Blackhearted Betrayal Read Online Free PDF Page A

glance. “Aunt Ri—I mean, Marissa?”
     
    “Shh,” I murmured, and tried to figure out what had set my inner alarms blazing. Barely a dozen mortals stood at the opposite end of the platform, also waiting for the next northbound train. A couple of arcanes—shifters of some sort—stood across the tracks waiting for the next southbound train. No magical currents vibrated in the air other than the eddies left behind by my sudden transformation. Why, then, was I so sure something bad was about to go down?
     
    I turned to confer with Mom, only to notice Laurell stepping close to Cori. My skin crawled even more when I saw her serpent tattoos flash briefly, seeming to shimmer from Tisiphone red to Megaera green, then back again.
Shit, an imposter.
Managing to mask the sudden flicker of realization from my face, I sent a magical feeler toward Patricia. The arcane feedback bouncing from her to me screamed purely Tisiphone, so that was one less worry; though when she figured out someone had taken out her mate long enough to impersonate her, there would be hell to pay.
     
    All this transpired in a few breaths’ worth of time, but it was just long enough for the imposter to yank Cori away from my mother’s side and aim a magical weapon at the Fury she considered the biggest threat. No big surprise that turned out to be me. I had a reputation for shooting first, asking questions
never
when it came to loved ones.
     
    Mom whirled, confusion on her face, but froze when she saw Cori held in front of Fake Laurell and theweapon pointed at me. Patricia’s breath hitched, and she let out a choked, “Laur?” before registering the inescapable conclusion.
This wasn’t Laurell.
     
    “Drop it!” I growled.
     
    Knowing what I meant, the imposter allowed her disguise to fall away, revealing someone I
should have
but hadn’t expected: Durra, the bitch who’d been infatuated with Vanessa and irrationally blamed me for her death. Durra had also tried to abduct Cori just days before. Some people apparently never learned.
     
    “This is becoming a habit of yours, Megaera.” She took my insult of using title rather than name without batting an eyelash. “But really. Ambushing me twice in subway stations? How pathetically predictable.” Fake it till you can make it, I always say. She didn’t need to know just how fast fear for Cori had my pulse racing.
     
    Patricia hissed when she recognized the dark-skinned Megaera facing us. “If you’ve harmed Laurell,
sister
, I’ll carve you into pieces with my bare claws!” No idle threat, considering that her Fury talons had broken through her skin the moment she spoke.
     
    “Peace, Tisiphone. Laurell has merely been—detained—upstairs. She is unharmed.”
     
    “She better be,” came the growled response.
     
    Mom bit out a growl of her own. “Do you
have
a death wish, Durra of the Megaera? Interfering with an Elder Fury escorting a candidate to the Palladium—days after attempting to abduct the same candidate—who is also that Elder’s granddaughter by blood. I could flay the flesh from your bones, and none would gainsay me.”
     
    Durra winced, skin paling several shades. Still, her weapon never wavered. “I appear in the name of the Megaera to summon you two sisters of the Tisiphone intoher presence. This candidate will stand hostage for your goodwill until you leave the Megaera’s presence. Safe passage to and from the Megaera’s hall is granted. Failure to answer the summons means that this candidate shall remain hostage until such time as you do appear.”
     
    Mom and I glanced at each other with deer-trapped-in-headlights expressions. Prime Furies typically only had the power to compel sisters from their own classes to appear before them. It was an absolute power but finite in that it applied only to the class over which they ruled. The only exceptions to that were when two Primes issued a summons jointly—virtually unheard of—or during times of war. As far as I