Northern Crown [t.r]

Prologue

Delilah had never felt so broken.

  As she apparated, she landed on shaking legs in the tall grass, feeling like daggers in her skin. Dried blood coated the corners of her mouth and was caked in her nose, making it hard to breathe.

  Taking a step, her muscles trembled and her lungs screamed out and agony. Why must she keep fighting? What was the point? Her body was begging her to give up. Just sleep. Just rest. Rest and it will all be over.

  Looking at the house, light from candles gleamed in the panes, making it looks alive and she felt like crying. It was only a few yards away yet felt like miles and miles and miles.

  Delilah didn't know where Tom was, and she couldn't trust anyone. A wail left her lips, making her sound like a wounded animal as she crumbled to the ground, her fingers clutching at the earth as she convulsed and threw up.

  She was sweating, her hair sticking to her neck and cheeks and she scratched it away, aggravated and her mind was a mess, not taking note how her nails tore through her skin.

  Her chest was heaving, as if all the oxygen had been yanked away from the atmosphere, leaving her suffocating and alone and scared. She didn't know what to do.

  Everything had changed.

  Delilah knew the truth and she felt like screaming until she vomited her lungs and then her heart. She wanted to stomp on it, stab it, crush it within her fingers for making her feel so terrible and desperate and lonely.

  It was overwhelming, all her trust had been upended, mocked as if her feeling of betrayal was childish.

  How could he?

  Her mind chanted incessantly, making her ears ring and she pushed her forehead into the ground, gripping and yanking on her hair until her scalp burned, begging for her mind to stop talking.

  He was lying all along.

  Stop talking.

  He played you.

  Stop talking.

  He used you.

  Please stop talking.

  He never cared.

  Delilah blacked out, alone in a field, broken.