Eighteen-year-old Seraphine Valen's life shatters after a blood-soaked tragedy leaves her the sole survivor. But survival comes with a price-she discovers she wields an unholy power: the ability to command death itself. Her touch can end lives, her...
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"I look like a 90s slut."
I scowled at my reflection in Kira's vanity mirror, adjusting the too-tight corset that felt like it was cutting off my circulation. "Why do I have to do all this again?"
"Because, dum-dum, looking hot is part of the fun," Kira chirped, leaning in with a pair of tweezers.
I flinched when she plucked at my brows. "Ow!"
"Sorry, sorry, your eyebrows are just so thick. I need to shape them a bit so the makeup looks seamless."
I groaned. "This is actual torture."
Kira just grinned, brushing off my complaints as she continued her work.
While she primped and poked at my face, my mind wandered back to earlier that evening-when I told my foster parents I was going to the party.
Grenda had barely looked up from her beer, waving a hand dismissively. "I don't give a rat's ass what you do. Just don't come back knocked up. I ain't raising no bastard."
Charming.
Clinton was at least a little more human about it. "She's old enough," he said with a shrug. "She should know what's right."
Translation: If you screw up, it's on you.
Kira's parents, on the other hand, were the complete opposite. The moment we stepped into her house, her dad, an architect, gave me a warm greeting, while her mom— a nurse and an overly religious one at that, offered me food and started asking if I'd been to church recently.
Luckily, Kira had swooped in and dragged me upstairs before I had to lie.
"Okay, done!" Kira announced, stepping back to admire her work.
"Woah. You're definitely gonna turn heads."
She shifted aside, revealing my reflection in the mirror.
I barely recognized myself.
The dark makeup made my blue eyes pop-smoky lids, a sharp wing, and lips the color of dried blood. My black-white hair cascaded in loose waves over my shoulders.
The corset cinched my waist into something inhuman, the sheer black sleeves draped over my arms like mist. The fabric of the black lace dress pooling at my feet like ink spilling over the floor. I looked like something out of a dark fairytale-exactly the evil medieval sorceress Kira had envisioned.
"You did all this just so I can be tortured by drunk idiots?" I muttered.
"Yes, and you're welcome." Kira winked, twirling in her own costume. She had gone full Frankenstein's Bride. A tattered white gown, stitches drawn across her skin in black liner, and her brown curls piled high with streaks of white running through them. She looked hauntingly beautiful.
Before I could protest further, her mom called from downstairs.
"Girls! Time to go!"
We piled into the car, the engine humming softly as we neared Redwood Cemetery. The closer we got, the more the trees thickened, their gnarled branches twisting against the night sky. The party lights flickered through the dense woods, a faint, eerie glow in the distance.
