by LJ Swallow
“No ravagers? How long have the witches known?”
Ty rubs his face as he studies me. “A while.”
“And they've lied? Why?”
Silas interrupts. “Why do you think? They have no reason to leave behind their easy life in the Sector with humans under their control. Why would they want to give that power away?”
“Something needs to change now. People aren't safe in the Sector. We need the barriers down and the stranglehold on the world by the Othala gone. I doubt we'd reach or communicate with the other Sectors any time soon —it would be like flying to the stars—but at least things would be better,” says Ty.
“And who knows you're doing this? Are other witches involved?”
“No way. We don't trust anybody, else. Once we get a handle on stopping Alaric’s power, and we can deal with him, then we can recruit others.”
“When we get rid of the bastard all together,” snarls Silas. “When Mattias takes over.”
Mattias doesn’t respond but a muscle twitches in his cheek as he moves the map to look at another beneath. He told me he didn’t want to.
“We’re at the sector edge staying here. Alaric is looking for us and it’s easier to see his people coming from a distance. But we move on, place to place.”
“Which we’ll need to do now she’s here,” interrupts Silas.
“I doubt she’ll make a difference. I know Alaric. He’ll want a public showdown with me. A warning to the Sector that he can crush even his most powerful opponent.”
“Aren't you strong? I thought you had the same power,” I ask.
“I am, which is why he’s gathering as much power as he can to match.”
“Exactly.” Silas sweeps his hand at me. “Alaric kills all the time. Why bother with her?”
“Do I really have to answer that question?” snaps Ty. “Would you have left Annie?”
Silas glares and shoves his hands in his jeans pockets. “No, and she's still sick. Can't you do something?”
“We all do what we can.”
“Did you know we heard one last night?” asks Silas.
“One or more?”
“Just one I think. Andy and the team yesterday checked out possible nests and found nothing.” He points at a place on the map. “But they still keep finding us.”
“The odd ravager isn't any danger to us, but my brother is. We need to switch focus.”
“You're preaching to the converted, one who wants to hear solid plans.” He stands and heads to the door. “I need to check up on Annie, see how bad she really is.”
20
The house is reminiscent of the Enclave houses in size, but without maids, or any upkeep at all, the disrepair and uncleanliness places it firmly as a sector house. The walls are old grey stone, the floors cool slate, every part rough around the edges, as if bothering is a time waste.
Ty leads us upstairs to a brightly lit room, where thin curtains blow in the breeze through the open window. Two figures lie in separate beds and an antiseptic smell permeates the room. A middle-aged woman with dark hair scraped back from her face tends to a woman around my age and shares the “displeased to see Cora” reaction.
“I can't deal with new people, Ty,” she says in a weary voice. “There aren't enough supplies.”
“She's not sick, Emma.”
I close my fingers over the heated wound on my hand. When will we have the discussion about the magic? I cross to the woman in the bed as the same conversation occurs over who I am. The medical supplies are few—bandages and syringes stocked in a silver kidney shaped dish. The girl is silent and pale.
A large bandage covers one side of her neck, another wrapped around her arm. I glance at the woman in the second bed, whose laboured breathing fills an awkward silence. Ty's mouth hardens as he looks at her. “Is Annie dying?”
I blink at his bluntness.
“I don't know. Annie is okay, but Tamsin isn't responding well.”
“What happened to them?” I ask.
Ty glances at Emma, and for the first time ever I spot uncertainty in his face.
“They were used to fuel the magic for the sector walls,” says Emma.
“No, that's not right. It's the energy from humans living nearby that keeps the magic strong.”
The woman makes a derisive nose and picks at the bandage around the woman's neck, preparing to change the dressing. She reveals a large wound, the size of my palm, weeping and an angry red.
“My family is responsible for the barriers. That's why we're the Othala royalty, Cora. Nobody else is strong enough.” Ty’s voice is low, distant.
“How?”
As if I need to ask. I stare at Emma's nursing instead of looking at Ty. “Human blood.” He struggles to say anymore, and Emma finishes his story in a bitter voice.
“These women, like most people who help Ty here, were kept like cattle, their blood drained to fuel not only the barrier but the Hyland magic. Human blood is responsible for the life the witches have created and don't want to lose. The more humans there are, the harder everything is to control, and the more people are farmed.”
I swallow down the rising bile. “Farmed?”
“Drained of blood.” She points to the woman's neck. “There aren’t hordes of ravagers intent on killing us all. Why is a barrier needed? The only danger to human life lives inside the barrier.”
“These people don't want to take back the sector,” says Ty quietly. “They want to end it and take back their world. Start again.”
“How can you be sure the ravagers have died out?”
Emma straightens. “We're prepared to risk that after the horror we've been through living in the darkness, halfway to death. I'd rather be ripped apart by a creature lurking out there than be subjected to that again.”
“You were...”
She pulls the collar of her blue shirt to one side and reveals a white scar, recently healed. “Everybody here was.”
“How did you get out?”
She looks at Ty. “The witch and his friend help a select few.”
