Poe and Dae might not have been as old or as distinguished as Riev, but their presence loomed larger in the room. They had their magic at their fingertips. Fate had brought them to their caelis. That made them far more powerful.
Thorin was glad to have them at his side regardless of how this turned out.
Poe went on, “We went to the Blackbird to kindly ask the Northman to leave Blackwater. You know how we djinn feel about our territories, Riev.”
“The assault in the Blackbird could be ignored.” Riev sat forward. His suit jacket tightened around his shoulders. “But killing a djinn is grounds for a trial, whether or not your reasons are well founded.”
“Killing a Northman is always well founded,” Poe said.
“Your personal grudges are not grounds for murder,” Riev said.
“Why do I sense another but?” Dae asked.
Lucas smiled like he already knew where this conversation was headed and very much enjoyed watching it unwrapped. Like a present that wasn’t a present but instead a bomb.
“Well,” Riev rubbed his hands together. The silver chains on his right wrist clattered together. “There is another matter.”
Adrenaline spiking, Thorin gritted his teeth as the witch disc kicked up in heat.
Fuck.
Fuck.
“What other matter?” Dae asked.
Riev looked right at Thorin and said, “Rose Northman reported that when Adonis tried to fight back with a runed dagger, the blade shattered against Thorin’s body.”
Thorin felt his brothers turn to him.
How could he explain this one away?
He couldn’t.
But the consequences would rock their world.
He wasn’t sure he even fully understood what this meant. He’d tried to bury it. Not to think about it. Lola had helped him do that.
But every man must face his reckoning.
“As you know,” Riev said, “there are very few reasons why a runed blade would be useless against a djinn.”
Lucas spoke for the first time. His eyes glittered as he said, “Unless the djinn wasn’t entirely djinn.”
“Just what are you saying?” Dae asked.
Riev stood. Lucas followed.
“Thorin will stand trial for the murder of Adonis Northman,” Riev said. “He is also charged with hiding his true nature and the Conclave will demand full disclosure. The trial will commence at midnight at House of Cleaves.” He buttoned up his suit jacket and then grabbed Lucas’s arm. “We shall see you tonight.” And then they were gone.
Chapter 34
THORIN
There was no hiding from the truth now.
Now he had to face it and face the consequences.
Everyone knew there was something wrong about him.
Even the Conclave.
And now his brothers too.
Just what the fuck was he?
There had to be an explanation.
But it was only yesterday that Dae had pointed out how odd it was that Red seemed to orchestrate his absence when Thorin’s dad was around.
Almost as if he was keeping them apart.
Dae and Thorin came to this same conclusion at the same time.
They looked at each other across the parlor and then Dae clenched his teeth and disappeared.
“I don’t know what the bloody hell is going on,” Poe said from the wingback, “but I suspect Dae is about to demolish Red.” He snapped his fingers and a red and white striped box of popcorn appeared in his hand. “Our dear grandfather is overdue, don’t you think?”
Thorin ran his hand back through his hair. His heart was thudding in his head. Sweat slicked his hands. He couldn’t breathe.
Must be an explanation.
Must be.
A second later, Dae reappeared with Red in tow.
Red managed to look irritated and innocent at the same time. “I can walk, you know.”
“Sit down,” Dae said.
Red scowled.
Thorin couldn’t make sense of what was happening. The Conclave thought he wasn’t entirely djinn. Dae was manhandling Red and Red was letting him.
The. Fuck. Was. Going. On.
“Just heard something interesting, dear old granddad,” Poe said and tossed a piece of popcorn into his mouth.
Red sat in the matching wingback chair. “Please do share. I’m positively captivated.”
“Adonis tried to use a runed blade on Thorin and it shattered.”
Thorin watched as Red’s expression of cool indifference shifted immediately to dismay.
In all his years, Thorin had never seen Red worry.
Not when Thorin’s grandmother made her last deal. Not when a battle was lost. Not when Mad disappeared. Not when the Northman waged war in the 20s.
Red did not worry because Red feared nothing.
But now…
Red looked right at Thorin and said, “It was for your own good.”
“What does that mean?” Dae asked. His magic perfumed the air with spice. “Why did you always keep Thorin away from Father? Why did a runed blade not work on him? Why does he have this predisposition for being volatile?”
Still Red ignored Dae. “I kept you away when your father was present for the benefit of all.”
Thorin swallowed around the lump growing in his throat. Air fluttered uselessly in his lungs. He felt like he was going to pass out. “Why?”
“Because he wasn’t your father, and he knew it.”
Dae grabbed Red by the collar of his shirt. He hoisted him up effortlessly and slammed him against the wall. “You knew! You fucking knew and you didn’t tell us!”
Thorin buried his face in his hands. There was no rage. The witch disc was dormant.
He was numb.
He was cold.
This wasn’t happening.
He needed to get out of here.
He needed—something.
Who the fuck was he?
