Soulbound

by Bec McMaster

  Cleo squeezed his hand.

  "She was never the same after that day," he whispered. "And on my next birthday, she collared me. I'd... forgotten about brushing her hair, about the books she sometimes bought me, for it seems so long ago now."

  "The journal's bringing everything up," she said softly.

  "She lost a first child before I was even born," he whispered, his gaze dropping to his lap. "A daughter. I never knew that. It's all through her journal. What she dreamt the child would look like, the little dresses she would buy for her, a trip to Paris for the pair of them when the girl was older....

  "She was threatened by me," he continued in a hoarse voice. "Because I was not a daughter. Her uncle.... The things he did to her as a child.... It broke her somehow, I think. And when she married my father, she could not see past her uncle. Whenever she'd speak of Drake, it was always with vitriol. ‘He betrayed me.’ With another woman. With the divorce, when she was accused of murdering his nephew and only heir." Sebastian buried his face in his hands. "And I was my father in every way in her eyes. 'You're his mirror image,' she used to say, but it was not in pride. But she loved this daughter. She loved the idea of her in a way she could never love me."

  Cleo brought their clasped hands to her lips, pressing a kiss to the back of his hand. This was the heart of his turmoil, and her heart broke for him.

  "I was a threat," he rasped, and this time his eyes gleamed from emotion, not the moonlight. "But once upon a time, she was occasionally kind and... I'd forgotten that."

  Cleo gently tugged him into her arms, and he rested his head on her shoulder. "I think the worst thing about hateful parents are those small moments of kindness. For they give you a glimpse of hope. They make you crave it, and you can never understand why they withhold it so frequently." Cleo stroked his hair. "Your mother didn't deserve you."

  He was silent for a long moment. "Your father didn't deserve you."

  Cleo sucked in a sharp breath, for it hit a little too close to home. For what if Lord Tremayne wasn't truly her father?

  Chapter 18

  SEBASTIAN SAT UP from deep sleep with a gasp, rubbing at his throat. The collar was gone, but he could still feel the ghostly caress of it from his dreams, as if it were branded in his memories. He could feel Julia Camden's touch as she worked his body like a puppeteer.

  He couldn't stay here. Mother night.

  Scraping a hand over his mouth, he shoved the blankets aside and found his feet. A restless energy swept through him, one that demanded movement, and then he slipped his trousers and robe on, and escaped his bedchamber.

  The hallway was cooler, his bare feet slapping on the timber floors.

  He turned to glance at Cleo's room. He'd insisted that she stay in her own room tonight, knowing the diary would stir his nightmares. He couldn't go to her now either. Not with the stain of his past upon him.

  Sebastian made his way downstairs, a silent ghost in the dark. Easier to breathe here. Easier to get some perspective. Curse Lady E for asking him to read that bloody journal. It stirred old wounds, dragging him back into a past he'd rather leave behind. And for what? What fucking purpose? Was he supposed to remember all the times he'd tried to please his mother? The gifts—her little reward system.

  The fact that once upon a time he would have done anything—anything—for one kind word from her.

  His chest felt like a gaping hole, his ribs splayed wide and bloody. He couldn't fucking breathe.

  Pressing a hand against the wall, he rested his forehead on the cool plaster. He needed silence and cold. Something to ground him and remind him he was in the here and now, and not trapped in that nightmare.

  A sharp crack made his eyes jerk open, and he lifted his head.

  Turning, he caught a glimpse of a slash of warm candlelight lighting the hallway floor toward the back of the house.

  A shadow rippled through the light, moving with predatory intensity, and he froze, instantly recognizing its owner.

  Bishop.

  Who should have been tucked up in bed with a warm handful of his beloved wife.

  The last thing Sebastian wanted was to be caught out here. To have to explain his actions. He tensed to go, listening intently, but his brother never stepped through the door.

  And curiosity began to lash through him.

  From what he'd seen of his brother's marriage, Bishop and Verity were happily bonded. But his brother was clearly haunting the other edge of midnight for a reason, and as much as he wanted to snort at the notion, he doubted it was because Bishop had nightmares too.

