“Human sex slaves…” I repeat the words, trying to wrap my head around this.
I know Xander said there was a break in the Regime during their early days, but I didn’t think it was that kind of break. Just hearing about it is bad enough—but it’s even worse to see my mother’s face beaming back at me from the center of the group of people who laid the groundwork for such atrocities to even be considered.
“It was a different time, Rory.” Xander rests his hand on the small of my back as I take the portrait from him and hold it in my own hands. “For the first time ever, so many magical people were truly united—and power, especially when it congregates, tends to corrupt.”
“The only limits before the Regime had been our own division,” Killian pipes up. “After the Regime, there were no limits at all anymore.”
“But…enslaving humans? Forcing them into sex with magic? What kind of monster comes up with an idea like that?”
“A very clever monster,” a cool female voice says from the doorway.
We all raise our eyes to see Xander’s mother standing there, dressed in crisp white and looking just as beautiful as she does in the photograph. She’s wearing gloves just as white as the rest of her outfit. When she enters, she runs a finger over the frame of an oil painting of Xander’s father, then checks it for dust.
“Mother.” Xander’s tone makes it sound more like a warning than a greeting.
“I’m only answering Rory’s question,” Mrs. North says with an innocent little shrug. “It’s a fair one, Rory. You grew up among your humans all your life, didn’t you? From what I hear, you even thought you were one of them.” The smile on her lips is sad, like she feels sorry for me or something—although I can’t imagine why. “You were never taught about your heritage, so of course you feel close to them. Perhaps a little too close, hmm?”
Mrs. North looks pointedly at Drew. He only blinks back at her, standing his ground. Refusing to react.
I don’t have that same level of cool right now. I’m pretty much ready to deck this woman—and that’s before she hits me with the next awful wave of her supposed truth.
“Enslaving the human women was the Chancellor’s idea. There’s nothing quite like good breeding to improve a species, don’t you think?” Mrs. North plucks her gloves off one finger at a time, blinking prettily at me with her stolen green eyes. “But of course, you know that well enough yourself, Rory. Don’t you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I tell her. “My mother might have been there for the Regime’s rise—but she gave her life trying to ensure its downfall.”
I drop the photo into the seat of one of Mrs. North’s expensive armchairs. Something feels incredibly wrong. I don’t want to hold it anymore.
“You’re so sure about that.” Mrs. North stalks closer, looking impressed. I feel my men close in around me—even Killian. “But your mother isn’t the only one who contributed to what a powerful young witch you’ve become. And you, Mr. Iver…” Mrs. North looks Drew up and down like a piece of meat. “It was your parents’ unusual union that first gave the Chancellor the idea.”
“That’s enough, Mother,” Xander snaps.
“No. Let her finish.” I hold my hand up and push through the barricade that the men have made around me. “You obviously have something that you’re trying to get at here. Why don’t you just go ahead and say it? I don’t really do all this smoke and riddles bullshit.”
Xander’s mother shrugs like it’s inconsequential either way. “The more humans that were bred with magical blood, the better chance we’d have that their children would be born witches. It was a huge disappointment that you were born a boy, Mr. Iver—but ultimately, I like to think that some good came out of it. The Chancellor was such a visionary.” Mrs. North picks up the photo frame and looks down at it fondly. “He still is.”
Xander’s mother’s words hit me like a bus. Few in the cities have ever seen the Chancellor—and even then, it’s hard to separate the myths and rumors from the truth. Some say he’s handsome. Some say he’s hideous. There were stories of our fearless leader being half mad, smearing his own shit on the walls of his padded room in the capitol building. Others talked of a man who could make men and women alike fall to their knees pledging their allegiance to him with just a glance. In the eyes of the people, the Chancellor has been a playboy billionaire, a sadistic dictator, a prophet, a hack—or sometimes all of the above all at once.
Did I really see the face of the man who controls the Regime like a puppet master pulling strings somewhere there in the picture? Did I see him and not even recognize who I was looking at?
