“Wyatt.”
“Please,” he held his hand out to her, a gesture filled with so many layers of meaning she could not begin to count them.
She slowly walked the length of the hallway, wondering all the while if she was making the right decision or if she should head out the door and out of Wyatt’s life for good. By the time she reached him, her thoughts weren’t any clearer, but his seemed to be.
Gone was the tormented body language, the questioning eyes, the despair-filled countenance. In its place was a warrior. One no longer tied to The Sanctum, but a warrior nonetheless.
Dev interlaced her fingers with his; Wyatt pulled her close, needing to feel her energy, her warmth. He wrapped his arms around her and she held him tightly, running her fingers through his hair as he buried his head in her neck. For a moment, they forgot themselves in each other. But only a moment.
Wyatt pulled away from her and smiled sadly. Dev knew the boy she met in the park all those nights ago was long gone, dead. She would never see him again and she privately mourned his loss. She feared Wyatt would always look at her this way: a mixture of love and despair, his sacrifice for her written all over his body in so many different shapes and forms.
"Don't," he said as he searched her eyes.
"I can't help it," she replied, knowing what he didn't want her doing without him needing to explain further. She looked down, not wanting him to see the doubt in her eyes.
Wyatt gently caressed her cheek and lifted her chin so she had to see him.
"I made this decision the minute I saw you. And trust me, nothing you did during that charming encounter influenced me," he said with a slight smile. "This is my path, I am supposed to be doing this. All of it. And yes, some of it is awful and would break a lesser person, but not me. What happened back there, all that blood and mayhem, the sheer brutality of it, that only solidified my resolve.
"I don’t know how else to say this or make it any clearer to you: I am bound to you, Dev. Whether you like it or not, I'm yours. What that means for the two of us remains to be seen. But I am going to fight this fight with you, so stop wondering whether you should walk out of my life and disappear. Please.”
He paused, hoping his words were hitting their mark, making her believe in him again. Trust him again.
Then he flashed her a smile, a genuine, heartfelt smile that crinkled his eyes and made the wrinkle appear between them.
“It wouldn’t make a difference if you left anyway. I know you’d come back. You can only stay away from me for so long. It’s written all over your face.”
Dev stared at him for a second and then shoved him away from her.
“Shut up, Wyatt,” she laughed as she attempted to step around him in the hallway.
Wyatt grabbed her and pulled her close, not allowing her to escape, wrapping Dev in his embrace while he smiled mischievously. He leaned down close to her, so close she could feel the warmth of his breath as he teased her. She leaned into him and closed her eyes, becoming momentarily lost in him.
This was the Wyatt that drove her to complete sensory overload.
“See,” he whispered against her lips, smiling, “you think I’m going to kiss you right now, you want me to kiss you, badly, but I won’t.”
Dev’s head suddenly cleared as she opened her eyes to find him smirking at her. She leaned as far away from him as possible as Wyatt laughed, holding onto her tighter.
“Ugh!” she squirmed and wiggled, trying to escape his embrace, “let me go, Wyatt Clayworth, or so help me, you are going to regret it.”
He continued laughing at her, thoroughly amused by his own antics.
“You are so dead,” she warned, “I think you’re forgetting who I am and what I could do to you if I really wanted to.”
Wyatt stopped laughing and looked down at her with raised eyebrows.
“You wouldn’t,” he stated.
“Try me,” she replied, hiding the smile she felt.
“How would you do it?” he asked, genuinely curious.
“Easy,” she replied, “I would break both of your arms at the shoulders by popping out my own arms with such speed and force your bones would snap before you even knew what was going on.”
Wyatt immediately dropped his arms.
“That is so sexy.”
Dev tossed her head back and laughed quietly, appreciating the opportunity for some levity. The sound of her laughter surprised Wyatt, floating over and through him like his favorite music. It was beautiful and light and sounded like promise. Dev felt him staring at her and stopped, suddenly very aware of herself.
