by Ella Frank
Then he thought of Si’Bastian… Yes. He was the key here, the solution.
If he could work out a way to get the sensualeer’s mind-reading ability up and functioning, then they’d be able to track them down. That, however, meant risking other abilities reemerging—strengthening.
It also meant putting someone else besides himself in harm’s way.
“Ry’Ker?”
The voice came from behind him, and when he turned and spotted Ai’Den, he remembered the way he’d been unable to resist the pull Si’Bastian had projected and knew that most would have reacted the same way.
“Ry’Ker? Where would you have me search?”
Right… The women.
“Do a perimeter sweep. Take my horse and get Niall to go with you. If the three of them have made it outside the walls, I have to believe they are armed—or we need to retrain our men on hand-to-hand combat.”
Ai’Den nodded his understanding and made a move to leave. Before he was one step away, Ry’Ker said his name.
“Ai’Den?”
The healer looked over his shoulder at him with a questioning expression.
“Did you sense anything from the Prince? Is he in good health? I didn’t get a chance to ask earlier.”
Ai’Den came back to stop in front of him and frowned. “The strangest thing about that…”
“Yes?” Ry’Ker questioned, moving closer to the man.
“I couldn’t sense any kind of living signature from him. Nothing. It was similar to that of the redhead’s earlier. But unlike hers, where I sensed death…with him…”
Ry’Ker waited, not realizing he had been holding his breath until he demanded, “What? What did you sense from him?”
“I am not even certain,” he murmured.
Ry’Ker grabbed his arms, shaking him. “Tell me.”
“I can’t. I’ve never felt anything like that before.”
Relieved for the moment that Ai’Den seemed none the wiser to the man locked away, he released his hold on him and was even more resolute in his decision to keep Si’Bastian away from fresh eyes. Eyes with questions—questions he’d been forbidden to disclose answers to.
“Go. Search the perimeter with the men. They may need you when they find the women.”
With a quick nod, Ai’Den turned and then made his way across the courtyard to the stables to retrieve his horse. Ry’Ker stared up at the closed window of the tower and knew what must be done.
It was the exact thing he’d dreaded for as long as he could remember.
* * *
“What do you mean you killed your mother?”
Kai heard the question, but as he looked into the disbelieving eyes, he wished he could avoid it. He didn’t want to retell this story—certainly not to her.
Dragging his eyes from hers, he stood from the bed. Discarding the covers, he let the cold stone of the floor make his feet ache as he walked to the window. The shutters were closed, and as he unlatched and pushed them open, he felt the punishing, cool air hit his naked flesh. It was icy, immediately dampening any desire he may have had to go back and take the woman on the bed.
“Kai?”
Her voice was uncertain as he heard the covers on the bed move under her weight. He looked over his shoulder at her and saw that she was kneeling on his side with the furs held to her breasts.
The shame that hit him in that moment was the most consuming kind he’d felt since the day of the act itself. How could he explain to her, to this stranger in his bed, that he had had to drive his sword through his mother’s heart? That she’d begged him to?
He looked away, back out into the darkness. “We are very different, Naeve.” He thought about how idiotic that statement was.
Clearly, she felt the same way. “I realize that. I’m trying to understand.”
“Trying to understand what?” he bit out and turned back to face her. “That you just let a murderer inside your body?”
“No,” she denied.
Kai could see that the thought hadn’t actually occurred to her until he had said it. But now that he had…
“Is that why you live all the way out here?” she asked. “Are you wanted for murder?”
“I live here because it is my home.”
“And because you aren’t allowed at L’Mere?”
Kai’s fingers dug into the ledge of the windowsill as he grated out, “I’m allowed to enter L’Mere. I was there with you, was I not?”
She seemed to think over that and nodded, “Yes, but—”
“But what?” he thundered, marching back over to the bed. Gripping her chin, he tilted it back so she was forced to look up at him. “But my brother threatened my life? And so did the Commander? Yes, they did. And they do that not because I ended my mother’s life, but because I had the nerve to.”
He saw tears welling in her eyes, and he wondered at the cause of them, but he was already too far in, too deep within his own darkness to stop or show mercy. If his little rabbit wanted the gory details, then she would hear them from him. Others would only tell vicious rumors and lies, too blinded by tales of his desertion to see in him one of their own kind.
“She was dying, Naeve. Infected by this wretched curse. One of her men, our men, turned on her. They stabbed her right where I told you to.” He reached down and touched her side. “In the soft spot…her gut. But she was smart and quick, and she managed to draw her weapon to slice open his jugular. Even wounded, my mother was a fighter…”
Naeve blinked up at him and a tear rolled out of the corner of her eye, but Kai schooled his features into the hardened face he’d been wearing for years. He didn’t think he remembered how to feel sorrow.
“Ry’Ker and I had been away training at L’Mere. We returned that day to an empty house and a trail of blood—her blood. And it led to her room, where she’d barricaded the door. I remember the pain in my shoulder as both Ry’Ker and I rammed against the wood, trying as hard as we could to enter her chambers. And finally, it worked and opened a crack.”