“Let me show you, Rory.” Xander’s mother offers me the photo back again, her french-tipped finger pointing to the man who runs our government—the man my mother died trying to stop.
When I look, my mouth goes dry. My blood runs cold. For a second, I’m pretty sure my heart fucking stops.
“Oh, dear.” Xander’s mother giggles girlishly, pressing her fingertips to her lips. I’m so stunned, it barely registers that this is the first time I’ve heard her laugh. “Had no one told you yet?”
I can’t process this. I can’t reconcile it. It’s too fucking much—so much, I can barely even breathe, let alone think.
Xander’s mother pats my cheek, tutting softly. “Don’t look so grim, Rory. You have no idea how proud we were when we heard that our very own son had bonded to such a powerful little witch, you know—and not only that, but the daughter of the great leader of our Regime.”
I barely feel her touch. I don’t think I can feel anything anymore.
And there in the photo, just at the end of Xander’s mother’s manicured fingertip, my father’s face grins upward, laughing at something unknown.
Somehow, now it feels like he’s laughing at me.
Drew
“Rory?” I say her name again, hoping that she’ll respond—or that she’ll even just give me a sign that she can hear me. “Rory!”
I have to snap my fingers in front of her face to even get her to blink. This isn’t the Rory that I know—the fierce, headstrong Rory who takes no shit from anyone and is always up to fight the good fight.
The Rory I know would be spitting in Xander’s creepy-ass mother’s face right now. She’d be telling Mrs. North how she doesn’t give a shit who her father is or what he’s done. Affirming that she’s nothing like him—that it’s nurture, not nature that has shaped her life and who she is.
But the Rory I know just got hit with the kind of heavy truth that leaves a nasty mark. Even I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact.
Rory’s father, the Chancellor of the Regime? It doesn’t make any fucking sense. There’s just one big, glaring problem with what Xander’s mother just told us: Rory’s father is dead, and last I checked, the Chancellor is very much alive and kicking, having a gay old time fucking up the lives of lowly roughnecks like me.
Rory’s father died when I was barely able to walk. I remember visiting his grave with my mother, Rory’s mother, and baby Rory herself.
I never understood the wild look in Johanna Bright’s eyes as she stood before her own husband’s tombstone that day, but I understood death and the rules surrounding it. My own mother laid them all out for me the day the family cat ate my parakeet.
With magic, you can come back from a lot—but not death. It’s the one hurdle that magic can’t clear—not even when you’re a witch as powerful as Johanna Bright was.
Or as powerful as Rory is now, for that matter. I’ve seen her growing as a witch since her Awakening, watched her powers blossom and bloom. Even with just three of her guardians to draw power from, she’s already got more raw energy surrounding her than her mother ever did.
And now in her grief or her anger or whatever the fuck it is that she’s feeling right now, she’s starting to lose control.
“Rory.” I say her name another time as the cutlasses over the mantle tremble and her hands glow a bri
ght white. I cup her jaw in my hands as I stoop down to her level so I can look her in the eyes, which look so vacant and far away. “Rory, come on. She’s just trying to get to you—snap out of it.”
Behind her, Xander moves to hold her shoulders and closes his eyes, breathing in. Whatever he does, it seems to help a little—at least the swords stop trembling, at any rate—but the look he gives me when he opens his eyes again tells me that it’s not going to hold for long.
“Goodness,” Xander’s mother purrs. “Have I touched a nerve? Xander, darling, why don’t you take your witch back up to her rooms before she hurts someone. We all know how the Bright women are with their powers when they’re feeling emotional.”
The memory of Johanna Bright’s body being carried out of the little apartment she shared with Rory flashes though my mind, clear as the day it happened. I realize I hate Xander’s mother more than words can express for bringing that kind of shit up in front of Rory right now.
“The stones,” Xander grunts. The way he looks at his mother as he mentions them tells me that he might hate her just as much as I do—maybe even more. “You called us down here to tell us something about them.”
