Chapter 19 Bronwen
Bronwen
My head throbbed. I sat on the bed and plucked another grape from the platter Jane had brought me this morning.
The only bit of peace I felt was that I didn’t have a nightmare last night.
I guessed drinking so much that you remembered nothing helped.
August sat at the desk, flipping through another tome Benedict found.
“This one is useless,” he mumbled. He stood and walked over to me, but would barely look at me. “Get up. We’re spending as much time as we can in the archives today.”
“No,” I lay back on the bed and pulled the blanket over my head. “Let me rest a little longer.”
The covers disappeared. “Get ready.”
He stepped out and sent word for Jane before he began shoving all of his scratch paper in a drawer in the desk. I rolled my neck, feeling a little sore. I must have slept on it wrong.
“Good morning, Jane.”
She just smiled at me, glancing back at August as she stepped to me with a dress draped across her arms. Her pale hair was pinned neatly on the top of her head. She seemed so wary around August that I didn’t think she was one of the ones here for the promise of vampirism.
As she helped me into the simple, gray dress, her eyes never left August as he walked to the window and flung the drapes back. I sat at the dressing table as she began to brush my hair. I ran my hands along the smooth stone top. I vaguely remembered it being a dark wood.
“Is this new?” I asked as I glanced at Jane through the mirror.
She only nodded as she pulled my hair back to begin braiding and that was when I noticed it. A fresh bite mark on my neck.
I jumped out of the chair nearly knocking Jane over in the process. “What the fuck did you do?”
August turned from the window, that infuriating smirk on his face. “Jane, leave us.”
Jane almost ran out the door.
August came to me, slow, deliberate with his steps as if he knew the longer he took the madder I’d get. “You mean during our bath last night, Winnie?” He tilted his head to the side. “When you practically begged me to bite you?”
It all came flooding back. Dancing like a fool with Simon. August carrying me. Me teasing him. And me in his lap just hoping it would go further.
“How did you sleep last night? Because I slept marvelously.”
I reared back and punched him. He could’ve stopped me. He was faster than me. But he didn’t. And he still smiled.
“Finish preparing yourself. We have things to do.”
* * *
“What is this?” I pointed at a drawing in the tome I had been looking through for an hour.
It was dark with only blacks and grays creating the sketch.
Tall slender trees lined the page and they looked as if they were leaning in to grab you.
Strange beasts peered around some of the trees that looked like they came straight from a nightmare.
Benedict leaned over my shoulder. “Part of Alentara. It’s one of the more dangerous areas, but a place where a lot of the artifacts Carrow collected seemed to originate from.
The magic there is strong, but the area’s overrun with creatures that make vampires look like angels.
They call it the Night Realm because it is complete darkness at all times. ”
“I get why Carrow came here. That is terrifying.”
August leaned over too, glancing at the image. He shrugged. “I think he was running from something.”
I spun the gold ring on my finger. Since the moment we stepped into the archives, the tension had been unbearable.
Neither of us had spoken more than necessary.
The events of the night before refused to stay buried, looping through my mind while I tried to focus on the texts.
The bite, the bath, the smirk on his face—I couldn’t shake any of it.
So I had done the only thing I could: I avoided him.
I spent the day talking to Benedict instead, keeping a polite smile on my face as I asked him about the tomes, the artifacts, anything to avoid August’s gaze.
But that didn’t make it any easier. My thoughts were still a tangled mess, and staring through ancient drawings while pretending my insides weren’t twisted into knots made my headache worse by the hour.
August still leaned over my shoulder looking at the tome, but I knew he was more interested in bothering me than the drawing he was staring at.
I slammed it shut, the sound echoing louder than I meant it to.
My hands trembled as I stood. Being this close to him—feeling his body brush against mine when he leaned over my shoulder, the way his scent curled around me and sank its claws into my chest—was too much.
I could still feel the phantom pressure of his hands on my waist, the heat of his breath at my ear. It was suffocating.
I stepped over to the shelves and ran my hand across a few of the artifacts in my line of sight. I could feel the magic pulsing inside each of the objects, like a quiet heartbeat.
Benedict straightened behind me, his gaze lingering a beat too long.
He gave me a curious look. Like he was trying to solve a puzzle: why his brother, the king, had tied himself to a witch who set vampires on fire without blinking.
“They’ll never stop talking about you downstairs, you know,” he said.
“Not every day a pretty witch sets the great room ablaze. And then days later dances as if none of it ever happened.”
I stiffened. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw August’s fingers flex against the table—a warning without words.
“They’ll talk themselves to death,” I said coolly, turning back around.
You keep pushing me. You want to see what happens when I stop holding back?
Our conversation echoed in my mind, and I hadn’t realized until today just how bad the need for him was. A part of me had never stopped wanting him. I was angry—for the secrets, the marriage, the ruin he’d brought into my life—but that didn’t change how badly I still wanted him. Craved him.
