by Maria Luis
He lets go, and I’m not surprised to see Guy and Matthews huddled in the corner of the room, giving us some privacy. Grabbing the clipboard, I scrawl a note below the last. How many dead from the chambers?
Saxon angles the clipboard so that he can see what I’ve written. “The commissioner,” he answers, “along with Barker and Samuel. The big bastard—Gregory—made it back.”
Guilt stabs me in the gut.
I asked for both men to be there, and while Samuel had volunteered, I’d dangled Barker’s daughters before him like an enticing carrot. Those two girls are orphans now, and I make a mental note to find their closest kin. An anonymous deposit into a bank account won’t bring their mum or dad back but the alternative is to leave them to the wolves. And I can’t . . . Fucking hell, I won’t let them struggle. Not after I’ve played a part in destroying their family.
Hugh Coney? I underline his name twice.
“Dead,” Saxon says.
Good.
Without giving him the chance to walk away, I write my next question as fast as I can. What did Rowena do for the antidote?
Immediately my brother reaches up to thread his fingers through hair as dark as my own. “Not yet,” he mutters, avoiding my gaze. “When you’re better, we’ll—”
“Tell me.”
“Damien . . .”
“I choose h-her,” I growl thickly, my voice so shaky that it audibly wavers. “Like you . . . chose I-Isla. Tell—” Swallowing, I dig deep to find the strength to fight even when exhaustion is a plague that slips over me like a shroud. “T-tell me. Because I love her and if someone hurt her, I’ll make t-them wish they were never born.”
50
Rowena
Hope has abandoned me.
After Mags and Isla shoo me away from the medical room with orders to sleep, I spend the midnight hours watching cars wind their way down Swain’s Lane from my bedroom window. Not that long ago, I may have followed in their tracks, my feet eating up the short distance between Holly Village and Highgate Cemetery. But when dawn breaks over the horizon, I head for the old servant’s stairwell instead.
The memory of Damien’s voice chases me down the stone steps; the memory of his calloused hands on my skin propels me past the heavy oak doors and into the chapel.
The silence within is a stark contrast to my wild, turbulent thoughts.
Soft morning light spills in from the window, stretching brilliant fingers over dark-stained pews to cocoon the chapel in an ethereal glow. Tiny particles of dust dance in the sunrays, and when a shadowed streak slicks past, I accept it for the reminder that it is: I live and breathe when so many others do not.
When Damien might not.
Warmth dashes across my bare toes as I step toward the altar, and I wish . . . God, I wish that the sun might thaw the ice forming a cage around my dead, bleeding heart.
It’s been four days since Dr. Matthews injected Damien with the antidote. And it’s been four days since we almost buried him for good. Heartrate spiking, then stopping, his body thrashing before going eerily still. Handsome face ashen, strong limbs unmoving as I held him, my head bent over his, and begged him to hold on.
The irony: I found him a cure and nearly managed to kill him instead.
He’s not woken since.
Believe in him, Rowan. Just believe in him.
Trapping my lip under my teeth, I reach across the altar for a new candle. The marble is littered with them, the wrought-iron rack already full. I don’t believe, and I pray. I’m without hope, and still I return. A woman who has known only darkness determined to hold onto the light, however she can. Muscle memory brings my fingers to the matchbox and the hiss of the head striking to life is a balm to my ravaged soul.
Candle lit, my palms land firmly on the alter.
Here, in this chapel, with its thick walls that release no sound, there’s no one to hear my sorrow. Here, in this place of peace, there’s no one to bear witness to the strength that leaves me on a jagged sob. Shoulders shuddering, I sink down to my haunches with my hands clasped over my mouth.
The room spins with my blurring vision.
The sun feels like a mockery against my skin.
I’m in love with a dying man.
Our kiss down in the chambers will be our last, the night I slept cradled against his hard chest only a memory. Dr. Matthews said that grief is a curse, and I feel damned by it. Crushed by it. Stricken, I lock my fingers in place, over my lips, in a pitiful attempt to leash my pain.