  It was foolish. Resentment rose in his chest as he moved silently down the hall, but he simply couldn't help himself.

  The door was open, just enough to see through. The back end of his brother was bent over something—a table perhaps—and it all suddenly made sense when he realized Bishop held a billiard cue in his hand. He saw the stick move sharply, and then heard the crack of a pair of balls. Bishop stepped back into view, scowling at the table, and Sebastian froze.

  "Are you coming in?" Bishop called softly, in that scarred-velvet voice. "Or going to stand out there pretending you can sneak up on an assassin who can hear the beat of your heart calling to him."

  Caught.

  Bishop tilted his head, those dark eyes meeting and holding Sebastian's gaze through the slender opening. Sebastian breathed out through his nose, and then slowly pushed the door open.

  He didn't want to be here. Didn't want to have to talk to this man. "That's incredibly creepy, you know."

  Bishop chalked his cue, and gave a faint shrug. "I'm a practitioner of the Grave Arts. Brandy?"

  Sebastian sauntered around the table, rolling one of the balls under his palm. "I thought abstaining from anything that was supposed to weaken my resolve was the key to mastering myself?"

  Bishop poured himself a brandy, then held the bottle up as if to ask again.

  Sebastian nodded.

  Liquid splashed into the glass, the warm amber glinting in the firelight. Bishop set the bottle aside, then turned with a tumbler in each hand. "Can't sleep?"

  Sebastian looked away as he took the tumbler. "I'm not the one with a wife upstairs and a warm bed waiting for me, while I'm trying to beat myself at billiards."

  "Right." Bishop snorted. "If we want to play that card, then I could counter with the fact you have a wife. And a warm bed waiting for you, if I'm not mistaken."

  That was part of the problem.

  "Fancy a game of billiards?" Bishop asked.

  "What? No lessons?" Sebastian arched a brow, and gestured to the cue stick. "No throwing mage globes at each other, or having my teeth handed to me while you show me just how proficient you are with that thing?"

  "Not in the house. Verity would have a fit if we broke anything."

  "Verity wouldn't give a damn. She was raised in the streets of Seven Dials. I daresay she's seen her fair share of broken furniture."

  Bishop ran his hand along the billiards table. "She's quite partial to this."

  Sebastian paused. Did he just...? He glanced down at the table and swiftly removed his hand from its surface. It wouldn't be the first time Bishop had seduced his wife in an area other than his bedroom—or perhaps it was the other way around. He was never quite sure.

  "And this is the first time Ver's ever had a home," Bishop pointed out. "I'm not about to let you destroy that for her."

  Sebastian slunk around the table, uneasy still. He liked Verity. Probably more than he should, considering how few people he could truly trust, but there was something about the look in her eyes at times. Shadows haunted her, and despite her quick wit and smile, she had the look of a survivor.

  She'd also kept his secret, if Bishop's rare good mood was anything to go by.

  "You just want to beat me at something else," Sebastian said slowly. He should make his excuses. Leave. But what was the point? He was only going to stare at the ceiling for half the night.

  "That's what brothers do, do
n't they?"

  Their eyes met.

  He'd been Montcalm, and Sebastian, and "apprentice," but he'd never been called brother. Not by this man. Not without sneer or sarcasm. "I wouldn't know."

  Bishop screwed up his face as if he'd bitten into rotten fruit. "Neither would I. You're not the only one trying to find your feet in this scenario." Bishop looked frustrated. "I can't reach you. Not as a tutor. You don't trust me. We're getting nowhere. The ladies told me to play nice."

  As suspected. Sebastian stared at this brother of his, hands in his pockets. "I appreciate the truth. Subterfuge doesn't sit well with me."

  "In the interest of truth then, I'll also admit that beating you at billiards does entertain me. Just a little."

  "You might lose."

  "Care to wager on it?"

  Despite himself, he was drawn. This was one area where they stood on even footing. "What do you want? My soul?"

