Rowena leaned into me, laughing as she wrapped her arms around my torso. “You love us, brother. Just admit it.”
“I will do no such thing,” I said, leaning down instinctively to kiss the top of her head.
I froze, lingering out of shock. Rowena only hesitated a moment before she squeezed me tighter, voicing everything she could not say with words.
Jasper and Sloane quickly averted their gazes, picking up their previous conversation as though they had never let it lapse. Slowly, I slid my arm out of Rowena’s hold and wrapped it around her back. I pulled her into my arms, letting her warmth fill the minuscule space between us.
How long had it been since I had hugged her? Had I even done so since our father died? Perhaps it was even before that because I could not even remember if I had held her at our father’s funeral.
Shame was becoming my constant companion, waiting for me around every corner as I navigated the maze my life had become. I hated the sinking pit in my stomach that seemed to grow with each new revelation.
I had been so detached from the people in my own world that the mere act of showing love a single time had my sister nearly in tears. Calia had been the exception, and even then, I had tried to push her away for as long as I could. It was not until the thought of going without her touch had driven me mad that I relented my hold a fraction of an inch.
Yet, it had not been enough. And if she was alive, if that vision was real, I would spend every day for the rest of my life worshiping her body as I should have from the moment we said, “I do.”
“I am sorry for my absence,” I murmured in her ear, low enough so it stayed between the two of us. We both knew the apology was not just for my actions of late but for our past. It would never be enough, and no measure of time would fully atone for the role I should have filled, but had left vacant in her life.
She shook her head, squeezing me once more. “You’re here now, Rion. That’s what matters. That’s all we care about.”
Was it that simple? I did not think so. Penance needed to be paid, and I had not yet worked out the cost.
The truth was that I loved each of them, even Sloane, though I hardly knew her. She was willing to put her place amongst her coven and her reputation on the line to help me, and that kind of bravery could not be met with anything less than the utmost respect. It made her one of us. A part of our family if she would have us.
The realization was startling. Terrifying, really. But it was a truth I had been toeing the line with since Calia had swept into my life like an unexpected force of nature. My mother had said love was a weakness; she had beaten and tormented me for it. But Calia had loved those around her without concession or promise. She loved because her heart was whole, and deeply in spite of her reasons not to.
That was how she loved me.
Resting my cheek atop her head, Rowena and I sat in our mutual embrace for the remainder of breakfast. Neither of us moved as we listened to our friends trade wild stories, occasionally chiming in to ask questions or clarify the truth of Jasper’s self-declared heroics. And when all our bellies were full and sore from too much laughter, I rose and walked away from the table filled with hope for the first time since Calia had died.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“You are a disgrace,” my mother spat, staring down at me in disdain. “Your father has allowed your mind to weaken. Indulging your every whim and allowing you to play with that pitiful boy has ruined you.”
She gripped me by the back of my neck, tugging me down, down, down the curved steps toward the dungeon. I hated the dark when she forced me into that tiny space where I could not breathe. The air was thin, and it smelled like urine and blood.
I reached back, screaming and crying as she dug her nails into my skin. “Please, mother! Please!” I begged. “I will be good, I swear it. Please do not make me go back in there.”
I planted my bare feet against the stone, scraping the soles against the rough edges as she pushed me through the doorway. I landed on my hands and knees, feeling the skin tear with the force of the fall.
My mother sneered as she saw the tears streaming down my face. “That,” she said, pointing a long-tipped claw in my face. “That is the weakness I am forced to eradicate because he refused. He filled your head with fanciful delusions of friendship and kindness, but those words should not exist in aD’Arcy’s vocabulary. There is only strength and power.” She stood tall and crossed her arms. “Our ancestors were created by the gods to conquer. Instead, we have been collared and leashed, forced by others to share the control that should rightfully be ours. One day, it will fall on your shoulders to end this”—my mother’s face twisted—“castration. This curse has weakened us enough—you will not be allowed to show one sign of frailty. You must be ready to seize that destiny and fight to return us to our former glory.”
I never understood what she meant when she said these things. She talked so much about our history and the past, but her focus was always on control.
I did not even know what I had done wrong this time.
I had just been in the library with Jasper, talking about the latest book I had read. It was full of magic, telling the story of a daring knight traveling across the kingdom to save the princess from the evil king. I blushed when he kissed her, signaling the end of the book.
Jasper had teased me endlessly as he saw the red in my cheeks, and I had launched myself toward him, knocking him to the ground. We wrestled back and forth, running around the vast, empty room while trading half-hearted swings in jest until my mother stomped in. She had taken one look at us before marching over to me and pulling me from the library. I looked back over my shoulder, seeing a wide-eyed Jasper standing by the bookshelves just before the door closed behind me.
“Give me your clothes,” she said, snapping her fingers and holding her hand out.
“But it is so cold in there, Mother, please?—”
Her hand whipped across my face so hard I knew it would bruise. The featherlight caress of blood began trickling downmy lip. She would clear any injury up before Father came home. She always did.
There were times I would lay in bed afterward, staring at my freshly healed skin, wondering if it had all been a nightmare I had dreamt up. But then I remembered the feeling of ice-cold metal against my bare skin and how my throat hurt after screaming for hours to be let out.
It had all been real.
