Tower of Shadows (Once Upon A Wicked Villain #2)

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

HAVEN

Rozlyn’s kiss would easily bring Haven to his knees, influence him to perform whatever sorcery she asked for. He hadn’t known a kiss could be anything close to that. Sex had always been good with Vivienne, but their kisses had never made his blood run so hot in his veins.

Because of Rozlyn, he would offer Adham a fucking duel over outright ending his life. He’d never once considered it, and if he’d been asked weeks ago, the suggestion would’ve been denied. What was he doing? Defeating the lord during a duel would be no challenge, and it was still an opportunity at a fair beginning. Adham would believe triumph was a possibility. Then, once Haven won against Adham, he was certain that Vivienne would take him back as her match. The rewards would be agreed upon before the duel began, of course.

As Haven walked alongside Rozlyn through the village, he watched as she studied the court with wide eyes. The false gray grass and leaves that were grown with sorcery, and the castle that resembled bones hadn’t even impressed him as a child. Yet Rozlyn was easily captivated by things—something about that made him smile.

He didn’t love Vivienne—that was quite clear. But her sorcery would still be beneficial to him… As selfish as he was, after hearing how Rozlyn felt unloved by her mother before she was abandoned, he would never ask her to become like her. A mistress. Never make her feel as though she were beneath Vivienne. In every way, Rozlyn was much more precious than that.

Perhaps there could be a different outcome once the duel finished…

Haven peered down at his cuff and his chest tightened when he noticed the obsidian was barely there anymore. Soon, the bargain Haven had foolishly made with Nightshade would take effect, and Rozlyn would belong to the ferryman. No. He would be the Lord of Souldark by then and would have the power to renegotiate. Nightshade could fuck off—Haven wouldn’t hand her over to him.

“Once we reach the castle, you’re not plotting to murder all the guards, are you?” Rozlyn asked. “That might frighten the village if you’re going to rule here.”

“I will if they get in my way.” He’d planned to kill them all since they most certainly would attempt to attack him.

“You could choke them with your shadows until they passed out,” she suggested. “They would wake later, albeit angry, but at least there is a chance they wouldn’t rebel once you’re lord of the court.”

“Hmph.” Except Rozlyn was right in her assumptions. He knew she didn’t want to be a royal in Dawnbreak, but she would’ve made a fine one regardless.

At the bottom of the castle’s hill, two male guards in gray and white uniforms stood watch. Haven smirked, and he waved a hand across the air. Two of his shadows drifted from him, curving around trees, slinking across the grass, then unnoticeably crawling up the guards’ bodies until it was too late. Their inky hands wrapped around the men’s throats, squeezing, their faces becoming cherry red and their veins bulging.

His shadows released them, and the guards slumped to the ground. Rozlyn rushed through two rows of bushes to their sides and pressed her fingers to their necks. “They still have a pulse.” She beamed up at Haven. “I believe you’re taking my advice then.”

“Maybe,” Haven grunted. He patted his pocket where the cloth doll and his spell vial still lingered. They would work better during a duel.

As they reached the top of the hill, a guard slipped out from the shadows, and before Haven let his own silhouettes take care of the issue, Rozlyn jabbed him in the throat with her fingers clamped together like a bird beak. His eyes fluttered, his knees buckling as he collapsed to the dirt.

“What?” Rozlyn smiled when she noticed Haven staring at her. “I know techniques too. And he’ll wake up within the next hour.”

Haven rolled his eyes and let his shadows do their work with the remaining guards outside the castle. Three guards and a servant performing sorcery on the flower garden all fell to the ground, their chests rising and falling.

Rozlyn trailed her fingers across a translucent gray flower petal as his shadows drew open the doors. They entered the castle’s sitting room, and three more shadows left him, knocking out any of the guards and servants who noticed them. Except for one. His shadows held a large male guard in the air, the tips of his boots brushing the floor.

“Where is your lord?” Haven growled.

When the stubborn guard didn’t answer, his shadow squeezed tighter, and the man’s face deepened from red to purple.

“One more squeeze and your neck snaps, so I suggest you tell me where he is,” Haven warned.

“In his room,” the guard croaked.

Haven’s shadow finished its work and the guard passed out just as everyone else had.

Rozlyn blinked, her lips parting in wonder as she studied the inside of the castle. However, his expression remained the same. Over the last two years, the paintings of spirits on the walls hadn’t changed. The furniture had, however. The fabrics were no longer gray but a deep blue—Vivienne’s favorite color. Skulls and bones of every sorcerer or sorceress who’d ever died in the Souldark Court remained within the castle, strung across the room, running up the walls, the dome-shaped ceiling, the pillars and arches. Funerals could vary depending on the court, but when someone died in Souldark, sorcery was used to engulf the body in flames until only the skeleton remained. Their bones were then brought into the castle and hung with the others. It was considered a great honor to eternally be with the lord and lady while their soul, if not trapped here, would cross over to the gods.

