Chapter 17 Brick of Pain
Koa
“All right, beloved, let’s have a look at that ankle you’ve been limping around on.” I watched as her face went blank before it paled and knew she was going to protest.
“It’s fine. Hardly hurts anymore.”
Called it.
“Don’t, Seri.” Cas’ tone was icy, and I frowned at him in warning. “Don’t lie about an injury.”
“Remember what I said?” Zane chimed in as he wrestled with Brumous. “First rule of wound care, no suffering in silence. You’re never gonna get a gold star at this rate, sunshine.”
Her bottom lip rolled out in a pout. Not because she wanted a gold star, but because she thought she’d disappointed him.
I shot him a glare, and he sighed as he stood and helped her lie down as a silent apology. After rolling up her pant leg, though, he retreated to the far corner of the room, Brumous attached to his hip.
Guy could tuck his own intestines back in and sew himself together, had once splinted a compound fracture in his leg with frozen fish and went right back to laying down cover fire as it healed, but seeing our girl in pain?
That gutted him.
Hell, it gutted all of us.
“How did it happen, baby?” I set her papa’s fishing reel on the dresser near the shrine Cas had built from the rest of his things. “And when? Was it recently?”
“When I got here,” she hedged, twisting her fingers into knots that hurt my soul.
Sitting next to her on the bed, I stroked the back of my knuckles down her cheek, drawing her attention to me.
“Did you try to run from your stepsisters?” I guessed, knowing she had before she even nodded.
“Without my magic, I had no defense,” she mumbled. “I thought if I could make it to the house, I could lock them out.”
The rage that filled the room emanated from three predators whose fangs dropped instantly, mercilessly stabbing our own tongues.
Then Cas’ fingers skimmed over her swollen ankle, and she flinched. Not much. Just a tiny hitch in her breath, but I caught it. I caught everything.
“Relax, Seri,” Cas murmured, his tone more clinical than comforting. “I don’t bite.”
Liar.
I forced my fists to unclench, keeping my breathing slow, even. She’d twisted her ankle trying to survive, and now she had to endure Cas poking at it like a damn science experiment.
“You’re hurting her,” I said, my voice coming out rougher than I intended.
He didn’t even look at me.
“I have to,” he replied. “I need to know how bad it is before I fix it.”
Seri’s lips pressed together like she was trying not to make a sound, but I saw the way she curled her fingers into the blanket. She didn’t want to be a burden.
Didn’t want to bother us.
Zane, once more sprawled on the floor beside Brumous, sent a glance our way before flicking a strip of leather into the air. Remnants of an old dagger sheath, by the looks of it. The pup pounced, ears flopping, paws too big for his body, and gnawed happily.
“Maybe let her heal first before you start poking at her?” he suggested, and I found myself nodding along.
“You mean, let it swell worse? Yeah, great plan.” Cas turned back to Seri. “Tell me if this hurts—”
She let out a sharp breath when he pressed down.
I exhaled slowly through my nose, forcing my shoulders to stay relaxed. I looked around for something, anything, to distract her and spotted a volume of Rumi’s poetry amid the thick volumes of imperial Russian history on her bookshelf.
Perfect.
“Dislocated.” Cas went into doctor mode again. “This will be painful, Seri.”
“Beloved,” I murmured, “focus on me. Listen to my voice.”
Her gaze lifted to mine, soft and hesitant. Gray like a winter morning. I could have stared into those eyes forever.
Instead, I opened the small, worn book in my hands and began to read.
“The moment I first heard love, I gave up my soul, my heart, and my eyes.”
I felt her lungs hesitate, felt the shift in her focus as she latched onto my voice, something steady to cling to.
“I said: ‘O spirit, make me drunk. Let me be lost in your fragrance.’”
Cas adjusted her ankle. She gasped, sharp and quiet.
“Take me, ruin me, be the architect of my heart’s undoing.”
A snort came from the floor.
“Damn, man,” Z muttered. “That’s a lot for a girl who just learned your name.”
Cas let out a short laugh. “No kidding.”
Even Brumous, still chewing on his leather strip, let out a small, amused snicker. The traitor.
I ignored them and turned the page.
“The minute I heard my first love story, I started looking for you.”
