Cordon ran a hand through his hair. “What are we going to do about Jonathan?”
Marcus swirled his wine around his glass. “We tell him the truth. There is no other option.”
Tears dripped down Cordon’s cheeks. He removed a scarlet handkerchief from his pocket and wiped them away. “I will do it.”
Typical Cordon, always taking responsibility. Marcus was glad he was the eldest, as he couldn’t imagine Cordon bearing the burden of authority. He would surely have taken every minor problem in thenest on his shoulders until he buckled beneath the pressure.
“No,” Marcus said sternly. “That is my duty now. I will awaken him at sunset.”
Then Jonathan would be less likely to go after Marguerite and they would have time to calm him down before sunrise. If it became necessary, Marcus could restrain him with blood shackles, but he did not enjoy using his power over his siblings. They were not a military unit.
They were a family.
And he intended forit to stay that way.
March 15th, 1867
To the Editor ofThe Geographical Review,
I must alert you to an egregious historical inaccuracy in volume no. 5 of your otherwise esteemed journal. Mr. Green suggests in ‘On the Aleppo Incident’ that residents of the doomed city were taken entirely by surprise by the earthquake of 1138, when it is well-established that several foreshocks the previous day caused many to flee preemptively.
If you wish to retain my subscription, I expect a retraction to be printed in the next issue.
Sincerely,
Miss Winifred Belltree
Chapter One
April 9th, 1867, Scotland
As Marcus stoodin front of the open door at the bottom of the north tower of the castle where he spent most of his waking hours, sweat beaded on his forehead and dripped down his face.
Coward.
A cool breeze curled around him, carrying the rich scent of the forest. He removed a silver flask from his pocket, unscrewed the lid, and filled his mouth with the thick, lukewarm liquid of concoction number twenty-seven. When he had swallowed every foul drop, he stepped forward until his boots sank in the mud and the wind dried the moisture on his skin.
A familiar tingling began in his fingers, followed by the rhythmic pounding of his pulse in his head. The moonlit trees reached for him with spindly arms and when he tilted his head up, the night sky was filled with twinkling stars that felt precariously positioned, as if at any moment, they would detach from the heavens and plummet to Earth, crushing him to dust.
Darkness crept into the sides of his vision. He wrenched his gaze down and focused on a single tree in the distance. It rushed toward him, barreling with the speed of a racing train. He threw his arms up to protect himself, but the impact never came. Someone grabbed him by the upper arm and jerked him backward. The next thing he knew, he was lying on the cold, stone floor of his workshop and looking up at a towering man with piercing-blue eyes and unnaturally sharp cheekbones.
It was his younger brother Cordon wearing an expertly tailored, black wool suit.
As Marcus shoved to his feet, he wiped the dirt from his hands on his brown twill trousers to keep Cordon from seeing how they trembled. “What are you doing here?”
It had been months since any member of his nest had visited. Not that he could blame them. Any affection his siblings had felt for him would have vanished afterthatdisastrous day ten years ago when he had followed in their maker’s footsteps and fled the nest. The most he could reasonably expect was a grudging respect, given his position as the eldest.
Cordon poked a key on a prototype of a writing machine sitting on a table next to a narrow window in the circular room. “Saving you, apparently. What were you doing out there, pretending to be a scarecrow?”
Heat crept up Marcus’s neck. Rather than answer, he shoved past his brother and took a seat at his desk, where his journal was open to a fresh page. There was enough time to record the results of his latest experiment before sunrise. Unfortunately, the mixture of half cow and half pig blood was no more effective at staving off his attacks of nerves than any previous combination, as evidenced by Cordon’s timely rescue.
He stabbed his pen back into its holder. A decade of tireless research, and he was no closer to a solution than the day he’d fled to the Scottish castle. A less determined man would have given up ages ago, but he refused to surrender while he had people to protect.
Even if they hated him.
“You should be out searching for your mate,” Cordon said. “Not haunting this mausoleum.”
Marcus slammed his journal shut. “I didn’t think you cared.”