“This is lovely!” Rozlyn whispered, clasping her hands in obvious elation.

He arched a brow at her. “Rooms of bones didn’t strike me as your aesthetic. But since you like it so much, stay here and guard this area while I go upstairs. I’ll leave two of my shadows with you to help.” He paused and looked down at her. “I know you can handle this.”

“Be careful,” Rozlyn said. Was that melancholy reflecting in her gaze?

Haven turned away from her and ascended the wide stone staircase, the handrail coated in finger and toe bones. Two shadows trailed in front of him, and once they reached the top of the stairs, one darted down the hall to a guard standing outside the royal bedchambers. Just as the woman noticed Haven, his shadow’s fingers wrapped around the guard’s throat until she fell in a heap to the ornate carpet.

If Adham accepted the duel, he would be dead. If he didn’t, Haven would simply revert to his first plan and kill him anyway. He’d betrayed the marquis in every sense of the word. Perhaps not as badly as Vivienne, but he’d never once attempted to speak to Haven about how he’d fallen in love with her.

Haven narrowed his eyes and stormed down the hall. He didn’t pause before throwing open the chamber door, expecting to find Adham and Vivienne sweaty and tangled between the sheets despite the silence. But, when Haven’s gaze settled on the bed, he stopped in his tracks. He sucked in a sharp, angry breath as he studied the still body on the mattress, her royal gray gown, her black curls. Vivienne’s lips were a light shade of blue, her skin sunken and sallow. This couldn’t be true. She couldn’t be … dead .

“What are you doing here, Haven?” Vivienne gasped. Only her words hadn’t come from her corpse but from the open balcony doors. A gray spirit. She wore the same clothing as her dead body, and her brow was furrowed as she peered at him. Haven looked past her to where Adham sat slumped in a wicker chair like a pauper. His button-up shirt and trousers were wrinkled, and his auburn hair hung in disarray to his shoulders. When his exhausted gaze met Haven’s, his eyes were red-rimmed with dark circles beneath them, and he remained quiet, not budging from his seat.

Haven’s match. The reason for everything he’d done over the last two years. Why he’d been cursed . Everything came rushing over him like an avalanche and all for nothing. “You murdered her,” Haven growled at Adham, his shadows flooding out of him, ready to snap and tear the bastard apart. “You fucking murdered her!”

“No!” Vivienne shouted, rushing toward him. Her gray hands held up and waving in desperation, her expression panicked. “He didn’t do anything, I swear it. I hadn’t been feeling well for the past week, and no one knew it was my heart until it gave out yesterday. Healers tried and tried to revive me, but nothing could be done.”

“ I could’ve found a way,” Haven seethed.

“There wasn’t time, even for you. I was gone in an instant.” Vivienne frowned. “Why are you here? After all this time … you’ve never once come to make a social call.”

Haven’s chest clenched at seeing Vivienne this way. Even if he’d realized she wasn’t fit to be his wife, he’d never once wanted her dead. It was Adham who was supposed to be dead, and grieving or not, that still needed to fucking happen.

“It took me years to break a curse that would allow me to come,” he admitted in a dark tone. “I didn’t do all of that for a social call. You’re my match, and even if I’ve grown to understand we never loved each other, your sorcery was made to strengthen mine.”

“After all this time, you’re still worried about your sorcery not being strong enough?” she scoffed. “ That is why I left you, Haven. I was never more than power to you, while Adham has loved every facet of me.”

Haven took a menacing step closer. “He stole something that wasn’t his and it led to a very miserable two years for me.”

“I apologize for making your life so miserable,” Adham interrupted, his voice both dead and dripping with sarcasm. “You are, after all, the most important person in every court of Grimm. How dare we seek happiness if it meant you were unhappy.”

Baring his teeth, Haven balled his hands into fists. “I challenge you to a duel. If I win, the Souldark Court is mine.”

“You will do no such thing,” Vivienne said.

“You don’t have any say in the matter. He took something of mine, now I’m going to take something of his.” Vivienne was meant to be included in the spoils of his win, but that had obviously changed for more than one reason. “Shouldn’t you be with the gods by now?” If Adham was purposely trapping her soul here, he would kill him right now.

“I’m fighting the pull to spend a little more time with Adham. I love him, Haven. And I’m so sorry for what that meant for us. I wish I could go back and tell you how I truly felt when we were first matched. Sometimes people are paired incorrectly, and I know deep in my heart that the matchmaker was mistaken,” she sobbed.