And I fail.
Tears fall and my grief expands with an unsteady breath and I lean all my weight into the altar before slipping down onto my knees. Defeated. For the first time in thirty-three years, I am defeated. Dipping one hand into my pocket, I pull out the silver chain to smooth my thumb over the rounded links like a rosary. A lucky charm, Margaret called it, but luck turned its back on Damien a long time ago.
We were doomed from the start, destined to end before we’d even begun.
Give him up.
“I can’t,” I whisper raggedly, slamming my eyes shut. “Oh, God, I can’t.”
“Rowena.”
The unfamiliar voice comes from behind me, hoarse and low. Not one of my men or any of Holyrood’s spies. In the last four days, I’ve met them all. Learned their names and their backstories, all in a shoddy attempt to distract myself from the reality of Damien. Prepared to tell the intruder to leave me to my misery, I turn—and come face to face with a ghost.
Hot blue eyes ensnare me from across the chapel.
Calloused hands rest heavily on the doorframe.
And then soft lips part and that foreign voice comes again: “Don’t m-mourn me, love.”
The sun burns hot through the window but my skin is cold like ice.
Clutching the silver chain, I shake my head fiercely. “No. No, you’re not real.”
“You ran.” Throat working, he takes one step into the chapel and then another. The once maddening, deadly stride is now uneven, his weight leaning heavily on his left leg, and he braces himself twice with a fist on a pew. But his gaze never leaves mine and his lips never stop moving, the words halted, the syllables shattered over a baritone so deep, so gritty, that it feels like a pulse beneath my skin. “You ran and I’ve c-chased you. Caught you. Wherever you are, however you got there, I will find you always, Rowena, until I’m b-buried and gone from this world for good.”
A vow. A promise.
Tears burn the backs of my eyes.
I should leave my spot at the altar, should climb to my feet and meet him in the aisle, but I’m frozen in place, confronted with a hope that I don’t dare believe. “You died.” The chain threatens to draw blood, I clasp it so tight. “I’ve seen you die twice, and I—”
“L-look at me.”
I tip my head back and let my eyes pass greedily over his long legs and the shirt that’s plastered to his broad chest. His dark hair is damp, like he’s recently showered, and his stubble is just as thick, just as rough, as it was last night when I brushed my mouth over his in a kiss that failed to wake him.
We are nothing if not a fairytale steeped in tragedy.
With one hand balanced on the altar, Damien holds his other out to me in a wordless gesture. The same desperation that I feel crawling through my veins is mirrored in his expression. His lips part, his solemn gaze fastened on mine. As though he can already feel my hand against his, his fingers squeeze briefly into a fist before flexing back open.
He’s no shade come to haunt me from the Underworld but neither is he the same infallible god who threw a grown man over one shoulder while ushering me to safety.
He grips the altar because he needs the support, and he rests his weight on his left leg because he clearly fears that his right might give out and send him sprawling to the floor. He was shot. Gunned down like prey, and in those flame-blue eyes, I see a silent plea for me to take his hand, along with the worry that if he lowers himself beside me, he may not rise again.
/> Vulnerable. Humbled.
Mine.
Choking on a small cry, I slip my hand into his, only to remember too late that I’m still holding the necklace. It dangles between us, a divider that I ignore because he’s alive. Breathing, living, before me, and I don’t know whether to throw my arms around his waist or bury my face in his chest. Or both.
“Damien, I—”
“Who gave this to you?” he asks, his velvet voice so raw that it’s unrecognizable. When I look at him, questioning, he flips our hands over to reveal the necklace pooled in his palm.
I dance my fingers over the links. It may not be a lucky charm, but I can’t deny that having it over these last few days has offered me comfort. Having something of Damien’s was better than having none of him at all. “The queen. Your brother left it behind in Oxford, and she brought it with her to return to you.”
