“I can feel the memories weaving together. I think it’s going to take time to make sense of what I’m seeing.” He brushed his hand down her cheek. “The important parts are intact. Close your eyes and rest. I’ll be right here.”
When Violet’s eyes drifted shut, he turned to Mia. “The orderly in the psych ward worked there when our father broke out that prisoner. He told me her name.” He tried to pull it out of his memories. “Wither. Widow…no, Willow. I want to find out more about her.”
Jessup stepped closer. “Did you say Willow?”
“Yeah. She claimed she’d been kidnapped as a child by a member of the Concilium.”
Jessup looked over at Ryan. “Remember the Murphy girl who went missing, what, thirty years ago?”
“Yeah, Willow. I always thought the name was silly since we don’t have willow trees around here.”
Kade traded a look with Mia. “So, she was telling the truth about being kidnapped. Our father trusted his instinct and had the guts to try to break her out of prison, just like you all did with me.” He heard the relief in his voice. “He died doing the right thing.”
“Maybe they put the Black Bore Orb in her mind, too,” Mia said.
Kade frowned. “Black Bore Orb?”
“It’s what Ferro put in your head that fractured your memories.”
His head hurt just hearing about it. He was in no hurry to remember that. Kade watched Violet sleep while he told the others that Ferro and Onyx had been killing people to save Drakos. He rolled that name around in his head. It resonated. And it wasn’t good. He remembered a painting in Ferro’s office. “Drakos is a member of the Tryah.”
Jessup wrinkled his nose. “Tryah? I vaguely remember them being the gods who started the war. If it weren’t for them, we could have been living on a tropical island eating coconuts and watching beautiful naked women all day.”
Ryan punched his arm. “Focus. We’re not out of the woods yet.”
Kade looked at Violet, sleeping so peacefully. “Onyx is still out there. And she wants Violet dead even more than Ferro did.”
21
Onyx couldn’t find a child to kill. Ever since word got out about the August girl being threatened, the clans had tightened their hold on their children. She killed a teenage boy instead, an August who was patrolling the property. She let him scream long enough to draw others before dropping Jessup’s shredded clothes.
It was dawn before she’d finally made the kill, and she was exhausted. Ferro wasn’t answering her texts. She knew he was upset about the jailbreak. Maybe he’d been hurt more than he’d let on. She worried about him, but she knew he’d want her to move forward. The effects of the solar storm would hit sometime that day. Wouldn’t Drakos be pleased if she was the one who brought the most power to him?
She was already on her way to Violet’s house before the first August arrived.
When Violet woke, Kade was sitting nearby watching over her. He smiled. “Feel better?”
She took note of how she felt. Not wretched, no trace of wanting to kill anyone in a mindless frenzy. “Yes, I think so.”
He helped her sit up. “I hope the hammering didn’t interrupt your rest. Your brothers and I patched up the bedroom wall. A temporary fix, but it’ll keep the weather and animals out.”
“You and my brothers worked together? And they were nice to you?” She liked that idea.
“They were civil. Though they did make fun of my hammering technique. I’m much handier with a sword than a hammer.” He showed her his thumb, which bore testament to that with its bruise.
“Aw, poor baby.” She pulled it to her mouth and planted a soft kiss on it. Which fired up the mist in his eyes. She opened his hand and moved her mouth over his palm, her gaze on his.
“I have this memory of us making love in the mud. Just bits and pieces, but I do remember it was incredible.”
“I had to keep you from slipping into your real memories.” She wouldn’t tell him how he’d tried to kill her.
“You said something about lying to keep me sane.”
She nodded. “You kept falling into memories of fighting, being in danger. I kept you in a fantasy world, which included us being married. And since making love in the mud was one of your fantasies…” She shrugged.
He grinned. “It was a nice fantasy, all of it.”
What was he saying? That he liked being married to her?
