Page 131 of A Courage of the Chosen

A solitary tear rolls down her cheek, and then Rachel Knox is gone.

Chapter 38

Tavish

Some cruelty is learnt, and some cruelty is innate.

My father falls into the latter, and I’ve been the singular focus of his twisted ways since the moment I was born. It became worse after my darkness manifested the first time and took my mother’s life.

I hated myself for it back then, and spent a long time thinking about what it meant. What ten-year-old commits that kind of act? I expected Father to punish me, and he did, but not because I killed his wife. Because I was careless with how I did it. He had to blackmail Freya into secrecy, threatening her unborn children, her husband, her entire family to protect his dirty little secret.

Me.

I forced his hand, and it wasn’t long after that he orchestrated the attack on the palace, the risk of exposure too great. Has he let me forget that he had to change his entire plan to shield me? No, and I have the scars to prove it.

I’m by no means a respectable man. I have killed and lied and manipulated to get what I want, but the cruelty I possess has been beaten into me over the course of my life. Claws, magic, burning-hot steel, Brollachan. He dragged the memory of my mother’s face from the dark corners of my mind, and played it on repeat until I believed myself to be the monster she saw as she died. There’s been no end to the weapons he’s deployed to teach me something.

Until I fought back.

I’ll never forget the first time I blocked the punch he was aiming for my face, or the moment his blood painted my knuckles when I returned the favor. The sticky warmth unlocked a new kind of savagery, one that told him he had no power over me anymore.

That was when I discovered I could shift, too, and the beast that lived beneath my skin was thrice as terrifying as the one that consumed him. And I had full control over it.

I was thirty, and already stronger than he could ever hope to be.

I’ve played the game. Have been the dutiful son and the admired heir to his throne until the time was right, and he would see that we were never on the same side.

For years I’ve been looking for a way out, not getting anywhere with my plans. Until her. She changed everything.

Elsie.

A way to a new life. One that he would either have to get on board with, or face me in open combat. He would’ve never won that fight, and he knows it. Which is why he’s sought other ways to control me and make me bend to his will.

He watches the soldiers attack Elsie’s group, pacing back and forth, noting every move she makes, the expert precision with which she wields her light now.

I maintain a careless facade, but I monitor the unfolding events carefully. Elsie’s attention is pulled in two directions as she makes the mistake of not protecting her flank, and one of our men immediately moves into the space she’s left vulnerable to attempt a fatal blow.

My shadows react before I do.

They wrap around his blade and redirect it, the honed edge skimming past Elsie’s middle and taking him into close-combat range.

She responds by elbowing him in the face, swoops below his retaliating punch, and drives her short sword under his ribs until the tip peeks out at the back of his neck, cutting clean through his spine.

His end is savage.

Elsie growls as she tears her weapon free, and I’m not ashamed to admit it makes me want her all the more to see what a warrior she’s turning into.

A worthy companion.

It’s hardly been a month since the battle, and there’s a focus to her that wasn’t there before. I can taste what’s fueling her through our connection.

Fear and doubt mix in a combination that drives her relentlessly, as though she’s fighting to prove to herself, and those around her, that she belongs here and is deserving of her title.

This close to each other, she can’t keep me out, no matter how much she wants to.

“Enough,” Father snaps at his guards. They circle Elsie, my cousins, Broderic, and the two guards left standing from their group.

I should’ve known there was a reason he insisted I travel with him today, and as his head turns in my direction, lips peeled back over sharpened teeth in a grotesque smile, I know that what comes next is to punish me in the only way he knows how.