Like fire trapped behind a pane of glass, the blue of Damien’s stare is visceral. Haunted. Wanting to soothe him, I skim my hand up his corded forearm, then over the ball of his shoulder, until I’m framing his face, the thick stubble of his beard scraping my skin. His lids fall shut and a hard breath escapes him. When he angles his head to press his lips to the center of my palm, my toes curl into the stone floor.
I love you.
I’m yours, today and forevermore.
“No one comes into this world bearing h-hate,” he utters roughly, before I can even open my mouth to confess. “It’s something we’re taught, something that shapes us. But in the b-beginning, before we’re irrevocably hardened, we’re born to love.”
A shiver skates down my spine.
“I forgot what life could be without the rage.” Interlacing our fingers, he brushes my knuckles against his cheek, back and forth. Gentle. Affectionate. But I feel their slight tremor and I hear his grim resolution, and the flutter of butterflies in my stomach falls eerily still. “For so many y-years, it lived right here”—he brings our clasped hands to his chest, where his heart beats a rapid tattoo beneath my palm—“and I thrived on it, bled for it. The anger. The pain. Until I learned that it was safer to hate than it ever was to love.”
“Damien, were you . . .” My fingers grasp his shirt, holding on, and his hand follows to curl around mine, a shield even when all the world remains locked outside the chapel’s thick walls. “Did someone—”
“No boy should endure what I did. No person should love as blindly, as wholly as I did, and be fed only hurt.”
A boy.
He’d only been a boy.
Just as I’d once only been a girl.
“Your mum?” I manage hoarsely. At his curt nod, something inside me splinters. I feel the crack, hear the intangible snap, and register the break within me. A single tear falls, and Damien curses under his breath.
“Don’t cry, love.” He sinks his weight into the altar, the necklace going to the marble slab so that he can catch the teardrop’s descent with the back of his forefinger. “Jesus. Please don’t c-cry for me. I’m not worth—”
I kiss him.
With one hand balanced on his chest, and the other sinking into his damp hair, I drag his head down close and kiss him with all the heartache and the love within me. He groans deep in his throat. Tentatively, as though unsure if his legs will support him, he presses one hand to the space between my shoulder blades and wraps the other around my waist. I’m tugged against him, our bodies flush, our mouths fused.
We are kindred souls bound by fate.
And I want . . . I want—
“There was a girl,” I gasp, pulling away, “a long time ago, who felt both hope and disappointment. The hope soared with every promise made to her while the weight of disappointment brought her to her knees. But she rose again, and again, with hope always staggering to the forefront because one day, those promises would come true. One day, all the pain and misery she carried would be nothing but a long-forgotten memory.”
“Rowena—”
My thumb grazes his bristled jaw, and the caress silences him. “Disappointment is a gift with no return label. It sits on your doorstep, day after day, waiting to be acknowledged. And when the girl stopped long enough to see the ruin of her life, she drowned. It broke her, Damien. The . . . past broke me. But I’ve never known defeat—never felt true hopelessness—until I held you in my arms and begged you to live, and you did not wake.” The memory of him down on his knees is a plague, just as grief is a curse, and emotion cleaves my chest in two. “To me . . . to me, you are worth everything.”
Damien jerks against me, his entire body tensing as he hooks a finger under my chin. Blue eyes sweep over my face, missing nothing. With a low, pained noise, he kisses my cheek and then the corner of my mouth. His lips glisten with my tears as he drops his face into the crook of my neck. “I’m here,” he husks, pressing another whisper-soft kiss to my skin, “I’m here, love, and you are not alone.”
Those words.
Those same, gut-wrenching words that I’ve whispered to him, over and over again, since returning from the Bascule Chambers. “You heard me,” I breathe, feeling unsteady on my feet. “Dr. Matthews wasn’t sure if you would, but I couldn’t . . . I couldn’t leave you to the silence.”
His slow inhale is ragged in my ear.
Vulnerable.
“Hate has always been my c-closest companion.” When I peer up at him, it’s to see that his lips are twisted in self-derision. “I’ve done things, Rowena . . . I’ve d-done things that will put horror in your heart when all I want is for you to always look at me the way you are right now.”
