Chapter Thirteen
Lenora
Ilie awake in Marcus’s … the creature’s arms.
It’s difficult to say when he brought me back to Marcus’s room and washed me in the tub before tucking me back into bed against his chest without another word.
It does make me wonder who I’ll wake up to in a few hours. I wonder if Marcus will know the difference. If he’ll ask … what? If I offered my virginity to a shadow demon in exchange for vengeance?
Perhaps.
Marcus is very intuitive.
Still, I don’t regret my choices. I never imagined that would be how I lose the thing. I suppose, when I had thought about it, I imagined my boys. But it was mine to give away. I would give up everything if the creature asked. None of it matters.
I shift and turn to my other side. Marcus doesn’t reach for me and I’m glad; I’m too restless to stay.
Too eager.
My heart is galloping as I push off the bed. My slip lies somewhere in the dank basement, and I’m left to scavenge through Marcus’s drawers for a top. Every step sends a sharp pang between my thighs. The muscles protest the motions, but I leave the room and the man on the bed.
I locate a fresh candlestick on a table in the corridor. The tiny flame dances as if excited to be chosen. I make a mental note to ask Mrs. Pym not to leave a lit of candlesticks about. Last thing we need is for the whole place to go up in smoke.
Though, I’m not wholly certain I would mind that. Not that it’s my place. The manor belongs to Marcus. It’s his family home. I suppose and mine, but it doesn’t feel like it without them.
I wander to the main floor, feet barely making a sound as I hit the bottom.
They follow the familiar path from the solarium to the war room.
Both lie in a heavy gravity of silence that keeps me in their orbit.
An alignment I follow from one side of the house to the other like I might catch one of them waiting for me.
With the fifth pass, my tears begin. No sobbing. No sound. Just a steady flow that marks the floor beneath my feet like tiny breadcrumbs guiding my way.
“Linny.”
Marcus stands in the foyer, draped in the filmy hue of filthy light from the stained glass around the front door.
The morning sun turns his skin a near translucent white.
For that second, that heartbeat where my mind is still locked in the world between here and nowhere, I’m looking at Ames.
At his unruly strands falling over his eyes, and that look he’d give me when he’d find me in a random part of the house.
My heart claps hard against my breastbone before I remember it’s not him.
“Have you been down here all night?”
I glance at the candle, but it’s no more than an iron holder with a puckered crease of wax. Not even a hint of a wick remains.
“I couldn’t sleep,” I whisper.
His head tilts the way it had last night when he’d been possessed by that demon. So similar I have to search his eyes for escaped tendrils coming from the sockets.
There are none. Only the familiar, soft silver
“I thought I told you to wake me.” He moves out of the stream of light to stand before me. “Did you go to that room?”
Lie.
But why? I ask the smoky hiss in my head. Marcus isn’t my father or husband. He can only be so cross with me. I’m a grown woman fully capable of my own choices.
“No,” I lie.
Though I don’t know why.
His hand lifts and he lightly touches my cheek. Brushes at the lingering streaks of my tears.
“Let’s take a shower then see if Mrs. Pym has your breakfast.”
I let him take me back up. My empty candle holder is placed on a table we pass.
“Do you want to go to your room for clothes? Mrs. Pym tidied it.”
I shake my head. “Not yet.”
He doesn’t press but leads us back to his room.
There’s no conversation as he follows the same routine as the day before.
Washing me.
Dressing me.
Feeding me.
And the whole time, I let my mind drift. It rolls back like the tide returning to the ocean. It takes me to all the memories I’ve collected over the years. The seconds captured behind closed eyelids. Each one burns so clear it’s like I’m reliving each one for the first time. Blissfully lost.
“Lenora?”
My eyes snapped open to the sharp spear of light beaming down from the endless blue sky. The attack had me throwing up a hand to shield my retinas.
Above me, a dominating force of amusement and annoyance, Ames narrowed his eyes in mock exasperation.