“Unfair, Emma.”
“Your brother is siphoning ten times more blood than the last Regent, and you won't tell us what magic he's using that for.”
“Because I don't bloody know,” growls Ty.
“You should be back in the Enclave finding out!” She jabs a finger at the window.
Ty holds the back of his head in both hands, elbows at right angles. “I'm doing what I can. You all know that.”
“Is that right?” A guy steps into the room. He's unkempt, greasy hair pushed from his face and clothes hanging from his thin frame. On his neck, the same wound.
“Aaron...”
“You're a lying witch bastard! Look at her!” he crosses to the bed and takes the girl's hand. “I don't believe you want to do anything. This place is your little crusade to clear your conscience, we're like a collection of fucking rescue animals,” he spits. “A year and you've done nothing about the real problem.”
A year?
“I thought I'd have more time before my father died. It's harder now. Once Alaric divides the Enclave more, we strike then.”
“From what I hear, he's killing anybody who speaks against him,” I say.
“And he killed some supporters to make it look like I murdered them. How can I go back if I'll be arrested? What good am I if I die?”
Aaron chews a nail, grasping for a response. “Shut the fucking facility down, Ty. Whatever it takes, end what he's doing.”
The two men stare silently at each other before Ty walks away and slams the door, leaving me standing with the four people in the room.
“Who's she?” asks Aaron.
I sigh at the question asked for the third time in an hour.
“Ty's girl.”
“Really?” He slides a look along the length of me. “What do you think of his behaviour, Ty's girl?”
“I didn't know anything about this until five minutes ago.”
&n
bsp; He snorts. “You sound like an Enclave girl with your posh accent. Did you know you and your kind have lived off the blood of others?”
“We have not!”
“Yeah? Keep telling yourself that.”
Emma nods at my hand. “You've a nasty wound there. Want me to look at it?”
“No. It's fine.” Ignoring my protests, she heads over and takes my hand.
“Animal bite?”
“No.”
“The infection will spread. Let me find some antibiotics.”
“Don't waste them on her. Lover boy can probably heal her up with some magic.”
“I don't think you have any understanding how witches work,” I retort. “That isn't his magic.”
Aaron crosses the room and looks down at me. “I'm well aware of how the murdering bastards work.” He runs his tongue across his teeth, flicking a look between Emma and me.
“I suggest you persuade him to keep his promise. Every day he stalls another person in that evil place dies. I don't give a fuck about politics and witches. If he has the power to take on his brother, he needs to act. Now.”
I bite back a retort. Ty may not be strong enough to take down Alaric, but I'm sure he has the strength to take down a few humans.
“I'll talk to him,” I reply and walk away before things descend any further.
21
I find Ty in his room, sitting in an armchair with his legs outstretched, eyes glazed in deep thought. He looks up when I walk in and away again. Since I arrived, the distance between Mattias and Ty has grown by the minute. He's out of his natural environment, the arrogance no longer manifest, but his strength and determination remain. He can't let that go. Why so defeated?
“Ty,” I say as I close the door behind me.
“Do you hate me now?”
“Why would I hate you?”
Something darker crosses Ty's face. “My family. My history. Murdering people.” He indicates my hand. “You know what fuels mine and my family’s magic by now, don't you? We don't use rituals from incantations or collect leaves in the woods.” I frown at the scorn in his voice. “There's no harnessing nature's forces for us. We use blood magic, pure and simple. We kill for our most powerful spells.”
“Which is what Alaric is doing. Are you? Is that what you’re telling me?”
“No! I don’t bleed humans dry to use with runes and harness the power created. I never touch human blood. I don’t use my magic.” He chews his lip and looks at my hand again. “Usually.”
“But now you're putting yourself at risk to try and change what’s happening. You're not a murderer.”
I shrink back as he stands abruptly and looks down at me. “I was involved, Cora. Taught that human life meant nothing from the moment my mother died.” He moves closer and my back touches the door. “I killed people for fun when most kids were out with friends playing games. My games as a ten year old were hunting them.”
“I don't believe you.” However hard I try, there’s no way I can summon images of this man with human blood on his hands.
“You don't know me or my past. Aaron's right, I'm an evil bastard.”
“But this is why you're Ty now and not Mattias. You're saving people, not murdering them. You’re going to change everything.”
“I don't know if I can.” He sinks onto the bed. “I have no idea if I'll succeed. If I don't, every person helping me dies. I die. Alaric wins.”
I sit next to him. “Of course you can do this. You’re powerful, you told me.”
“What if I'm fooling myself?” he snaps at me. “What if this is some idiotic crusade dragged up by guilt?”
“You were a kid,” I whisper.
“A kid who slit people's throats, who covered his hands in their blood to conjure magic and please my father. There's no excuse. I competed with my brother for my father’s affection and to show him I was ruthless enough to be Regent one day.”
He's distant, reliving memories, and I take his hand. “Not anymore.”
“No, but that doesn't change what I did.”
“What matters is what Ty's doing,” I whisper and touch his face. “Don’t go back there. Focus on what can be done.”