“Mm. Yes, I did, didn’t I? The sapphires will be here by dinner tonight. Eight sharp. I do hope you’ll all clean up for it.” Mrs. North sends a pointed look in my direction and aims another at Ryker. To my surprise, even Nico receives a nasty little twitch of her nose—apparently even our resident vampire is little more than common river trash in her eyes.
But at least that’s the end of it from her. Apparently having met her bitch quota for the time being, Mrs. North sniffs haughtily and puts her gloves back on as she exits the room, leaving Rory to her emotions and the rest of us to trying to help her process them.
As soon as Mrs. North leaves, it’s like the spell is broken. Rory slumps forward, giving herself to my chest and my arms.
“Shh. I’ve got you. It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay,” Rory whimpers, burying her face in my chest. “It’s not okay.”
When she looks up at me, her eyes are wet with tears—but she doesn’t look broken. She doesn’t look sad.
She looks fucking pissed—and she turns her signature Rory Bright glare to Xander so fast, I’m surprised she doesn’t give herself whiplash.
“You knew,” she growls in accusation. “You knew—and you didn’t tell me.”
“I knew.” Xander doesn’t even bother to defend himself. “And I didn’t tell you. You’re right.”
Which just makes him an even bigger asshole in my eyes—no surprises there. But Rory trusted him, and Rory’s obviously hurt by the lie—even if it’s only by omission. It’s a hell of a thing to omit.
“Why?” Her voice is ragged in her throat.
Xander’s face is emotionless as stone. “What would we have gained if you had known?”
Rory doesn’t even entertain Xander’s question. Instead, she turns to Nico, giving him the exact same glare.
“And you. The way your family reacted when they heard my name. You knew too.”
“Rumors, Rory.” Nico is quicker to defend himself, but I think even he knows he doesn’t have a lot of ground to stand on. “Rumors—not facts. Not truths. Not anything I could prove.”
Rory shakes her head no, and I know that Nico isn’t any more absolved than Xander is right now.
When she turns her glare to Ryker, though, he’s able to hold his hands up with true innocence.
“I told you, little witch. The vargr stay out of this shit. I knew there was a Chancellor—nothing more.”
Rory closes her eyes and nods—Ryker is safe from her wrath. But Killian isn’t so lucky. The only high ground he has to stand on is the fact that he admits it before Rory has to ask.
“I knew as well, Rory.” He confesses it freely, like he’s ready to take whatever flack she’s going to give him for it.
“Oh, I bet you know all kinds of shit, Killian Connelly. Not that you’ll tell any of us any of it, will you?”
Killian doesn’t have anything to say to that.
“Let’s go upstairs, Rory.” Xander seems eager to get away from the cutlasses on the wall, which have begun trembling again now that Rory won’t let him touch her. “We can work all of this out up there.”
“No,” Rory tells him. “I’m not going anywhere with you. With any of you. Do you have any idea what a massive fucking secret this is to keep from me? How it makes me feel that none of you felt the need to let me know?”
Rory leaves my arms only to give Ryker a dry kiss goodbye on his cheek, marking him as the only one of the others still in her good graces—for now. When she comes back to my side, there’s a fury in her eyes as she places her hand in mine.
“Take me to your room, Drew,” she says with a strange inflection in her voice. Like she’s not looking to talk when she gets up there. Like now that her little harem has proven to be so misbehaving, she’s ready to do some misbehaving herself.
“Rory!” Nico says her name like he’s going to stop her, but a single look from her says otherwise.
And me?
It hurts that Rory hurts, but if I’m being honest…
I’ve been waiting for this moment for a long, long time.
I try not to look smug as I cast a final glance back over my shoulder at Rory’s guardians and Killian. Xander looks stony as ever. Nico looks so pissed, I can almost feel it—but he has nothing to act on. Ryker just gives me an amicable shrug—he’s never been one to hold what Rory and I have against me. And Killian?