  Bishop flashed him a dangerous smile. "I think you've already traded that. It didn't go well, from what I've seen."

  Sebastian's eyes narrowed. "Are you actually joking about the demon? Verity's right. You do have a terrible sense of humor."

  "In? Or out?"

  "In. If you lose, then you have to wear a pink waistcoat." He smiled as Bishop blinked in surprise. "For a week."

  "Going straight for the throat, I see." Bishop considered him. "If I win, then you have to offer to clip Agatha's toenails."

  He almost choked.

  "Best of three," Bishop said, with an evil smile.

  "I'm not going to lose." Not now, with so much at stake.

  Bishop racked up the three balls, setting them with precision into a triangle. "Your break."

  "Too kind."

  Bishop flashed white teeth at him in what was probably the first true smile he'd ever shared. "I wanted you to get one good innings in before I demolish you."

  "You do realize you've never seen me play? There wasn't a lot to do for a boy in the countryside in Le Havre." And if big brother thought he was being a sport in offering the first cut to Sebastian, then he wasn't going to return the favor. It was about bloody time he was finally better at something than Bishop.

  "Le Havre? That's where you grew up?" Bishop stepped back from the table, and tugged his cheroot case out of his pocket.

  "Calais for a while, then Geneva for a few years, and on to Vienna. Morgana sent me to the Consular Academy—a boarding school there—while she vanished for a few years, presumably leading the Order's assassins on a merry chase. Ghent, Munich, Le Havre, then on to Paris." Paris, where his mother's friends first laid eyes upon him. The name of the place flinched through him, and predictably, he missed his first shot, sending the balls scattering, but not pocketing a single one.

  Sebastian looked up, but Bishop seemed preoccupied with lighting his cheroot. It wasn't as if he could have known the effect asking about Sebastian's past might have had on him.

  He split the pair of balls in the corner, sending them flying around the table as Bishop poured them another brandy. One hit the pocket, and Sebastian showed his teeth in an equivalent smile as Bishop passed him his drink. "I'm out of practice."

  "And two shots in."

  He considered the play of the table, sighting along the cue. There was no way he could manage this in fewer than three shots. He sank the second ball, and then moved intently to set up the third.

  "The Order had an execution warrant out for your mother," Bishop said, leaning against the fireplace. "But it's almost like she vanished once she left England. They had Sicarii assassins hunting her for years, and even they couldn't find her. Nobody even knew you existed."

  "Morgana's a master of the Art of Illusions," he breathed, lining up the final ball. "From my very first memory, I wore a watch covered in runes that cast an illusion every time someone looked at my face. I was never allowed to take it off. I'm certain she had her own version."

  He hammered the final ball into the end pocket. "Four shots. Your turn."

  Bishop looked interested as he took the cue. "A watch to wield the illusion? That's an incredible amount of fine detail to set up in the spell work. Illusions work best when they're being managed directly."

  "Whatever else she might be, my mother's an excellent sorceress," he said begrudgingly as he racked up the balls for Bishop. It was part of the reason they were having so much trouble finding her.

  "How would you even...? You'd have to keep powering it. No, maybe a rune to channel your own power, but then you said you were young when she gave it to you, not fully fleshed into your powers yet, so...." Bishop looked like he was trying to solve some complex mathematical equation.

  And enjoying the idea of it.

  Sebastian fetched the balls from the pockets. "I had to wind it each morning to power the spell for that day. There was a rune in the side of it to gather energy into the device, and when you wound it, the spell was triggered until it ran out of power. If I forgot to wind it in the morning...." His stomach knotted at the memory.

  "If you forgot...?"

  "Then she put me in a travelling trunk and locked me in," Sebastian replied, and made sure the balls sat in a straight line. No point in handing Bishop the victory.

  There was silence.

  He looked up.

  "A trunk?" Bishop asked incredulously. "How old were you?"

  It wasn't the worst thing he'd ever endured, though it had given him a fear of the dark for a long time. "Perhaps five or six."

  "For how long? Did she feed you? Did she...." Bishop seemed as though he didn't know what to say.

