by T. A. Grey
If only it was that easy!
But every single thought, every single breath, every single action seemed to take him ten times longer than normal, moving agonizingly slowly as he fought to make the right choices.
The blood depleted to dripping drops of black venom. He could only hope he’d removed all of it, or the majority of it. Anything, to save her life.
Her chest exhaled and her shoulders sagged. No more movement.
Ryon froze, eyes afraid of seeing the truth.
He waited for her to take her next breath.
It didn’t come.
“She’s dead,” someone gasped.
No! No! No!
She was not dead. He refused to let her die. He refused to allow her death on his hands. She would live, God damnit!
He began trying to resuscitate her, pulsing his fists over her ribcage and heart for ten long seconds, then he opened her mouth, pinched her nose closed, and breathed air into her mouth. Again. Then again. He didn’t stop. He fell into a rhythm of palpitating her heart, breathing into her mouth, then checking for a pulse on the un-chewed side of her neck.
Seconds passed. Then a full minute.
“She’s dead, my friend,” Lyle said, emotion heavy in his voice.
No. He refused to believe it. She wasn’t dead unless he said so.
He continued resuscitation.
Pump, pump, pump. Breathe, breathe. Repeat.
Another minute passed.
“Stop him already! She’s dead. Show her some respect!” The guard who dared to speak was promptly silenced.
Pump, pump, pump. Breathe, breathe.
Another long minute went by.
“Ryon, maybe you should consider…” Lyle began.
A cough.
Ryon’s eyes flared, his heart skipped a beat.
Heck-heck!
Everyone leaned closer, speechless.
Penelope’s eyes fluttered, slowly peeling open like a newborn. Her face was deathly pale, but her chest abruptly fell and rose as she began breathing on her own.
Tears filled his eyes out of nowhere. Overcome, he gently hugged her close to him. He wanted to weep, but instead he told her how he felt.
“I love you. I love you.” He’d never wanted to tell anyone something so much in his whole life.
Then, as he was breathing in her sweet scent, she reached out and touched his hand.
He’d take that as an unspoken vow any day.
Chapter 15
The calm after the storm.
Some semblance of normalcy was finally returning to the Tarlèans. The attack had shaken the foundation of safety that Lyle and Ryon, and many others, had fought years for. They would survive. Their people would carry on. The last of human civilization. They had to protect their own, and most of all, keep that silver mine.
The silver mine, owned by the Gaines family, had taken the brunt of the attack. The silver mine was their only line of defense to protect the Tarlèans from the Avas. If they ever lost that mine—Lyle knew the repercussions would be deadly.
The Avagarian attack had been shut down with quick efficiency thanks to General Ward’s military war plans quickly being implemented in the case of such an attack. They’d been as prepared as they could’ve been. Workers were still clearing debris from the explosion site of the wall.
Alas, the wall will be rebuilt where the Avas had blown a hole in it. The engineers expect it to be completed within a fortnight. They would regroup as a people and overcome. As they always did. There was no other choice—but to give up and surrender. And that was not an option.
A two-knock tap, rapt and brisk, sounded at the study door.
Lionel Edward Richard Hargrowe, or “Lyle” to his friends, did not rise from his seat as the Duke of Gaines was escorted into his chambers. Uncommonly, the duke rested quite heavily on his cane for support, his leg appearing to be in a brace of some sort.
Reece, his most trusted personal guard, stood behind the duke, spear tall at his side, eyes forward. He waited poised, ready at a moment’s notice to strike. If necessary.
Some people, foolishly, had tried to reach across the desk to take a stab at Lyle in the past. What those would-be assassins failed to realize was that Reece’s silver-coated spear was six feet long and sharp enough to slice through human bone with little effort. All it would take was a lunge, and Reece’s spear would be in perfect position to spear the heart. Most citizens never noticed Reece’s specific position in the room, or his quite, deadly spear. They overlooked it and him. Such certainties upon which Lyle and Ryon relied.