“Your laugh,” he trailed off.
She smiled.
Wyatt stepped closer to her and touched her face, her lips, her hair. She was filthy and battle-worn and more beautiful than ever. She was his ferocious queen.
“In all seriousness, if you would like to run away with me somewhere and live naked in the woods, I am totally down for it.”
Dev looked up at him, her eyes full of laughter.
“Absolutely not,” she said.
Wyatt’s eyes widened in surprise.
“No?”
“Do you honestly think I’m going to run around naked with some boy who won’t even kiss me?”
She then escaped his embrace and headed down the hallway, her light laughter bouncing off the walls, mocking him. Wyatt watched her walk away and smiled before jogging to catch up to her at his parents' front door.
"You ready?" he asked, becoming suddenly serious.
Dev picked up on his mood right away: Wyatt was worried about her, about whether she was truly comfortable taking this step, whether this was really what she wanted to do. And she was ready. At least as ready as she could hope, for it wasn't everyday someone like her sought out one of the most powerful Sanctum families in existence for assistance.
"I am," Dev replied.
"Don't forget,” Wyatt leaned his head against the front door, “my mom looks like Jools but doesn't act like her and my dad is somewhat insane so don't let his behavior throw you off. You'll be fine."
Dev placed her hand on Wyatt's arm in an effort to calm him.
"I know I'll be fine," she whispered, "we're here together."
And just like that, Dev did it to him again, taking his breath away by just being herself. He paused and studied her one more time, while she was still his and his alone, before his family and Ryker and anyone else claimed a tiny piece of her. Not that Dev could ever belong to him in an ownership sense, or that he would ever want her to, but their special bond that up until this very moment had been so very private and personal was about to become public domain. Wyatt just wanted one more second alone with her.
“Hey,” she smiled and rapped her knuckles lightly on his head, “what’s going on in there?”
“Nothing,” Wyatt shook off her concern.
Dev shot him a look.
“I just want a second,” he explained, feeling rather ridiculous, but continuing anyway, “where it’s just you and me. Once we cross this threshold, you and me ends and we belong to everyone in that room.”
“Silly boy,” Dev whispered, “you and me never ends.”
She then stood on her tiptoes and kissed him, feather-light and brief, but a kiss all the same. Wyatt pulled her close but Dev stopped him with her beautiful smile and a warning finger.
“Uh-uh, mister. I can kiss you, but you’re not kissing me, remember? Now open that door and let’s do this.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
Carter Breslin paced back and forth in the dark room, so angry the vein running down the middle of his forehead could be seen, throbbing in time with each step he took. His son, Max, stood off to the side in a far corner, knowing his father’s temper well enough to stay out of the way. The dark robes of The Sanctum billowed out behind him and finally Breslin shrugged them off in irritation and threw them in a pile on the floor. Clothed in fitted, black jeans and a black T-shirt, Breslin’s body appeared younger than his ye
ars but his face had not similarly been spared the ravages of middle-age.
Once upon a time he would have been called “a catch” with his mass of dark curls, chiseled jaw and large, dark eyes with eyelashes so long they filled girls with envy. Now his face reflected his demeanor: angry, bitter and cruel. His eyes were filled with hatred, his mouth a thin line of disgust and his mass of dark curls gone with his good humor.
He was more fearsome than anything else and Breslin liked it that way. Gone were the days when he sought counsel on his decisions; had he bothered to today, he would get nothing but acquiescence, as no one in his inner circle really wanted to disagree with anything he said or did. Challenging Breslin was known to have harsh consequences and since most folks wanted to live to see the next day, he essentially did as he pleased.
Such unchecked power and authority were not the original intention of the gods when they created The Sanctum, but they had little control over its evolution and they had absolutely no control over the Breslins.