Her fingers curled tighter into the blanket. A flush crept up her neck.
I didn’t move. Didn’t let my voice waver. But I felt her reaction like a current through my blood.
“I did not know how blind I was, how every road led me to you.”
Cas sent Zane to fetch a splint and compression wrap, and he ran out of the room like his ass was on fire, running back in just as fast. As they worked on her ankle, I kept reading.
And she kept listening.
And although I did not move a muscle, I felt everything.
Finally, they finished, and our redheaded menace groaned and dragged a hand down his face.
“Enough with the fluffy emotional crap.” Z reached over my head to the bookshelf. “Even some moon-damned history is better than this.”
Seri blinked, still caught in the haze of the poetry, and followed his movements as he grabbed a book from the end of the row.
“Here. Read. Something dry and dusty to balance out all that love-sick mush.”
As he smacked the book into my palm, something fluttered out from between the pages. A small rectangle, aged at the edges, tumbling end over end before landing face-up on the blanket.
A photograph.
Seri made a small, startled sound.
I picked it up.
In the grainy, sun-washed image, child Seri stood with one hand wrapped around the curved horn of a black billy goat, his golden eyes glinting like twin candle flames. Her curls were wild in the breeze, and she was smiling, an open, unguarded kind of joy I hadn’t yet seen from her.
I turned the photo over.
Elegant cursive scrawled across the back.
Our Serafina with Rasputin. Five years old.
I looked up, holding the picture for her to see.
“Beloved?”
Her breath hitched.
She didn’t take the photo.
Didn’t blink.
Then, like something inside her cracked wide open, she curled in on herself and broke.
A ragged sob ripped from her chest. She clapped a hand over her mouth like she could hold it in, like she thought she had to hide it from us, but her shoulders shook, her entire body trembling as tears spilled freely down her cheeks.
“Whoa! Whoa, hey.” Alarm flashed across Zane’s face. “What the hell—”
“Serafina.” I leaned forward, my voice low, steady. “Talk to me.”
She gasped between uneven breaths.
“Rassy—” Her white-knuckled fingers strangled the blanket now. “Mama’s favorite— He was so— He was all I had left of—” A sob choked her. “And Arabesque sold him. She— She sold him, Koko!”
Her voice shattered on the words, and I felt the exact moment everything crashed down on her.
Not just the goat.
Not just the sale.
The erasure of her life. Her mama. Her papa. The stripping away of every last thing that had belonged to her, piece by piece, until nothing remained.
The bruises on Seri’s skin would heal. The wounds beneath them were so much deeper.
I moved before I thought.
I set the book and photo aside and reached for her, guiding her gently against my chest as I stretched out next to her on the bed. She was stiff at first, but then her hands fisted in my shirt, her body shaking as she sobbed into the fabric.
Zane rubbed a hand over his mouth.
“Dark take it,” he muttered. “I didn’t—” He blew out a breath, scrubbing a hand through his rioting hair. Then, softer, almost hesitant, “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’m so sorry.”
Brumous whined softly, pressing himself against the bed to stare up at her with wounded eyes.
Cas, quiet until now, let out a slow breath.
“We’ll find him.”
“W-what?” Seri hiccupped.
“The goat,” Cas said simply. “We’ll find him.”
“You want to go hunting down a goat?” Zane made a face. “A giant murder dog isn’t enough?”
“She’s been here one day. One.” Cas shot him a sharp look. “And this is the first thing she’s wanted.”
“No, Simmy.” Seri shook her head quickly, wiping at her wide eyes. “I— I wasn’t asking you to find him! I swear I wasn’t—”
“You didn’t have to ask.” Cas looked at me. “Ko?”
I nodded once, but not before catching something in Cas’ expression, a flicker of resignation, buried deep. Not at her, never at her, but at the situation. At the knowledge that on top of a drooly, stunted, mute dire wolf pup, he now had to deal with a moon-damned goat.
But he didn’t hesitate.
Didn’t argue.
Because it was for her.
Seri’s fingers dug into my chest, and I cupped the back of her head in my palm.
“We’ll find him, baby.”
Her breath shuddered against my chest.
She didn’t answer.
But I felt the way she clung to those words.