Lyle did not rise as the duke took his seat across the mahogany desk from him. Customs dictated he should stand in the face of another royal leader. Lyle refused to stand for the bastard. And as of yet, he didn’t know just how much of a role the duke had played in the attack.
Few did he loathe more than the duke. Not that he’d let the duke learn of his hatred. That would only give the man power over him. Something which he refused to give.
The duke.
His half-brother.
A half-brother that Lyle had learned about on his father’s death-bed. Leave it to his sanctimonious father to confess all on his deathbed, when it was too late to seek vengeance. But not too late to hold on to anger.
His father had lain in his deathbed when he told a younger Lyle about the bastard son he bore in an affair with his mistress, Virginia Marmot Gaines. The duchess. Leave it to his father not to let a married woman stop him from his lascivious activities.
Nor did it stop Virginia from having an affair. After she grew pregnant, she played the child off as her husband, Richard’s, baby. It wasn’t until some twenty-eight years later that Lyle, at his father’s death bed, had been forced to hear the truth.
He had a brother, a half-brother. The then-young Duke of Gaines, though he hadn’t been an official duke yet, was a hated competitor in school, sports, and women. The duke would inherit his father’s dukedom after Richard Gaines’ death, a year later.
Lyle’s father, King Brice William Hargrowe of Tarlè, never did have much of a sense of humor. On his deathbed, a younger Lyle had asked his father to repeat what he said, certain he’d heard his father wrong. He couldn’t have a half-brother, after all. He had a mother and a father and no siblings to note. He simply couldn’t believe in his naïve mind that his father could commit such an act against the family, against his mother, and against him.
His father’s sickly thin body looked bony through the white sheets molded to his skeletal form. He coughed, a rattling, mucous-filled sound that he hacked into a yellow stained handkerchief. Speckles of pink soaked the cloth.
“I said,” his father began after catching his breath. “You have a brother. Do you remember the Duchess of Gaines?”
Lyle had nodded mutely, eyes wide.
“Her son, Patrick, isn’t Richard’s son. He’s my boy. He’s your brother.”
The door had opened, the creak so startling, Lyle jumped in his seat. Who but the young, gangly duke himself stood there? Lyle still remembered the arrogant look in his eyes, the smirk on his lips as he’d strolled in like he owned the place. Lyle found himself scrutinizing Patrick’s face for any signs of similarity. It didn’t take him long to see it. The height, for one, seemed to be a trait. Each of them were over six feet tall, and the shape of the jaw, jutting and narrow, the long, thin nose. It all painted a rather horrendous picture in Lyle’s mind.
Anyone but Patrick.
Patrick, the boy who’d beaten him, or nearly beaten him, at almost every competitive structure in class.
His father relayed the news to Patrick.
He’d taken it much differently than Lyle. Lyle had felt…a betrayal at his father, angry at his indiscretion to his mother and to the family. Lyle looked unsurprised, even distant. How could he be so cool about it? When Lyle wanted to scream and shout at his father for what he’d done.
The rest evening hadn’t gone well. Lyle didn’t know what his father
had expected to get out of revealing the truth to them. Had he wanted forgiveness? Acceptance? Reprieve from guilt? To create even more chaos before he left this world?
Brice Hargrowe, King of Tarlè, at sixty-three years of age, received no consolation from either of his sons before he took his last shuttering breath.
Lyle pushed the unwanted memories of the past away. They had no place here in the now.
“Lionel,” Patrick said in way of greeting.
“I’d thank you for coming to see me, but neither of us are happy about it.”
“Could you tell your sentinel to cool it?” he asked, nodding at Reece who hovered against the wall at his back.
Lyle contemplated it, then relinquished Reece from duty.
Reece hesitated, before stating, “I’ll be right outside the door.”
He could use some privacy with the duke.
“Shoo, doggy, shoo,” Patrick taunted.
Reece stiffened, but remained quiet. The door shut quietly behind him.