“Care to explain why you’re sitting out here with no hat … again?”
He had such a strange bug up his butt about this topic. Even while mildly entertained, I was in no mood for his nonsense. I was also grown enough to understand my own limits where the sun was concerned.
“Don’t start,” I warned him, pushing to my feet and dusting filthy hands across my skirts. “If I want to be out here, roasting in the sun, I will.”
The amusement remained, but there was an edge to his smile as he took a step towards me.
“It’s not good for you,” he countered.
“What’s not good for me is being nagged at by you, Ames Usher.”
Without waiting, I spun on my heels and marched in the direction of the greenhouse. The grass and warm earth tickled the bottoms of my feet before it ended in smooth, flat stones at the greenhouse doors.
I slipped inside, not at all surprised when Ames followed. His long fingers captured my elbow, and I was made to face him.
“What is it?” he demanded, searching my face.
“Nothing,” I returned with a grumble that was not at all convincing.
“Len,” he warned softly.
I sighed and tried to turn my face away. My chin was captured instead, and I was made to keep eye contact.
“It’s been too hot this summer,” I murmured. “My plants aren’t getting enough water and I’m spending half the day watering them.”
“What else?” he prompted gently, the pad of his thumb sweeping along my cheek, brushing at a bit of dirt, gritty against my skin.
“My green house is too small and I’m running out of room.” I cast a glance around the spacious box of glass.
“Anything else?”
Feeling slightly ridiculous, I added softly, “I broke my favorite spade trying to dig up a root.”
He hummed quietly. “You’ve had quite an afternoon, haven’t you?
” He leaned down to brush my brow with his lips.
“We’ll build you a piping system for your garden and we’ll expand the greenhouse.
And tomorrow, I’ll personally take you to the store to pick up a new spade that looks exactly like yours even if we have to get it custom made. ”
I scowled up at him even while I had to bite my bottom lip to contain my grin. “You think you’re so clever, don’t you?”
“I do, actually.” He smirked and kissed me soundly on the lips. “It’s our job to make your life easier.”
My arms slipped around his shoulders, and I pushed up on my toes to meet that delicious mouth of his.
“You both make my life perfect.”
His kiss deepened, pausing only a second for him to murmur, “Good.”
“Linny?”
I give a start and come out of that lazy afternoon with Ames in the greenhouse, his palms warm against my back. His mouth, steady and insistent over mine.
He’d done exactly as he promised.
The very next day, he had a crew run irrigation lines through my garden and started the layout to expand my greenhouse.
The only thing we weren’t able to do was find the same spade.
Honestly, there wasn’t anything fancy about it, except I liked the way it fit in my palm.
The one we replaced it with was too new, too stiff. I made it work, but it wasn’t the same.
Marcus touches my cheek and I focus on his face.
“You should rest. When’s the last time you slept?”
I’m not certain.
“I’m not tired,” I lie.
I’ll rest once I see the entire Duval bloodline in the ground.
I don’t miss the hesitance, the flicker of uncertainty that crosses his face before he looks away.
He’s having doubts.
Either in his abilities to fulfil his promise to me or in me to uphold mine. I try not to think he is correct in the latter.
“I think I would like to work in my greenhouse today,” I decide with all the confidence in me.
He seems taken aback by my declaration, but there is also relief. A sprinkling of hope that is completely out of place because he thinks I’m going back to my old ways. Perhaps, I will find my routine and forget thoughts of vengeance.
That will never happen.
I’m just realizing Marcus may not be the right person to address my request. The man he had been, cold, detached and ruthless with keeping the family business running, the man I remember from my childhood doesn’t exist anymore. He’s gone soft.
And while I will always love him, he is no use to me when I need him.
Tentatively, I rise up on my toes and kiss him.
“Thank you, Uncle Marcus.”
I don’t miss his startled blink, but I don’t stay to explain. The day has already started, and I won’t spend another moment waiting.
