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Questioning everything she’d done in the last five days.
She hadn’t gone to Lord Falsted like she was supposed to with the book she’d stolen from Reiner’s room. Falsted was a bane upon the lands around Vinehill—setting far too many clearings into motion, destroying too many lives—but he’d been the one to show her the evidence. Evidence that meant Reiner had to pay. Evidence she couldn’t dispute.
It would be so much easier if she didn’t believe Falsted. If he hadn’t encouraged her to go after Reiner and ruin him. For now she didn’t know if she could do that.
So she had travelled north instead. Away from Reiner. Away from Lord Falsted.
And it had taken days to admit to herself why.
She didn’t want to see Reiner ruined and that’s what the book would do.
Somewhere during her time at Wolfbridge, she’d become conflicted. Lost her thirst for vengeance.
Reiner needed to pay for all that he had taken from her. For all that he had destroyed. For all of that he needed to fall.
Yet she couldn’t destroy him. Couldn’t be the cause of it.
She couldn’t watch the man she’d come to know be ruined. Especially by her hand.
It was so much easier when he was a target. A cold, mythical demon she was determined to see pay for his sins.
Except he wasn’t mythical. He wasn’t a demon.
He was just a man. A flesh and blood man that looked at her with such heat in his eyes it seared her to her toes. A man that had held her, pulling her from the throes of terror-filled dreams. A man that had played silly tunes on the pianoforte for Vicky because she wanted to dance. A man that had held her far too close when he’d danced with her. A man that had kissed her and sent her body into undeniable pleasure.
He wasn’t the monster she had wanted to destroy.
He’d abused that sliver of time when she couldn’t remember what he was and he’d wormed his way into her every thought.
Just as the devil himself would have.
She needed Reiner to be the monster again. He had to be if she was to execute the vengeance he was due.
And Torrie could do that for her. Torrie could make him into the monster again.
Domnall stopped in front of Torrie’s door and turned to Sloane. “I’ll have your horse waiting for ye at the stables, lass.” He set the candle on the half-round table just to the left of Torrie’s door. “I ken ye can make your way through the castle in the dark, but take the candle with ye. I don’t want ye to break your neck on the stairs on the way out.”
“Thank you, Dom.” She went to her toes to kiss his cheek, then turned to the heavy oak door.
She needed this. Needed Torrie to remind her of what she must do. To remove the conflict of every thought warring in her head. To reset the blaze for vengeance.
Straightening her spine, Sloane set her chin down and went into Torrie’s room.
“You are awake.”
Sloane’s cousin lay on her bed, a sheet bunched and draped over her stomach, her legs sticking out, bare to the air. Her eyes open, she stared at the peach upholstery draped above her from the ends of the tester bed.
Torrie didn’t react to the intrusion into her room. Only a blink.
Sloane moved to her bedside, looking down at her cousin—her sister for all purposes, for they had been raised together here at Vinehill.
Her gaze fixed on Torrie’s face, not venturing downward. Torrie’s pretty features looked far more aged than she remembered from when she left Vinehill months ago with their plot for vengeance firmly in her head.
“You are awake,” Sloane repeated softly, not sure how to break Torrie from her reverie.
“And you’ve returned.” Torrie’s head shifted slightly on the pillow and she looked at Sloane.
“I have. At least for these few minutes.” Sloane reached out and stroked strands of Torrie’s dark hair along her temple that had escaped the simple braid that caught her locks. Her hair had always held such lustrous majesty. How long had it been since it had been free of the braid?