Felt the way she clung to me.
#
Casimir
I didn’t say a word when I stepped outside.
Didn’t trust myself to.
My fists were clenched. My jaw locked so tight it ached. I didn’t move. Didn’t pace. Just stood there on the driveway, staring out at the treeline like there was something I could fight.
Like there was something I could fix.
The door creaked open behind me, then Zane’s voice, dry and unimpressed.
“Well. That was a fang-rotted disaster.”
I said nothing.
Z sighed, waiting like he expected some kind of response. When I didn’t give him one, he made an irritated noise and kicked the door shut.
“You wanna break something, Cas? Because you’re giving me that look, and if you’re gonna try to snap my spine in half, at least give me a five-second head start—”
I turned.
Didn’t speak. Didn’t look at him. Just started walking.
Then running.
The pounding of my feet against the driveway was the only sound I could focus on, the only thing sharp enough to cut through the frustration, the helplessness, the absolute fury roiling under my skin.
Zane kept pace, a silent shadow beside me, and we sprinted faster and faster until we were nearly flying, lungs burning, cold spring air slicing deep.
We didn’t stop until we hit the end of the five-mile drive.
The wrought-iron gates loomed in the night, the gargoyles turning just enough to see it was us, then resuming their endless watch.
I braced my hands on my thighs, breathing hard.
It wasn’t enough.
Would never be enough.
Without a word, Zane and I turned and ran back.
Even by the time we hit the gym, the storm inside me hadn’t settled.
I threw myself into training, into the sharp, punishing rhythm of fists against the heavy bag. Hit after hit, breath even, stance precise, but my thoughts—
My thoughts wouldn’t stop spiraling.
“Ko!” When our little brother entered the gym, Zane tapped out, sprawling onto the mats and throwing a towel over his face. “Excellent timing. We need an intervention over here.”
Rolling out his shoulders, Ko eyed me.
“Talk to me.”
I didn’t.
“Casimir.”
I slammed my fist into the bag one last time, sending it flying off of the hook.
“She didn’t cry when I popped her ankle back in place,” I muttered.
Silence.
I ripped off my gloves, hurling them on the bench. My hands curled into fists. My voice came hard and taut, something inside me unraveling.
“She didn’t cry when her eyes begged us to keep her.
She didn’t cry when we doubted she was a witch.
She sat there and explained, calm as anything, how she believes her stepmother killed her papa, how Arabesque destroyed his things while he was still warm in the ambulance outside, and she. Didn’t. Fucking. Cry.”
Zane sat up, his expression unreadable, and my head dropped forward so they couldn’t see what was in my eyes.
“But she cried over that moon-damn goat.”
I swallowed hard, breath rough. The words scraped raw in my throat.
“I know finding him doesn’t fix anything. I know it doesn’t change what she’s been through, or erase what she’s lost, or undo what those bitches did to her.” My fingers twitched at my sides. “But it’s the only thing we can give her.”
“You mean the only thing you feel you can control,” Zane said aloud what he didn’t really need to.
We were all quiet for a long moment before Koa simply said, “Then we’ll find the goat.”
I stayed rigid. Too tight. Still wound too damn tight.
But slowly, the tension eased, just enough that I could breathe again.
“You left Brummy to guard our girl?” Zane asked Ko.
“Yeah. Made her a deal that if she rested her ankle for an hour, I’d carry her down to the dining room for dinner.”
“She needs a change of scenery,” Zane agreed. “Rapunzel can’t stay locked in her fortress all the time. Bet she’d love to see the lake.”
“And the fox den in the orchard. Did you see how her eyes lit up when I mentioned that?”
“Greg’s planning to give us a tour of the property tomorrow,” Zane reminded us. “Said he has a golf cart and everything.”
“Sweet. We’ll take her with us.”
They turned to me, looking for approval or at least agreement, and I sighed soundlessly. Even as something inside me vomited at the idea of how vulnerable she’d be out in the open, I knew they were right.
“If she feels strong enough,” I said reluctantly. “Concealed weapons. Guard protocol.”
“Yes!” Zane punched the air as Ko gave me a curt nod.
Giving him one back, I turned and headed for the showers. Maybe I could drown this brick of pain out of my chest.