Ty takes my hand and turns it over. “About what I did to you…”
“I'm okay.”
“I always imagined I'd be careful not to allow our blood to touch because I’m worried about the consequences.”
“I'm certain if one of those men had seen me that evening, I'd be dead now.”
He kisses the wound and the skin tingles. “Tell me when... you feel something is different.”
“This isn’t the most important thing happening. Tell me what I can do to help. We will change this. I want to see Alaric dragged down.”
He smiles and touches my face. “You're a brave person with a big heart. How can you look at me without seeing a monster? Trust I won’t do this again?”
“Because I can see a little more of you every day, Ty. Accept who you are or you won’t be able to leave the other person behind.”
Ty’s sadness winds around my heart. He trusted me with painful secrets. I climb onto Ty's lap and wind my fingers into his hair. “You knew no different, isolated from the sector in the Hyland world. Your realisation it was wrong came from in here.” I touch his chest. “Despite everything you were taught, you knew you couldn’t kill anymore.”
I catch a glimmer in his eyes he could believe my words, that I’ve broken through the belief he’s constructed about himself. “Maybe.”
“Yes. Look at those people out there who believe in you. I believe in you.”
Ty strokes my face with the back of his hand. “Shutting you out was a mistake. I thought you were a weakness, but you give me strength. It never occurred to me until that night in the garden that you struggle against your future too.”
“I think the problem is you worry too much about fixing the wrong you did, when really you want to create a better future.”
Ty rubs his face and I take his hand away from where he covers his eyes. “What? Tell me.”
“What I want to do most is something I fight with every day.” I shake my head. “Cora, I want to kill my brother.”
His words echo in the space around us, and I stare back. Ty’s denied this the whole time I’ve known him, but this is inevitable. “I think one of you will die, and I don’t want that person to be you.”
“No, it’s not because I know he wants to kill me. I’ve hated him for years, but I closed down. Alaric killed somebody who meant the world to me, and I’ve never let that go.”
“Who?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t want to talk about it. It’s enough I told you all this… not yet.”
“A girl?” I whisper.
“No, this was a long time ago. I knew then, he was an unfeeling psychopath. I spent years looking for my excuse, and now I’ve found it.”
The deaths, Alice, the effect Alaric has on the world are enough for me to hate him, but whatever Ty’s hinting at, that broke him, creates a new anger of my own.
“And I'll help.”
Ty laughs. “He underestimated you. We both did. Even without our history, I’ve always known I'd do what I promised weeks ago. If he hurts you, I'll rip his fucking head off.”
“He touches me and I’ll rip his balls off.”
“Cora. You funny girl.”
My face tingles as he traces his tongue along my lips, and I part them.
We kiss softly, but as always, this never lasts, and the pent up frustration pours out in our desperation to connect. I dig my hands into his hair and tug his face closer. Ty grips my neck so I’m unable to move, and our focus drops from everything spoken about today, away from everything outside of this room and back to us. Cora and Mattias were constrained, but now our only constraints are ourselves.
“I want you to believe you’re not a monster,” I whisper.
He winds my hair tighter in his hand. “And I want you to be mine.”
> I slip my hand beneath his shirt and run my fingers along his stomach, tracing the contours of his muscles. Ty pushes up my shirt, his hands rough against my skin. His lips move to my neck as he kisses my pulse point, leaving his lips against my skin.
My heart thuds, a mixture of arousal and wariness. What if he leaves again? “Don’t you dare stop this time.”
“Aren’t you worried what I’ll do?” He nips at my neck. “Because I want to do unspeakable things to you,” he growls, dipping both hands to cup my ass and drag me against his hips.
“I’m more worried about what you won’t do.”
I curl my fingers into his hair, pull his face up, and pour my pent-up frustration into the kiss, gripping him to me. Ty winds his hand into my hair too, holding me in place while his tongue strokes mine.
Fixing my eyes on his, I pull my shirt over my head and dump it onto the floor. Ty bites the corner of his lip and smiles, before leaning in for another kiss. He cups my breast and I arch myself into his hand. His kiss deepens, as he rubs my nipple through the silk fabric and trips the switch on the desire for him to consume me. I fumble to drag Ty’s shirt upwards. Signal given, and moments later we’re naked. Almost. The light from the nearby lamp casts shadows across the muscles in his broad chest and back. His lust-darkened eyes meet mine, and for a split second, I’m scared about the strength of what I could unleash in this possessive, protective man.
Ty presses me back on the bed, the barrier of my panties and his briefs the only thing between us. Any worries about what he could do evaporate as he teases my nipples with his tongue. The burning need that’s built between us since the night we met flows through my body; at each point my skin touches his, my blood heats.
Ty growls my name and dives his hand into my panties, fingers seeking my clit, and pushes his thumb against me. He glides his fingers through my wetness, and I push myself against his hand. Ty pushes a finger inside me. The sensation jolts through my body, and I tip my head back, gasping.
I hold his powerful shoulders and dig my nails into his back as his focus remains on pleasuring me. Until…