When bringing The Sanctum to life and speaking their truths into The Code of Ten, the gods created an everlasting force for good, a group of heavenly ordained peacekeepers to oversee and guide all Magicals. The ten founding families were chosen for their strong moral fiber, sense of justice, belief in equality and supreme intelligence, for the gods believed these qualities could guide The Sanctum for all eternity.
But even the gods sometimes fail.
Granting the Breslins any sort of power was a failure of epic proportion. From the minute they were given entree into The Sanctum’s ruling body, The Circle of Ten, Augustus and Victoria Breslin sought to wrest power from the others, willing to use any means necessary to succeed. A few succumbed to the intimidation and bullying but others, like Micah and Rose Clayworth, fought them tooth and nail, determined to uphold the guiding principles and ideals of The Sanctum and The Code of Ten.
Carter Breslin knew none of the principles of The Code of Ten, so warped and twisted was his idea of being Sanctum. To him, being Sanctum meant nothing more than wielding absolute power and doing as one wished.
Currently, what Breslin wished was to get some answers. And he wanted them from an ethereally beautiful faerie named David with whom he tasked gathering those answers for him. Breslin had asked David to meet him on several occasions and each time, the faerie had failed to show. He would only tolerate so much misbehaving.
The faerie raged against the scrimshaw chains holding him against the stone wall.
“You can continue to lie to me,” Breslin quietly relayed, “or you can start giving me the information I requested of you months ago. One way or another, I will get it out of you.”
“I am at a complete loss. There is no information of this girl. Anywhere. She is a figment of your overactive, paranoid imagination.”
Breslin picked up a thin, razor-sharp knife and stepped close to the faerie, never losing his cool, always maintaining control. He ran the weapon down one side of the faerie’s face and watched as the skin split open and blood poured onto the cold, stone floor. The screams were soul-piercing, but traveled nowhere, sheltered as they were, well below street level.
“David, David,” Breslin shook his head as if speaking to a small child or a pet, “this is becoming so very tedious. Listening to your lies and screams. You must know something of worth. Some tidbit.”
Max silently watched from the shadows as his father ran the same tired routine on the faerie, knowing even if David did have information that could save his life, and he probably did, he would rather die than help a Breslin. The threats, the torture and eventually the death, it was all becoming so commonplace, but there was no stopping his father and no one dared challenge him. So on and on it went, a weekly cycle of torture and death, all in the name of The Sanctum.
“Breslin,” David hissed and spit blood, “just kill me and finish this charade.”
Breslin’s eyebrow twitched in fury, but that was his only betrayal of emotion. He selected a smallish Raven Blade from his cache of tools and slowly approached the faerie.
“Your people are known for their extraordinary beauty and intelligence, wits and magic. And yet, you are a bloody fool. Such a poor representative for such a revered group,” Breslin sneered as he stabbed David in random spots across his bare torso, drawing blood and poisoning the faerie.
This time David made no noise. Knowing his death was near, he refused to beg for his life.
“Perhaps the reverence is unwarranted? It would seem so,” Breslin stabbed again and again, “for I cannot think of a reason I should allow you to live when you cannot accomplish the simple task of gathering one detail about this blasted girl.”
On and on he raged, until Breslin grew bored and left the room, leaving the faerie hanging on the wall, a bloody mess on the brink of death. Max stepped close, attempting to catch a sign of life, a breath, but hearing none turned on his heel and followed his father out of the room, leaving the body for the minions to clean up and dispose of properly.
“AVA!” Breslin shouted as he entered the London Academy, a ball of rage and fury.
“AAAAAAVVVVVVVVAAAAA!”
“Yes, love,” Ava stuck her head out from behind a high-back chair, not five feet from her husband.
For all of Carter Breslin’s bluster and bray, his wife, Ava, was a pool of controlled and contained bitterness and wrath. Many considered her more frightening than her husband and all agreed, the two together were positively horrific.
