Page 88 of A Beautifully Crafted Lie

I swear I can feel Odhran watching me, his body heat warm against my back, every time I aim to play a song. So, I don’t. It only makes my chest ache more. That ache burns against my sternum where he struck me with his power.

The early evening breeze is cool. The scent of oak and damp soil consumes my senses. Yellowed leaves drift to the forest floor, the first sign of autumn. It was winter a few weeks ago when I stood on the battlefield. Somehow, we skipped over spring and summer and most of fall already.

“He is not worthy of you,” Aed growls.

“He is my mate.” That word. One word. Four basic letters. It changed something in me. I know I don’t have to accept our bond. It remains my choice, but a part of me calls to him, like one broken half to another.

“You do not have to be his mate. You can be so much more.”

I want to tell him that it isn’t about the bond, not fully. It’s more than that. We share an understanding that surpasses words. Odhran is the only man who sees me for who I am—a complete mess. He wants me despite of it, or maybe even because of it.

“Set me free. I will make you forget him.” Aed’s voice rumbles through my mind, down to my bones, shaking me to my core. A flicker of a thought passes from him to me. One shared without intention. One where I spill my blood onto a mirror of bones and offer my body to him. One where my consciousness disappears behind scales and wings and talons, binding my life to his so that he can claw his way to the surface, taking possession of my body and molding it into his semblance so he can become flesh once more. One where I trade places with him, becoming the prisoner locked away in his mind.

“I will free you. That much I promised. But…”

“Just say yes, and we will find a way back to the castle together.” His presence shifts within me, dragging across my skin, as soft as silk. “I will not take possession of your body all day, and when I do, you can be wherever you feel safest.”

I return to the Great Room in my mind for the first time in months, finding it barren and dark just as before. But the windows are shattered, the doors torn from their hinges, as though a storm was unleashed upon it. “It was you?” I ask the shadows shifting in the corner and watch as his great wings spread, covering an entire wall to stretch across the ceiling above me like a mighty titon in one of the books on my mother’s shelf. I watch as he steps forward, his body covered in scales as dark as obsidian. His eyes bore into me. I feel their heat as they rake over me. His breath is as warm as fire and smells of ash and destruction.

“What did you do to this place? Why?” I ball my hands into fists, preventing them from trembling. My mother’s Great Room. My safe place. It’s ruined.

Aed draws closer, towering over me. His footsteps are like an earthquake beneath my feet, shattering the tiles to expose deep cracks beneath. “I cannot have him take what is mine.”

“What is yours?” I clench my jaw, my teeth aching from the pressure. I hear Odhran’s voice in my memory. They are famously selfish, he once warned.

“Your power. You, young witch. Together, we can reshape the world.” His words are a purr, like that of a lion, holding danger even when unprovoked. Slowly, he transforms before my eyes. Bones crack and pop out of joints. His body folds in on itself, becoming smaller. Wings tuck in behind his back. Scaled flesh becomes that of golden tanned skin. It looks unnatural, painful and gruesome. I clasp my hand to my mouth as an unfamiliar figure, one with broad shoulders and muscled limbs, rises from his knees. He straightens, rolling his neck with a groan. “Here, I can love you in this form, if you would allow me. We can build a palace of our own, with our own rooms that I can tie you to bedposts of our making.” Another vision flickers between us, this one of twin marks on our skin. His with membranous wings spread over a muscled back, and mine with those same wings wrapped around my throat. My soul, forever bound to this monster.

“No.” My nostrils flare as I look at him, a completely naked man standing before me. His black locks fall over his shoulders in neat, silky waves.

“You are bound under a geas, Bryndis. Do not make me remind you.” His lip curls to expose his teeth,his eyes hard and unyielding. The mark of our bargain burns deeper than my skin, down to the bone. I clutch my arm in an agonizing scream that curves the corners of his lips upward.