My mouth turns dry. “And how is that?”
“Like I’m a man worth loving.”
“Damien—”
“I’m owned by Death,” he says, smoothing his hands up my sides until he’s cradling the base of my skull in his palms with his lips hovering over mine, “and I did away with the key to hell a long time ago. But you . . . it wasn’t until y-you that I wanted to be good. Better. And when we were down in the chambers, I finally understood what my mum never did. Love is sacrifice, and even knowing what comes next, I’d do it all again.” His breath is hot against my mouth, his gaze even hotter as he holds me captive in his embrace. “For you, Rowena, I would surrender my soul. I would take all of your pain and bear all your misery, and I would do it because I . . . because I love you.”
The declaration falls at my feet, gritty and raw, and then he wrenches himself away.
Immediately, I feel bereft.
“You can’t say that!” The words are hurled at his retreating back but they manage to stop him in his tracks all the same. “You can’t say that you love me and then turn away as if I don’t even exist.”
“Don’t exist?” Slowly, he looks back at me over one broad shoulder. His brows are knitted, his eyes narrowed. “Don’t exist? R-Rowena, you stumbled into my life and the world stopped spinning. You speak, and I look for you. You smile, and I fucking ache. When I was d-dying, it was you who walked with me through the darkness. And all I wanted was to hold you just one m-more time, even when I knew it wouldn’t be enough. For us, it will n-never be enough.”
I don’t dry the tears from my cheeks.
Don’t stifle the anguished cry begging for escape.
“I want to live with you, away from the chaos and all the death. I want to be old and gray, and at your side. I want . . .” Sunlight casts golden warmth over his face, revealing the brilliance of his blue eyes just as it exposes the fatigue that’s carved hollows of his cheeks. He puts a fist to his heart, as though the words are a new oath that he takes for me alone. “I want yours to be the last name I speak after I’ve spent an entire lifetime loving you.”
“Then why do I feel like you’re saying goodbye?” Frustration battles desperation, leaving me rattled and trembling as I close the distance between us to grasp him by the shirt. I’m on my toes, face thrust close to his, and still not close enough. “You have nothing to prove to me. I see you, all of you, and—”
&n
bsp; “I dug her up.”
My breath catches in my throat. “What?”
Shame flickers across his handsome face. “Under a starless sky in Paris,” he confesses, his voice low, “I took a shovel and broke c-consecrated ground. The dirt went into a pile that rose and rose. I dug until I stood atop her. I d-dug until I cracked open the coffin. And twelve years after we buried her, I looked down at the woman who birthed me, and I smiled.”
Thud-thud. Thud-thud. Thud-thud.
Madness.
“I did it all for this.” He snatches the silver chain from the altar, holding it aloft between us. “Because it felt like k-karma, taking what she loved most when she loved me not at all. And you . . . us . . . I won’t love you from the dark, Rowena, hiding what I’ve done. Not after the Bascule Chambers. Not after you risked your own life to save mine.”
Baron Hastings.
The Reaper himself.
I swallow, painfully. “I did what needed to be done.”
“You shouldn’t have,” he growls, slamming the necklace back on the altar. “You should have left Holyrood to d-deal with it—to deal with me—because the thought of you . . . Jesus, Rowena, you walked away from that life. You p-promised yourself that you’d never let someone take a piece of you again. And even though Saxon told me that you didn’t promise your body to that bastard, I can’t let you—”
“They gave up!”
At my outburst, he reels backward but I won’t be deterred. “Dr. Matthews gave up,” I bite off, wishing I could eviscerate that day from memory, “your brother gave up. You were as good as dead, they said. They’d already tried for months, they said.” I jab the tip of my forefinger into my chest. “But I didn’t give up on you. Not once. So, yes, one day Baron Hastings will knock on my door and, yes, he’ll demand payment, but it’ll be worth it, Damien. Whatever he asks for, however much it costs me, it will be worth it to have you.”
“I’ll fucking kill him.”
“I won’t let you.”
“Listen to me—”