They weren’t paired incorrectly—their sorcery was a match. They simply weren’t. Still, he couldn’t listen to her anymore. Not when he had a duel to fight. Jaw tight, Haven stepped closer to the balcony doors where he faced Adham. “Do you accept the challenge? The winner gets Souldark.”

“Don’t!” Vivienne begged. “Just take my ring, Haven. Please. It’s the source of my power and you can use it however you wish.”

“I will.” He cast her a sideways glance. “After I’m the new Lord of Souldark.”

“Enough.” Adham’s dispirited gaze, pathetic and weak, met Haven’s. “I accept.” He sighed, not a hint of hesitation in his voice. It was obvious that, without Vivienne, the man no longer wanted to live.

“Adham!” Vivienne shouted and collapsed to her knees before him, grasping the lord’s hands. “Please.”

“A duel is fair,” Adham said. “For getting to have you as my lady, for us loving one another, while he suffered your loss. And if I die, I’ll be at your side in the end anyway. We’ll do the duel now, and you, my love, will announce when we begin. Do you agree, Marquis?”

Haven’s eyes narrowed. “I agree.”

Vivienne didn’t fight back as Adham withdrew his hands from hers and pushed up from his seat. Haven stood on one side of the room while Adham remained on the opposite end near the balcony doors. With worried eyes, Vivienne lingered in between them, across from where her dead body lay.

“When I step back from the line and say begin, then you may proceed,” she said softly. “The only rule is that you may not cross where I’m standing to reach your opponent.”

Haven and Adham both nodded in agreement.

Vivienne moved away from her spot and shouted, “Begin!”

Haven retrieved the doll and the vial from his trousers, the spell he’d been waiting obsessively to perform. But as he studied Adham’s unmoving form, Haven didn’t open the vial or chant the words. Did he forgive the lord? Fuck no. Would he give him death? Of course. But something about this was … less than satisfying.

“At least try , you bastard!” Haven snarled.

Adham lifted his hand, and a blue dagger appeared. Haven grinned and hurled his shadows forward, the wispy smoke turning into a sharp blade. The lord didn’t attempt to fight as the shadow sliced clean through his neck, sending his head toppling to the floor.

Vivienne screamed and knelt at Adham’s side just as his gray spirit rose from the headless corpse. Haven frowned as he watched them. “You didn’t need to do this!” Vivienne said, wrapping her arms around Adham.

“I never would’ve defeated him, my love, but I’m with you now. That’s winning to me.” Adham’s hard stare met Haven’s. “You are now the Lord of Souldark.”

Somehow, it felt … hollow. Haven won, but it didn’t feel like victory.

“Before we leave, I’m curious about one thing,” Adham hedged. “A duel doesn’t strike me as something you’d offer to get your revenge. You came here to murder me, didn’t you?”

“Yes.” Haven pulled out the doll to show them. “I planned to make birds from my sorcery pluck your eyes out while I sliced the doll’s chest, effectively eviscerating you without getting my hands bloody. My shadows would’ve removed your heart, and I would’ve stomped on it in front of Vivienne, then reclaimed her. Things happened to change on the way here, and, well, I wasn’t expecting her to be dead when I arrived.” He shrugged.

The edges of the lord’s lips curled up. “That sounds more like you.”

Haven’s gaze settled on Vivienne, and memories between them over the years came to mind. Their companionship. His selfishness. But her selfishness too. “You were right earlier. Our magic may have been stronger together, but you were never my match, and I was never yours.”

“I’ve always considered you a friend, Haven,” Vivienne murmured.

Haven nodded and approached her corpse. He plucked the ring from her cold, stiff finger, and left the room, knowing the two spirits would depart the castle soon enough. Souldark belonged to him and they had no place in it any longer. And now, there was a certain woman who he needed to get back to.

As he descended the steps, he found Rozlyn gone. His frown deepened and he sprinted the rest of the way down the staircase. A relieved breath escaped him at the sight of Rozlyn near one of the chairs, her hair golden again. His shadows swirled protectively in front of her and, when he called them back, his heart sank.

Nightshade stood before her, his hands in his pockets. “Your cuff is gone,” he said to her with a small grin.

Haven lifted his arm to find his cuff vanished completely, and his pulse sped, hammering through him. “No,” he rasped.

Both Rozlyn and Nightshade’s gazes met his, and her eyes lit up. “Haven!” But as she started toward him, Nightshade slipped his arm around her waist. He grasped her wrist to show Haven the tattoo of a crescent moon with a dark eye at its center that matched the ferryman’s. “A bargain is a bargain.”

Rozlyn’s lips parted, confusion swirling in her stare.

“You—” Haven’s words ended abruptly when Nightshade and Rozlyn both disappeared from the castle.

The court belonged to the Marquis of Shadows, but that was never what he truly wanted. It was love he was looking for all this time. It was Rozlyn , and he would get her back.