Fucking Killian isn’t even watching us go. I realize this must all be terribly fucking droll for him. When you already know everything that’s going to happen, what’s the damn point?
Rory squeezes my hand tight as she leads me up the stairs. I can feel the heat of her palm against mine as she does. Her emotions are high. Intense and reactionary. It’s making her magic flare up until I can feel it licking my palm, a low flame.
She’s pissed and she should be. If this is true—and it sounds like it is—then it’s a hell of a burden for Rory to carry. I’m just glad that I can be here to help her shoulder some of the weight.
“Hurry up,” Rory urges me, her grip tightening.
“Why?” I ask—like I don’t already know.
“Because,” she says simply, “I want you, Drew.”
“I’m not your guardian,” I remind her.
But Rory doesn’t give a shit about that right now, and neither do I.
“Good,” she tells me. “I don’t want my guardians right now—I want you.”
“And if I die? If they kill me for having you?” I’m not goading her—Rory already knows that I’d give my life for her a thousand times over. I might not have a fancy mark on my chest, but I think I’ve effectively proven that much.
“They won’t.” She sounds fiercely sure of herself. “They can’t.”
We reach the top of the stairs and I can’t take it anymore. I grab her by her hips, spin her around and pin her up against the banister, my lips mere inches away from hers.
“They might.” Her hips are against my thighs, broad yet delicate. As I capture her gaze with mine, I see green fire flickering in her eyes. “They don’t like to share, Rory. Could be consequences.”
Consequences that I’m more than happy to face.
But is Rory?
“Fuck what they like,” Rory informs me. “If they want to get to you, they’ll have to go through me first.”
It’s unspoken between us, but we both know what’s being said here. Rory knows the stakes and she’s willing to face them—for me. For tonight. For what we’ve wanted, both of us, ever since that first time. And no matter how we’ve tried to deny it, no matter how we’ve twisted and turned our desire for each other, it’s been a constant fucking fever that neither of us has been able to sweat out.
It was my kiss that awakened Rory’s powers, and tonight, it will be my kiss that soothes Rory’s pain.
This time, though, I think I’ll place it on a different set of lips.
Rory gasps as I reach beneath her so I can sweep her up off her feet. I might not have magic or mind control or any of the other bullshit that North and Arendale can boast about, but I’ve got more muscle than I know what to do with—and Rory is light as a feather in my arms.
By the time I get her to the bedroom, she’s kissing my neck so sweetly and so hungrily that it’s making my balls ache. I know what she wants from me. Know what she needs.
And I’m just the man to give it to her. Hard and slow and good—the only way I know how.
The bed is soft as a cloud as I lay Rory down onto it, and my cock is stiff as stone. I undress her. Stockings and skirt, bra and panties—all of it, flung across the room and forgotten. Every item removed is that much more of Rory that I can touch. Taste. Take. Make use of.
But this isn’t about my own dirty desires right now. It’s about her.
Still…once I get her naked for me, I can’t help but pull back for a moment to enjoy the view.
She’s a goddess, my Rory. Pale as moonlight and warm as a summer afternoon. Her hair is splayed out across the white silk of the pillows, dark as spilled ink. Her green eyes are shining, bright and clear and true.
Arendale’s empath bullshit is rubbing off on her, I realize. Some of Xander’s shapeshifting, too. I can even see the animalistic nature of Ryker’s powers contained within Rory’s beauty now. Killian’s mystery. And most of all, Rory’s impossible, unbridled power.
The first time I had Rory was raw and desperate, years of desire finally culminating into one intense moment that neither of us thought would ever happen again.
She’s not the same girl now that she was back then. Her cheekbones are sharper now, her eyes more committed. Hell, she’s practically glowing. An enchantress in heat, watching me with the exact same hunger that I feel for her.
Emerald Vows: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Romance (Marked Souls Book 3) Page 11