We could do things. It could mean nothing. Stopping Carrow and sex. I wondered if that too much to ask.
But I couldn’t believe how easy it was for me to push him to the edge. I wanted more. I needed more.
I glanced back at August and watched him flip through another tome. He sat with his legs spread, fingers curled around the leather binding. And all I could think of was how those same fingers had felt inside me when he first touched me like that. The look in his eyes when he watched me fall apart.
I looked up. He was already watching me. I spun back around too quickly, catching my arm on a metal statue. Pain flared, and I hissed as I clutched the sore spot.
Before I could move again, August was in front of me, his body pressing mine against the wall. A wall I hadn’t even been near.
Benedict was watching us, his eyes now glowing red.
“If you’ll excuse me,” he mumbled, shifting awkwardly from one foot to the other.
“Go,” August said, his voice low and lethal.
Benedict vanished.
And August turned to me, and his eyes dropped to my arm.
The fabric of my sleeve had torn slightly, exposing the angry red mark blooming across my skin.
Gently—so gently it startled me—he reached for it.
His fingers brushed the edge of the mark, but didn’t touch it directly, like he didn’t trust himself to.
His jaw clenched.
I felt the weight of his restraint. It was in the way his hands hovered, shaking ever so slightly, in the way his pupils dilated as he stared at the spot of blood just beginning to surface. Like he was fighting the worst part of himself.
He swallowed hard.
“It’s nothing,” I said, but my voice came out softer than I meant it to.
He looked up, and our eyes met. And for a second, I swore he looked terrified of himself. Of what he might do if he didn’t walk away.
But he didn’t walk away.
He reached out. “You can’t walk around here with an open wound.”
I almost took his hand—just to feel him again—but I remembered the way he looked so hurt before. The way I hurt him. So instead, I wrapped my fingers around the gash and pulled from the tiny well of stolen magic inside me. It buzzed against my palm as the wound knit together.
August watched it happen, his jaw ticking. “Why do you have magic?”
“I have been taking it from the others. Just a little with each touch. Not enough to notice, but enough to add up. I told you I wouldn’t be defenseless again.”
I’d purged Lavina’s power the moment it became too much—her magic felt like it was unraveling my mind—but I’d figured out how to take without being noticed. Just a sliver here, a flicker there. It wasn’t enough to feel the rush I used to get from truly pulling, but it was enough to protect myself.
Enough to avoid needing him.
“Is that why you had a stake strapped to your thigh last night?” His voice was low. “A contingency plan?”
Flashes of him standing above me naked raced through my mind. “August.”
He smiled as he looked down at me. He wasn’t getting the upper hand. I had to break him.
“Why do I have to be here every day with you? I could find plenty of other things to keep me busy. This castle needs to come to this century. I could visit Adar.” I smiled as his brow furrowed.
“Or I could find that vampire that keeps making eyes at me every night. Not eyes like he wants to drain me but eyes like he wants to fu—”
“Because you have to help find a way to stop—”
I cut him off with a wave of my hand. “Stop Carrow. I know. That’s what you keep saying.
But how? I can’t read the language, I don’t understand half of the things you and Benedict mutter under your breath.
And don’t insult me by saying it’s for my protection.
I’m not helpless anymore. So what’s the real reason? ”
“Dagger to throat, kiss to the crown, a witch in the palace will burn it all down.”
I blinked. “What did you just say?”
He didn’t answer. Didn’t even seem to realize he’d spoken. His eyes were somewhere far away—distant and haunted—and then, just like that, he was back.
“You’re pretty to look at,” he said, clearer this time, as if nothing strange had happened at all.
I narrowed my eyes. “So I’m being punished. Spending the rest of my life married to you, always stuck at your side, because I’m pretty?” I sighed. “I knew my looks would ruin me one day.”
He laughed. Not cruelly. Not mockingly. Just genuinely laughed—and somehow, that was worse. But he caught it and stepped back, the mask he wore now sliding back over his face.
“Last night didn’t mean anything. It was nothing but the mark pulling us together.”
Liar.
Still, I smiled.
“I know,” I said, stepping forward until my chest brushed him. “It meant nothing. Just instinct. Hunger.”
A small piece of lint clung to the fabric of his sleeve, and I plucked it off, flicking it away with more satisfaction than the gesture warranted. I didn’t look at him. I didn’t have to. I could feel him watching me, every muscle wound tight, like a predator unsure whether to pounce or flee.
“Doesn’t mean it wasn’t good,” I added, barely above a whisper.
That got him. I glanced up just in time to see it—the flicker in his eyes, the way his jaw clenched, the breath he had to force through his nose.
He wasn’t prepared for me to throw his own indifference back in his face. And it thrilled me. Let him stew in it. Let him remember every second as vividly as I did.
I turned and walked away before he could gather a response. My heart was pounding, my skin flushed with heat, but I didn’t let him see that.