He doesn’t follow me when I start my way in the direction of my sanctuary. I hadn’t lied when I told him I would head there. Only, I have no desire to prune or plant.
My once pride and joy is a dissolute and forgotten wasteland of drooping leaves and the faint hint of death that hits me the moment I step over the threshold. It’s a sticky sweet stench of rotting meat and wet soil.
Odd, but immediately forgotten with my single-minded focus along the winding curve cutting deeper, further towards the heart.
“I think you need a fountain here.” Eliah pointed to the center of the greenhouse.
I considered it, but a fountain meant losing a chunk of space we just opened up.
“I think more plants,” I decided.
“You can’t just have plants. You spend the most time here. You should have a place to sit and enjoy your work.”
He had a point.
“What if I run out of room again?”
His smile was sweet when he answered, “We’ll build you another greenhouse.”
While the idea of multiple greenhouses where I can grow all year round did sound lovely, I hesitated. “That’s so much wasted water.”
Without a shred of irritation, Eliah stepped over to me and wrapped me in his arms.
“We’ll do whatever you want.” His lips brushed the tip of my nose. “Whatever makes you happy.”
That’s all either of them ever wanted — to make me happy. To do everything in their power to make my life easy. I could have turned the entire house into one giant garden, and they would simply let me.
I turn to face my dried and wilted plants, and blink.
I stop.
My feet splash in water to the ankles. Cold, dank walls stare back at me, as confused as I am by my presence … wherever I am.
The candle in my hand shivers with my turn.
I’m by the chapel.
I don’t remember leaving the greenhouse, but I suppose thinking of my boys, my feet have brought me to them.
So, I go.
I close the few steps to the chapel doors and stare at their resting places.
Still here.
Still resting.
My chair from yesterday sits between them, the poetry book where I dropped it.
Despite the hour, the light crawling through the stained windows overhead is dull. Grimy with dirt and neglect. It paints a mute sheen across the wood.
But I don’t go inside.
If I go to them, I will stay. I’ll waste the day and forget why I’m here. There will be plenty of time to sit with them once I finish.
“Love you,” I whisper, before turning away and continuing on.
Further, deeper into the house.
Deeper beneath it.
I follow the walls and corridors to the mirror and the figure already waiting for me.
The Marcus that isn’t Marcus watches me from his place before the writhing wall.
Naked once more. His powerful build, a proud display of ink and muscles.
He watches me move up the steps lined with candles.
So many now. Hundreds. Everywhere. They practically light up the entire chamber.
The air is an oppressive humidity of hot wax and shifting heat.
But none of that matters as I join him at the top.
“When?” I ask.
Swirling dark eyes meet mine from a face I have loved for so long. A face I think I still love.
I must.
I do. Of course I do. It’s just all buried so deep and I can’t bring myself to think about anything else right now.
“Are you sure this is what you want?”
Raw, scorching heat blazes up my stomach, a fury that curls my fingers into fists.
“You swore,” I grind out.
If he fails me the way Marcus has, if he refuses his end of this, I will set this entire place ablaze. I will destroy every mirror. I will find a way to end him.
“I did and I will, but once we begin, there is no turning back.”
“I don’t want to turn back. I want them dead and you promised—”
A hand lifts to stop me. “You are grieving. Grief turns us into monsters.”
“They’re the monsters. I’m stopping them from hurting anyone else.”
He considers that a moment.
But I push on.
“If you’re incapable, say so. I’ll find a stronger demon who isn’t a coward.”
The concealing coils spilling from his eyes thicken. Dark streaks that run down his cheeks like black tears. The shadows behind him ripple and snap.
But I’m past caring when I storm from the chamber.
Men keep failing me. They take what they want and find excuses not to hold up their end.
I’m done waiting for them. Done trying. It’s becoming obvious that I need to do this myself. Even if it’s messy. Even if I die.
Tonight.
After Marcus sleeps, I will find Etienne Duval and kill him myself.