“I don’t care!” I narrow my eyes at him, wanting nothing more than to spit in his face. “You betrayed me! You never told me that I would exchange my freedom for yours. That you would take possession of my body and lock me away inside. You never told me what I would lose. I am not your puppet! My body is mine and mine alone.” He thinks I’m nothing but a naïve ticket to his freedom, but he’s wrong. All of my life, I’ve been betrayed by those who were meant to love me. I’ve learned never to make promises without keeping a door open that I can use to back out of. “I promised to free you, and I will, but I never said when.” My answer earns me a glare of pure fire. “Perhaps I will savour my debt till the day I breathe my last breath. That way, you will become flesh for only a moment.” Stepping back, I feel a replica of my mother’s pianoforte press against me. A shard of glass slices into my palm, drawing blood. Without further thought, I wrap my fingers around it.

Aed closes the space between us, reaching up to tuck a wisp of hair behind my ear. “Do not test me, beautiful.” His voice is somewhere between a hiss and a whisper. “I would hate to see your last day draw nearer.”

“I thought you were my friend.” My voice trembles, and I swallow, adjusting my grip on the glass in my hand. Blood runs like warm water to my fingertips.

“I can be.” His thumb grazes my lip. “It is up to you. Far too long, I have dwelled between the unconscious psyches of brainwashed witches. I refuse to remain in this state. You have no idea how long I have waited for someone to listen. How long I have waited for you.” His eyes soften along with his touch. It takes everything in me not to turn away. A cupboard door rattles, as if someone is trying to open it from the inside. I look into Aed’s eyes, and a faint smile plays upon his lips.

“Go to hell!” I hiss, ramming my makeshift weapon into Aed’s gut. My blood mixes with his, running in a river down my arm. The bargain mark aches so badly my hand almost goes lax from the pain. He cries out, keeling over and moving out of my reach. I dart to the cupboard, barely feeling my legs as I sprint across the room. My hands close around the rounded handles, yanking on them, but they don’t open.

“Bryn…” Odhran’s voice is a rasp up his throat.

Aed lowers onto his hands and knees, and the dreadful sound of bones cracking makes its reappearance.

Fear rattles my body. I can barely grip the rounded handles. “I’ll be right back,” I tell Odhran, feeling my heart race into a flat-out sprint. This is my only opportunity to overpower the dragon while he’s between two bodies. While he’s vulnerable. I look for the iron poker by the hearth and run towards it, tripping as my feet slide on broken glass. It hurts to hold it with the cut on my palm. It’s so deep I can see white between the parted flesh. Blood trails down the black iron rod, dripping onto the cracked tiles below. Aed’s hands enlarge into claws with talons sharp enough to tear me into ribbons.

Raising my weapon above my head, I swing with all my might. He bled when I stabbed him. He will bleed again. The sound of bones crunching makes my stomach turn. Blood, mine and his, sprays out across the floor. He roars, falling to his side, only to stand a second later. I swing again.

“I am not some silly little girl to be pushed around. I am the daughter of a witch, the mate of a faerie prince, and I am not afraid of you.” I never wanted to be a witch. I didn’t ask for it and have never been proud of it. “I am a witch.” Now, I am proud, staking my claim on my heritage. My identity gives me strength.

Mother, you said you are always with me, so hear me now. Help me! Please. Her reply is nothing more than a cool and wordless whisper against my cheek. I could pretend it’s only my imagination, but I know she’s with me.

A sound, foreign to my ears, unleashes from my chest, burning through my throat like a bramble yanked from a stocking. My scream is that of a hundred voices. Mine, my mother’s, and those of the witches that came before us. Their power hums inside me like a swarm of bees around their queen, tightening my grip, strengthening my muscles. I am not powerless. I lose sight of the dragon still shifting into its form as I strike and strike again. Flesh rips like sheets of paper torn down the centre. Bones crunch like twigs beneath my boot. His roars turn to gurgles, and the gurgling grows weak.

“You…” He coughs, crimson splattering the floor. “You cannot kill me.” His words are drowned in blood, his body broken. “I am eternal.”

“No,” I answer him. “Perhaps not. But I can lock you away where no one will ever find you.”