He released the hold he had on her chin and moved to sit down on the bed next to her. Still naked, he would’ve thought the air would bother him, but he realized that all he felt was numb as he recalled the darkest hours of his life to the warm, vibrant woman beside him.
“We ran inside to see her crumpled in a ball. Curled in the corner of her room, clutching her side. There was blood everywhere… So much blood.” He felt a small hand touch his shoulder but was too far inside his memories to acknowledge it. “I got to her first. Ry’Ker… He stayed by the door, rooted to the spot…” His voice trailed off as he revisited that day, that moment in time he was so careful to avoid…
“Mala’Kai…”
“Mother,” he said as he rushed over to her side, his feet slipping slightly underneath him as he stepped into the pool of blood, which had spread out beside her.
Her hair was a disheveled mess of inky black around her face, and her ivory-colored gown was stained crimson. Crouching down beside her, Kai placed his hand over hers, but she shook her head adamantly and scooted away, wincing at the pain from her wound.
“Do not touch me…and you must not touch my blood.”
Kai looked down at his boots and then back at her with questioning eyes. “Mother?”
“I’ve been infected, son…”
As her words trailed off, he frantically thought back to the latest report at L’Mere. Their home, Claremont, was said to be one of the remaining havens, one of the places where the water still ran clean.
“How?”
“I…” she started and then sucked in a sharp breath from the obvious pain.
“Shh. It doesn’t matter,” he tried to tell her, but as he stared at her colorless face, he swore he would find out. Then he glanced back at Ry’Ker, who was still standing where he’d originally stopped. “Don’t just stand there, brother. Come closer. Can’t you see she is dying?”
Ry’Ker’s eyes, the same as those of his own, moved over
her in a frantic search, almost as though he were looking for a way to make it not so. When it appeared he wouldn’t be moving anytime soon, Kai looked back to his ailing mother.
“What can I do?” He wanted to ease her suffering, go for help if need be. But before he could suggest it, she uttered words he couldn’t quite believe.
“End it.”
The words were so quiet that he thought he’d imagined them at first, but when his eyes found hers, he knew he had not. The resolve in them was clear. She’d made her decision and she was asking it of him.
“Mother…”
“Mala’Kai, do not fret. It is okay. This is what I want.”
He looked at her, unbelieving of the request she was making of him. “Mother…no. There has to be another way.”
She shook her head sadly. “There is not. And even if there were, the infection alone puts you and Ry in harm’s way, and I would ask the same thing. But with this…”
She drew her hands away, and blood began to seep from the cut in her dress. The hiss of pain pulled her parched lips into a grimace and had him once again reaching for her.
“No, Mala’Kai,” she warned, and he snatched his hand away. Lowering her voice to a whisper, she made her case once more. “This is the only way. You are the only one I could ask. With your father gone, you are the head of Claremont. You have been in training. You know how to do this swiftly. I need you to do this, Kai.”
Her eyes shifted beyond him to where he knew Ry’Ker stood. Her request was unknown to the boy standing behind him, and as Kai reached for the hilt of his sword, she nodded.
“Ry…” she murmured, stretching a hand out to his brother. Kai stood aside, understanding what she was about to do. “Come here to me, my sweet, sweet boy.”
Ry’Ker walked stiffly across the chambers to where she was seated, and she gestured for him to come over to her right side. She looked up at him and gave a weak smile that barely touched her eyes.
“I’m glad that you are here.”
“Mother…we need to…we need to get the healer,” Ry’Ker stammered as he lowered himself down in front of her.
“No,” she told him softly, shaking her head with that tight-lipped smile. “I am okay. I don’t feel any pain.”
Kai knew that was a lie. There was no blood in her cheeks, no color at all as it continued to drain all over the ground underneath their feet. She leaned back, angling herself so her chest was wide open to him—a clear target.
“You’re here, and so is your brother. That is all I need.”
Ry’Ker’s body shook as he looked at her, and Kai knew that his brother was crying. He could feel the bile rising in his throat at what he knew he was about to do.
“Mother,” Ry’Ker’s voice broke as a sob escaped. “You will die.”
“I’m dying already, but I can go now. You are both back home. Back where you should be. Together.”
“No!” He moved to touch her.
But this time, it was Kai who heard himself say, “Ry’Ker, don’t.”
As his brother turned to face him, Kai’s eyes found his mother’s and she gave a swift nod. That was when he brought the sword down to the left side of her chest and did as she’d requested.
He ended it.
Li’Am didn’t remember taking a breath until he stormed through the door of his chambers, which were situated in the West wing of L’Mere.
He shut the door behind him and strode over to stop before the full-length mirror in his room, where he placed his hand on the frame and bowed his head. With reluctant eyes, he looked up at the reflection facing him and was surprised at what he saw.
There, in front of him, wasn’t the monster he’d expected to see. It was just…him.
He narrowed his eyes as he inspected his face, wondering if he was missing something. He had to be, didn’t he? How could he be doing what he was and not have it reflect outwardly in some way?