What the fuck was he?
Why had Red kept it from him all these years? His mother too?
He didn’t belong here. He never had and never would.
When he lurched to his feet, his head swam.
“What the fuck is going on?” Mad said from the doorway.
Thorin could hear Lola’s heartbeat in the distance. Her heart was racing. Her breath too was quick and shallow.
What else was going on?
Forget about Red and the Conclave.
What was going on with Lola?
“Wait,” Ashley was saying. “We should just wait a second before—”
Lola shoved past Mad. Tears streamed down her face.
Did she know too?
Did she know he was something other? Not just broken, but a bastard too? Unwanted by the father he’d thought was his and abandoned by his true father?
Lola stormed across the room and shoved a torn piece of paper in his face. “Did you do this?” she yelled. “Did you kill all of those people?”
There on the page was an illustration of a monstrous man tearing the limbs from a villager.
The Walwick Village Massacre, the page read at the bottom.
She did know.
She knew all of it.
So much more of it than he’d ever wanted her to know.
All of his sins were now out in the stark daylight and the look on Lola’s face—
“How could you!” she shouted. “I’m such a fucking fool. I should have known better. You’re not just an asshole I failed to see. You’re a fucking murderer!”
Shame ignited in his chest.
How could he?
He’d asked himself that same question for decades.
How could he tear apart men with his bare hands?
How could he stand by when his brothers cleaned up the mess and tried to pretend like it never happened?
And how could he ever think he’d be able to keep that skeleton locked away?
But how had she known where to look? Of all the books in
the Blackwell library, how had she found this one?
When he’d left Lola just an hour ago, everything had been fine.
But he’d left her with Mad.
He looked at his brother still hovering in the doorway.
Regret was pinched between Mad’s eyes.
He’d told Lola where to look.
His own fucking brother.
The rage bristled in his heart.
He needed to go.
The witch disc warmed again, but he sucked in a breath and looked at Lola. Even through her tears and her rage aimed at him, she was still a balm for his own anger, his curse.
“I’m sorry,” he said to her. “I never meant to hurt you.”
And then he summoned his magic like a cloak and the air cracked open and swallowed him whole.
Chapter 35
LOLA
He left her.
Just like that.
Instead of staying to face the truth and explain it to her, Thorin just up and disappeared.
Dae and Poe and Red just looked at her standing there abandoned and sobbing in the middle of the room and the embarrassment pulsed through her.
What the hell was she even doing here?
She didn’t belong here.
These were not her people. None of them cared about her, the lowly human with the minuscule lifespan.
Hah. Like she fucking cared what they thought!
She swiveled on her heel. Ashley put up her hands as if to stop her, but Lola was so fucking done with this place.
She shoved past Mad and nearly jogged across the foyer and took the stairs of the grand staircase up two at a time.
“Lo,” Ashley called. “Wait.”
Willa poked her head from her bedroom as they passed in the hallway. “What’s happening?” she asked.
“I’m leaving,” Lola said.
Up ahead, Oddie came out of a bedroom with a basket of cleaning supplies. She took one look at Lola and quickly fell into pace beside her.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“We found out something about Thorin,” Ashley answered for her as they filed into her room.
“Oh no,” Oddie said. “How bad is it?”
Lola grabbed her bag from the closet. “He destroyed a village!”
Oddie’s and Willa’s eyes widened in shock. And then Oddie winced. “I knew there was something they had covered up in the past. Something having to do with his temper, but I didn’t know it was that bad. I’m so sorry, Lola.”
She tossed a balled up shirt into the bag. “I never should have come here.”
“Thorin hasn’t had any issues in a very long time,” Oddie said. “Perhaps there’s a reason he—”
“What could possibly explain that away!”
The three girls gathered around the bed. Ashley sat on the edge of the mattress. “You’re safer here though. Maybe just wait a day or two until—”
“No. I’m going home.” She threw her phone and then her brush into the bag and zipped it up. “I appreciate what you guys are trying to do, but I just…I need to go. I need to be alone.” Tears trembled in her vision.
She’d thought…no, she’d hoped that Thorin was different. She’d wanted to have a life with him. Hell, they were destined to be together.
But how could she bind herself to someone like him?
Her entire life she’d vowed not to rely on a man like her mother did. To be blinded by the need to be loved and cared for.
Turned out she was exactly like her mother.
And Thorin was exactly like her father.
He told her the lies she wanted to hear. And she convinced herself she knew the real him.
She didn’t know him at all. Just like she knew nothing of the man her father was.
And just like her father, Thorin had run when things got tough. Abandoned her.
He was just another asshole with a dick.
She slung her bag over her shoulder and then embraced Ashley. “I’ll text you later.”
She made her way around the bed. “Willa, Oddie, tha—”
Willa wrapped her in a hug. Lola tensed at first. She’d only meant to say goodbye to the other girls. She hadn’t thought they were friend-friends. At least not yet.