Like her husband, Ava had once upon a time been a girl of renowned beauty, her thick, blond locks and full red lips, ample hips and tiny waist being the thing of many a boy’s fantasy. And similar to her husband, age and greed had tarnished those looks, eating her away from the inside until she was simply a shell of her old beauty. If one looked past the ultra-gaunt body and tight mouth, the cold eyes and severe bun, there were glimpses of her old self, but they were rare and brief.
Breslin sat down across from her, tightly wound and tense. Ava put down her book and took her husband’s hands in her own, massaging them until he calmed.
“You really must make some sort of effort to contain yourself. This carrying on, day and night, night and day. It is beneath you, Carter.”
“I am trying to do just that, Ava,” Breslin hissed, “but my patience has reached its apex. I know that abomination is running around New York, getting help from Magicals. I will kill every Magical residing in that godforsaken dump of a city, so help me god.”
Ava continued massaging his hands as she peeked up at him, noting his haggard appearance and pallid countenance.
“Perhaps your lack of success in this all-consuming endeavor is because it is not the Magicals who are giving this girl assistance,” she calmly suggested.
“She is not a girl,” Breslin growled.
Ava dropped his hands and sat up straight.
“Do not dare raise your voice to me, Carter. I am not one of your hangers-on and will not be spoken to with such disdain,” Ava admonished.
“She is a girl,” Ava continued, “your own son said as much. Now if you want to continue down this childish path of calling her some kind of monster, boogeyman, or perhaps even a djin, by all means, go right ahead. But you and I both know that is ludicrous and honestly, you sound like a fool every time you do it. I utterly abhor those edicts you send out, calling her everything but what she is: a girl.
“Did it ever cross your mind how easy it is to defeat a ‘girl’? No one will be afraid of killing a girl, but you’ve gone and turned her into something out of a Sanctum nightmare. She is now more fearsome than any hellion we could conjure, all thanks to you and those stupid edicts.”
Breslin glared at his wife, but remained silent in the face of her biting criticism.
“Now that I have your undivided attention,” Ava continued, “I would suggest you stop focusing on Magicals and turn your attention to the Clayworths, those abhorrent, bloody fools Sam and Josiah. Constantly defying us at every turn, with their
equality-for-all nonsense. They are the problem. New York is their domain and perhaps they haven’t seen the girl but you and I both know the Magicals in their domain have seen her. Often.
“That is where your focus should lie, on that bloody awful family, god only knows how they produced that child Wyatt, but instead you want to play doctor evil every night with a different Magical. For years I have tolerated your blood-thirst, allowed you to engage in these torture games, but now we must focus. You must stop playing with Magicals and behave like a proper Breslin. Otherwise, Max and I shall handle this on our own, for I'm starting to see our boy has much more of me in him than I originally thought.
"So you decide, Carter," Ava quietly requested, "now."
Breslin leaned back in his chair, needing a little space from his wife, lest he reach out and smack her across her incredibly smug face.
"My love, of course. As you wish," Carter smiled a smile that was anything but happiness.
"Bravo," Ava lightly clapped her hands, patronizing her husband one more time, purely for her own amusement, “to start, what kind of mess have you left downstairs, Carter?"
Breslin stood suddenly and glared down at his wife, unable to hide his irritation with her, despite his best efforts.
"There is no mess, Ava. It's already been attended to."
Ava stood as well, disliking the feeling of Breslin looking down on her. She touched his arm, lightly, wanting to diminish some of the venom flowing between them, and felt him relax immediately. Ava smiled to herself, pleased to know she still held this power over him, fully aware he had the same effect on her.
"Let's not be like this, Carter," she leaned in close and whispered, "we have much to accomplish and are on the same side."
Breslin turned to her and ran his hands over her sleek hair, admiring her evil beauty. Her blood red lips never ceased to attract and distract him. He bent close and bit one, not gently at all, and thrilled at her cry of pain then kissed her fully and deeply, only stopping when she pushed him away.
"Enough," Ava insisted.
Book One: The Girl (The Sanctum) Page 18