“Do try not to antagonize my guardsmen,” Lyle advised. “Reece has been known to stab visiting guests.” Those had technically been because of assassination attempts, but he wouldn’t mind seeing Patrick skewered like a kebab.
“Pray tell, what this meeting is about? I have many things to do. As you know, the company’s been occupied since the attack at the mine. And I’m not exactly at my best health,” he said with a pointed look at his leg.
“Ah, yes. And how is business over at the mine going?” After Richard Gaines died, he’d passed on his company to Patrick. Owning the mine, and thus Tarlè’s greatest resource—silver—kept the Gaines’ fat with wealth.
“They didn’t infiltrate it, if that’s what you’re asking. Aside from some debris cleanup, we should have the miners back to work in a week.”
Sitting across from his half-brother tried Lyle’s patience. He lit a cigar and puffed on it.
“Those are terrible for your health,” Patrick commented.
“Want to warn me about the risks?”
Patrick smirked. Always the smirk. “Actually, I was going to say—smoke two.”
That did make Lyle laugh. Damn. He quelled it, not liking his brother’s sense of humor. Or maybe he did like it. No, he quickly shut down that line of thinking. He refused to admire anything about the man.
“In that case, here.” Lyle handed over two cigars. Patrick cracked a smile before suppressing it. They both had that in common. His brother joined him and soon clouds of clove-scented smoke filled the air.
Lyle exhaled in satisfaction. Nothing like the heat of smoke down his lungs to make him feel good. In a bad way.
“We need to discuss Lysse.”
That garnered Patrick’s attention. The way his hand froze poised in mid-air to smoke the cigar, was almost comical. A second passed, and he resumed putting the cigar in his mouth. Puff. Puff.
“What about her?” he asked after several moments.
“What do you know about her?”
Calculating, always thinking critically, Patrick met Lyle’s stare confidently. “I know we’ve both fucked her.” A muscle jumped over Lyle’s eye. Patrick saw it, his eyes twinkling with merriment. “I believe she was with me when you met her and stole her, was I not?” he asked innocently.
“That’s not how I remember it. As if I would waste time chasing after a skirt just because you’re into her.”
“Humph. Funny,” Patrick said without a hint of smile. “I would have thought that’s exactly why you targeted Lysse. It’s not difficult convincing a woman into your bed when you’re the king and she’s from poor stock.”
“That’s your problem right there. I never cared what stock she came from. I suppose it might be difficult getting women in your bed being only the duke, though.”
Snap, crackle!
Angry tensions whizzed through the room like bolts of electricity. His damn heart was starting to race. Talking to Patrick always did raise his blood pressure, but this was worse than usual. He wanted to punch that smug look off his face—with a hammer.
“You think I went after her to steal her from you?” Lyle’s first thought, first instinct, was to squash this stupid idea.
Some niggling sensation lingered in the back of his mind whispering a haunting chant: Didn’t you?
He pulled on his cigar, then exhaled tendrils of black smoke. Patrick sat back in his chair looking infinitesimally more relaxed than he had upon entering. As if he’d just found his comfort zone.
“That’s exactly what you did,” he continued. “You were jealous. She was beautiful and we were relatively happy together during our short affair.”
“How ridiculous. I’ve nothing to be jealous of.”
Patrick smiled, completely at ease now. He looked like a man who’d won a great prize. If he’d come here hoping to throw Lyle off kilter, then so far, he’d succeeded.
Time to turn the tables and fish out the information he needed. Lyle slid the report he’d received from one of his scouts across the desk. Those scouts, or spies, as some might call them, had done an inordinate amount of work for Lyle. He liked to keep tabs on his enemies and friends. He didn’t care for surprises.
“What’s this?” Patrick peered at the document.
“It’s a report that says you were seen with Lysse at the annual celebration ball. You were alone with her for roughly sixteen minutes in an office.”
“Your spies are lying to you,” Patrick said, shrugging.