But no, there was no hint, no trace of the atrocities he’d committed.
Revolted with the relief he felt, he dropped his hand and spun away from the damning reflection. Then he walked over to the window of his room and gazed out into the night. The stars had stopped twinkling months before—another sign that the Guardians were weakening.
A sign that their land was indeed wasting away as it was being choked by Seraphine’s hatred.
The flicker of light across the courtyard caught his eye, and he found himself looking at the East tower—the tower he’d ‘banished’ his son to many years ago.
Si’Bastian.
He knew his son thought he kept him locked away for malicious reasons. That, however, was not the case. He kept Si’Bastian secluded because he was in danger of revealing everything he was without even knowing it.
The boy was better off not knowing all the facts. If he thought he hated him, then so be it. At least then he wouldn’t question his imprisonment. Which was exactly what Li’Am needed because he didn’t yet possess the answers that would keep his boy safe.
He was still missing something. He just didn’t know what yet.
The night Bastian had been born, his mother had passed only minutes after. She’d reached for her babe, and the nursemaid had brought him to her, wrapped in cloth as she patted down his tiny head. He’d been wailing, sucking in gulps of air for the first time in his tiny lungs, as his little fists flailed about, finally free of the confines of the warm haven of his mother’s womb.
“Here he is, Sinead. A beautiful, healthy boy.”
Sinead had brought him in close to her chest and rested him down between her breasts as she cooed to him words of comfort. Li’Am recalled the way he’d felt as he’d watched his wife and child. He’d felt peaceful—until she brushed her hand down their child’s back, pushing the cloth from his skin.
There, weaved in intricate gold at the top of his son’s spine, was a marking unlike any he’d seen on flesh before—and just when he’d been about to mention it to Sinead, her fingers trailed up and over the blemish and a brilliant light exploded in the room.
He remembered nothing beyond that…except waking to find the nursemaid collapsed and lifeless by the side of the bed and Sinead with their son crying against her breast. Her arms had lain limp by her sides, her chest no longer moving with each breath because she no longer had any.
Bastian’s arms had continued pumping, his feet kicking with life, and as Li’Am made himself move to Sinead’s side, he noticed on the back of his little hand a marking he knew all too well—it was that of the sensualeer.
His son was marked, just as his sister Seraphine was—but he was marked twice.
For hours, they remained like that—him by his dead wife’s side and his child screaming for a mother who was no longer.
Since that day, he’d devoted his life to discovering what the marking that was etched into the top of Bastian’s spine was. What powers did he hold that were so great that, within seconds of being born and touched, he’d killed two, including his mother—not that Bastian would ever know it was his flesh that had done that. As far as he was aware, it had been due to childbirth.
Since there’d been no one left to contradict that point, Li’Am had seen no harm in keeping it from his boy. He had learned to hate him for other reasons in the end anyhow.
Li’Am turned his back on the window and thought to himself how much it would hurt Bastian to have the mossfire cuff removed. He wished he could save him that pain, but he must continue along this path if he was to gain the answers.
Maybe then, he’d be forgiven.
He’d lived the life of a lie, one where the world thought he feared his sensualeer son, that he despised him, when, actually, he was doing everything in his power to understand him—to help him understand himself.
He wanted to keep his boy safe, to give him answers, even if it meant losing his own life in the process.
* * *
Siobhan looked out into the endless darkness and wondered, What now? They’d actually managed to g
et free of the castle’s walls.
“What now?” Fiona asked, mirroring her thoughts exactly.
How was she supposed to know?
Her first goal had been getting out of the room—check, they’d done that. Second goal, getting out of the castle walls—check, done that too. Hell, why not add in the third goal to acquire a heavy-as-shit sword to wave around and hopefully scare passersby—check, got that in the bag also.
She turned to face Fiona and gave a quick shrug, hoping to appear confident at least. She knew her sisters were counting on her to be the ‘brave one,’ so she could do that. Right?
“We find Naeve.”
“Sure,” Fiona drawled softly. “Just like that.”
“Yes, just like that.”
Siobhan looked around and noticed that their only real option was to head toward the woods to their left. If they moved straight forward or to the right, there was nowhere to hide. It was wide-open land.
“What was the guy’s name who took her?”
“Kai,” Audra spoke up. “His name was Mala’Kai.”
“Right. Well, we need to find him. Surely someone else in this place will know who he is.”
Fiona shook her head as if she thought the idea a horrible one. “I’m not sure we should be walking around, asking for this guy. He wasn’t exactly the ‘protection inspiring’ kind. More likely the type who would have us dragged to his place and thrown in a dungeon.”
Siobhan rolled her eyes. “Really? A dungeon?”
“Yeah, a dungeon,” Fiona stressed. “You don’t think a place like this would have one? It’s a goddamn castle, Siobhan. Wake up. Wherever the hell we are, the dungeons they have here wouldn’t be the plush ‘sex club’ kind.”
“Okay, okay,” Siobhan relented. Fiona was right; they needed a plan, but what? “What if we make our way over to the woods? When we’re there, we can think of what to do next.”
