetimes. I don’t much care. All that matters to me is that she is alive. Burnt and bloodied and bruised but alive.

Danger be damned. I press my lips to hers in a rough kiss. It is short, but no less sweet for its brevity.

A hysterical laugh rises from Sebastian where he’s standing, staring at the chaos that surrounds us. “Unbelievable.” He buries his face in his hands and laughs and laughs and laughs.

“What the hell do you find so funny?” Ana asks, and that’s how I know she’s going to be okay. She plucks one of the least rusted-looking swords from the nearest rack. Weapons are good. We like weapons.

“Is that why you hated me so much? Were you jealous? Is that it?” Laughter, low and manic, rumbles in his chest. He’s cracking under the weight of all of this. “Wanted her all to yourself, did you?”

He is so focused on Ana that he doesn’t notice me leaning down to pick up the dagger. The same one he threatened me with in the carriage. It had fallen in the scuffle, and now, it’s mine.

But he sure as hell notices it when I brandish it right in his fucking face.

Shaking my head, I tell him what I should have said to him from the very beginning. “You could never have me, Sebastian. Not now. Not ever. Not if the sun rose in the west and Christ himself walked the earth and demanded it so.”

I smile at him, bare blade burnished gold in the firelight. He flinches.

Good.

“Ana is mine.” Each word rolls of my tongue. Slow. Deliberate. I don’t take my eyes off him as I say them, though a part of me desperately wants to. But I don’t need to look at Ana to know that the wicked grin on my face is matched on hers.

The tip of my blade traces the line of Sebastian’s jaw. That perfect jaw. So perfect, it would make sculptors weep.

“Ana is mine.” It’s a phrase worth repeating. “And I am hers.”

I bring the dagger down on Sebastian’s perfect face.

Perfect no more.