The Creators: Book One by

“This is dipped in Nightshade,” Angela whispered in my ear, “just one scratch is all it will take, Willowbud. You shouldn’t leave packets of poison in the trash; you never know who might go digging in there.”

“Angela,” Brandon said, shaking his head at the girl holding a wooden spike to my throat, “we’ll never save her if she doesn’t trust us.”

“Fuck you, Brandon!” Angela yelled back, “You don’t know her! You’re in Corruption’s favor, so you get the boyfriend treatment, but the rest of us have to deal with the real Night Eyes! I’m not fucking moving!”

“What the fuck is going on?!” I hissed at Brandon, not daring to move my neck, not daring to kill Justina lest Angela’s hand slip, “What do you know?!”

“I know all kinds of things,” Brandon smiled sadly back, “and I know that I can trust you. Angela, put it down.”

Angela tensed behind me, seemingly prepared to disobey the man she somehow knew, seemingly ready to push the spike into my throat and end it all. She breathed a reluctant sigh against my neck and let the spike drop, and I wheeled around on her, feeling earth and rock beneath me, feeling a million different ways to exact my revenge. Something stopped me. A whisper in my mind, a feeling in my chest. Corruption couldn’t talk to me, but she still spoke with painful clarity. ‘Don’t do it,’ the feeling seemed to say, ‘show restraint, but only for now. Later, Willowbud, later. You can kill her later.’ I stopped myself, staring at the stone-cold eyes of Angela. She wasn’t afraid to die at all. Somehow, I knew that killing Justina wouldn’t do a fucking thing to her. Angela wasn’t the insane-half of my dearest cousin; Angela’s eyes belonged to the man I was falling in love with, the man glowing with sapphire power behind Astrid’s stretched wings. The Life Giver.

Tera’s wound stitched together, the color came back to her flesh, the light came back to her eyes. Brandon caressed her face soothingly as she thrashed in pain, and then relaxed as the final cut closed, leaving her perfectly fine on the stones, her blood staining the ground beneath her. Tears welled in her eyes, and she sobbed silently as Brandon planted an affectionate kiss on her brow, and whispered soft tenderness into her ear. I gaped at the scene, and slowly trailed my gaze to Astrid.