“It’ll be all right,” Willa said. “No matter how bad it feels right now, you were put in our lives for a reason. I can feel it.”
Lola pulled back and looked the shorter girl in the eyes. Willa was psychic, but that was all Lola knew about her. She didn’t know how her powers worked or even how powerful she was. But…did she know? Did she know Lola was Thorin’s caeli?
“Thanks,” Lola said and hoped to God she didn’t. That would only complicate things.
Oddie came over and gave her a half-hug. “If you need us, just call.”
“I will.” Car keys dangling from her finger, she gave one final wave and left.
Chapter 36
THORIN
Thorin reappeared halfway around the world in the pressing dark of night.
He breathed in stale, wet air.
In front of him, furniture draped in white sheets looked like specters in the gloom. He went to the nearest window, unlatched the wood shutters and flung them open. The earthy, piney smell of the Black Forest hit him immediately. It smelled so much like Poe that for a moment he wondered if Poe had found him already.
Likely it wouldn’t be too long before Poe did.
The Blackwells might have owned real estate and property all over the world, but there were only a handful of places that really felt like home.
Thorin’s earliest memory was of the castle in the Black Forest and for that reason, it had always felt like home.
He went through the arched opening between the dining room and gathering room. With a snap of his fingers, a fire ignited in the stone hearth. It took a minute for the dust to burn away, and then it was just the heady smell of wood smoke.
At the far end of the gathering room, Thorin grabbed the thick wood beam that held the double doors closed on the balcony. The wood groaned as he hoisted it up and out of its metal strappings and then secured it in the corner in the iron hooks.
A chill night breeze swept in and the doors creaked open.
Thorin hooked his hands through the iron rings and hauled the doors back.
The old metal hinges whined from disuse and echoed through the empty castle.
It was an eerie sound, but a familiar one that reminded him of his childhood.
Unfettered now, the forest wind swept inside tossing the hair from his shoulders.
Thorin stepped out onto the balcony and drank in the night air. Early moonlight painted the treetops in silver. Somewhere in the forest beyond, a deer snuffed at the grass.
Maybe he would stay here forever.
How long could he avoid his problems?
Not long enough.
He couldn’t wipe the image out of his head of Lola, crying, demanding he answer for his sins.
How could he explain to her the reasons he’d done what he’d done?
Nothing he could say could fix it. Make it less of an atrocity.
He’d killed those people.
He’d set out to scare only a few and instead the rage took over and he’d murdered them.
He deserved whatever came to him.
He deserved Lola’s anger and her hatred.
She was the one person he didn’t want to think less of him and because of that, he’d lied to her.
So he’d ruined the one good thing he’d ever had.
But that was who he was, wasn’t it? Ruination. Savage. Monstrous.
He wasn’t even djinn.
Or at least not purely djinn.
So what was he?
Would knowing help resolve this flaw inside of him?
Or would it only make it worse?
And why the fuck had Red lied about it his entire life?
And his mother?
Gods, he hadn’t even considered the great lengths to w
hich his mother had gone to cover up his identity. Or his real father’s.
Had she thought him an abomination too?
He went to the balcony’s edge and curled his hands around it.
His entire life, he’d never belonged with his family and deep down he’d known it. Probably his brothers had too.
The stone beneath his grip cracked.
He gritted his teeth as the anger kicked up.
His own brothers must have looked at him and thought to themselves, He looks nothing like us. He acts nothing like us.
And still they were silent.
The witch disc warmed.
Bits of stone broke off and fell down the mountainside below.
Just what the fuck was he?
It wasn’t impossible for him to be half djinn, half something else, but it was rare.
Your entire life is a fucking lie.
The stone edge crumbled beneath him. His weight shifted violently forward and before he knew it, he was tumbling over the balcony down the steep mountainside.
His hair whipped at his face. His arms pin wheeled as he instinctively tried to right himself.
Vade, he thought, but then…what was the point?
He wasn’t going to die.
Not even a runed blade could kill him.
Maybe nothing could.
Maybe he was resigned to live this life alone, a broken, vile man. Maybe that was his punishment.
As the forest floor raced up to meet him, Thorin spread his arms out and roared.
And then a hand snatched up his wrist and with a pop of air, the forest disappeared and Thorin slammed back to the stone floor of the castle’s gathering room.
“Bloody hell,” Poe said from the floor beside him. “Didn’t have enough time to stick the landing on that one and now I’m bloody well paying for it.”
Thorin lay on his back blinking up at the dim ceiling.
His chest heaved.
Dae appeared overhead and stared down at him. “Swan diving, baby brother? I thought better of you.”
“It’s not like it would hurt me.”
“Well you never know,” Dae said. “Maybe you’re the child of some rare forest nymph whose only weakness is pine sap.”
One Mark: Steamy Friends to Lovers Paranormal Romance (Blackwell Djinn) Page 17