  "The worst was a day or two," Sebastian replied coldly. "It didn't take me long to remember to wind the watch. She said it was to teach me responsibility."

  Bishop scowled, and paced around the table. He considered the placement of the balls, but looked through them as if he saw something else. "Damnation."

  "What?"

  "Agatha's right, as bloody usual," Bishop muttered, sending the balls careening around the table. None of them landed, a sure sign he'd upset the other man. "You don't respond to punishment. You've been punished too often."

  He laughed under his breath. "Not a single thing you've done to me this past month is what I'd call punishment."

  Bishop paced around the table, but his lips were pressed firmly together. Flashes of his dark eyes kept sweeping over Sebastian, but he finally focused on the billiards table. He potted two balls off his next shot, muttering under his breath, before he chalked his cue and considered the play. "Then what do you respond to?"

  Nothing. But that wasn't entirely correct. "Rage. Fear. Anger.... Violence." He thought for a little bit. "Being chained up."

  Being chained down, and whipped, and raped.

  "All emotions, or a physical threat that inspires emotion," Bishop said. "And you can't use that forever. Expression is too dangerous, you need to learn to—"

  "—master your will," he echoed, as if he hadn't heard it a thousand times before.

  Bishop missed his next shot.

  "It appears this round will be a tie, at best," Sebastian mused.

  "There's also guilt," Bishop said, taking his time to set up for the fourth shot.

  Guilt. He felt leaden. "That doesn't inspire me."

  "The only reason you're here attempting to rescue our father is because you feel guilty," Bishop pointed out. "It took me a while to realize you even cared."

  Sebastian headed for the brandy. This was not the sort of conversation one wanted to have whilst sober. Fuck. "I don't care for him. He's a stranger, and all he's ever meant to me was a windmill to tilt at. My mother's dreamed of Drake's downfall for years. I just.... I just want to know why he did it."

  It plagued him at night. He drained his drink, poured another. "I mean, why would he sacrifice himself to the demon in my place? He had to know he might never escape its clutches. He had to know how horrible it would feel. It's been using him as a vessel for over a month, and I could barely handle a single day with it i
nside me."

  Sometimes when he woke, he could still feel that vile thing inside him. His soul had been locked away deep within his own mind, passenger in a body he could no longer control, but he'd seen what it was doing. He'd felt it pressing in upon him, until it was a wonder he could stand to be in a dark room at all these days.

  "And you never think about how he feels, with it inside him?" Bishop murmured. "You've been there. You know."

  "Of course I bloody do." He drained another snifter of brandy, feeling the urge to pace.

  Bishop turned back to the table. "Guilt," he pronounced.

  It wasn't that fucking simple.

  "I barely know the man." His voice rose. "He got my mother with child, then divorced her when he realized she'd poisoned his nephew. The only part he's played in my life has been a name my mother's cursed for years—the reason we're even here in this country to begin with. He was a target. Nothing more. What do you expect from me?"

  "Drake thought you were dead. Your mother sent him a bloody rag and told him that was all that remained of the child she carried. He believed it. He mourned you for years."

  "Then he didn't know my mother. Morgana doesn't cast aside a potential weapon, no matter how angry she is." Sebastian's lips thinned. Something had been plaguing him. "What happens if we can't get him back? I asked Lady Eberhardt but she said I should ask you."

  Bishop's face blanked of all emotion, and he examined the billiards table with ruthless intensity. "That's not an option. We will get him back."

  He sighted down the cue, but he didn't fool Sebastian.

  Not this time.

  Especially not when his next shot went wide, and he turned to the chalk as if it alone could save him.

  "Everyone keeps saying Drake's the greatest sorcerer of this generation. And the demon within him isn't going to be so kind as to relinquish its hold." Sebastian could remember the feel of its claws raking through his mind, and swiftly swallowed the rest of his brandy with a shudder. "Not after it went to so much trouble to trap him into being its vessel. We have the Wand, and the Chalice, but not the Blade. Not the real one. And even if we do get our hands on it, can we vanquish a First Tier demon?"