“I disagree. See, Lysse left my side during those sixteen minutes, declaring a sudden urgency for the powder room. However, when she came back she was antsy, rubbing her legs together. Five minutes later and she had to excuse herself again. Because she’d never used the bathroom to begin with. Because she was with you.”
“Perhaps she was sick with her menses or some other poor ailment. Leave the woman alone, I say, and stop harassing her.”
“She’s a mole.”
Patrick blinked, his body stiffening. “What on Earth are you talking about?”
“We learned from day one of the attack that Lysse was not just a part of it—but the instigator. She planned this attack, as far as our intelligence tells us. She worked with Avagarian leaders to orchestrate the attack during the Claiming Ceremony. She knew security would be lax on the walls. And it was. People are dead now.”
Patrick leaned back in his seat, his eyes faraway as he grew lost in thought. Lyle let him consider the news, curious as to what he’d have to say about it.
“I don’t believe it,” he said after a minute.
“Well, start believing. It’s the truth. What did you two talk about when you slipped into the office?”
“What did we talk about? The good old times. What else?”
“Your honesty is refreshing.” Lyle stamped out his cigar. He was getting nowhere. How did you make a man tell you honest information without bribing, coercing, torturing?
You ask nicely.
Huzzah! When did that work but for young women and charming children?
A thought struck. And a new plan formed.
What was one weakness that his brother always seemed to have?
For one reason or the other, it always revolved around one woman.
Lysse Karmine.
She was the reason why Lyle had, admittedly, charmed Lysse from Patrick years ago. He had done it. He was younger then, stupider. Looking back on his move, he wasn’t proud of it, but he hadn’t regretted his decision. His half-brother always had a soft spot for the peasant girl. Though girl was hardly the correct term for a half-breed Avagarian.
Lyle had slept with her. Had inadvertently slipped her information; who knew what documents she’d read over his shoulder or while he used the toilet. He’d made far too many mistakes. His biggest—underestimating her.
Lyle pledged never to allow a woman to hear his secrets again. No matter what. Lysse’s betrayal was a blow to him, physically and mentally.
“Listen, I have to be hone
st. Lysse’s in a lot of trouble. We have first-hand witnesses, myself and General Ward included, who saw Lysse’s betrayal to the Avagarians. We even saw her transformed.”
Patrick slammed his back into the chair. “You…saw her transformed?”
Any pretense vanished from his half-brother’s eyes. He was too stunned.
“Yes. She tried to kill Penelope Farris. In fact, she nearly turned her into an Ava. She’d bitten her, injecting the venom into Penelope’s body. If not for Ryon’s quick thinking, she might have permanently turned into one of them.”
Patrick shook his head like a concussed person, dazed and confused. “She bit Penelope?”
“Yes,” Lyle said. Finally, he was gaining some ground.
“She wouldn’t,” Patrick said faintly, distracted.
“She did. On top of that, another of my informants tells me you were seen heading to one of the secluded rooms below the arena before the show. Blood and a messy room was found afterward. Mind telling me what happened? Also, what happened to your leg there? I don’t recall seeing that ailment before today.”
He could see the thoughts flying through the duke’s eyes.
But when he spoke, he only said, “Well that’s simple. I’d received a note from a friend of mine to meet her in one of the rooms for a fling before the ceremony. I came, but was attacked and robbed. They stole all the gold pieces I had on me including my knife. That’s how my leg became broken.”
“Did you see who did it?”
“No.”
Lyle didn’t believe it for a second. He sighed. He should have known he’d get nowhere with him.
“Lysse is going to stand trial. I can tell you right now that with the evidence against her—including my own testimony—she will be found guilty as a traitor. You know what the punishment is for that.”
Patrick stood, balancing his weight on his cane, and scoffed. “Death? That’s a bit harsh, don’t you think?”
“She is a traitor who was feeding information to the Avagarians which led us to being attacked. Fifteen people were killed, more than that were injured. Some lost limbs that will never grow back. How can you say she isn’t responsible?”
