Chapter 32 #2
I picked up my drink and took a burning sip, clutching the glass tightly.
“I am neither ignorant nor naive. Have you considered that you are blinded by decades trapped in your gilded towers? Have you even thought that maybe the provences beyond have moved on and evolved? That maybe someone like Asunder should be challenged?”
“No,” Spade growled. “And you’d be wise not to think those thoughts either.”
“I don’t give a shit about being wise. Maybe I am a fool who makes stupid and reckless choices.
Maybe I’ll go through all of this and either die alone or live to see my only family still hate me on the other side.
” I sat my glass down with a clank. “But at least I try. At least I’m not as dense and rigid as you are that I can’t see when I’ve been so blinded by hate and forgotten the whole point of everything. ”
“What’s the whole point, Rumor? Enlighten me.” Spade stood, towering over me from across the table.
“When I figure it out, I won’t let you know.”
Spade scoffed, grabbing the liquor bottle. “This is going nowhere.” He gestured to Riot and me. “You two fools deserve each other.”
Riot rested his chin on his fist. “Glad you’ve finally come around to admitting that, brother.
” Riot made a shooing motion with his hand.
“Now, run along to one of your sulking spots. Where will it be tonight? The hedge maze or your favorite grave? Perhaps you’ll be melancholy in the music room or sad in a sitting room.
The castle is your dreary palace of gloom, dear brother. ”
Spade stomped around the table, glowering over Riot.
“Yes, it’s so easy to sit there in your condescending mockery when you don’t have to lift a finger, isn’t it?
When for almost our entire lives, I’ve been the one managing everything.
I answer for your fuck-ups. Asunder come’s knocking looking for me, not you.
The withers treaty was my burden, and the weight of it lands upon my shoulders.
I negotiated our daimon curses, I sealed our realm portals and made them safe and hidden.
I keep you safe and shielded from the wrath you fucking deserve. ”
Riot stood then, staring his brother down. “As if I’ve done nothing? As if I haven’t sacrificed my life for you? Goddess forbid I don’t cry and moan over it every second of the goddess damned day as you do.”
I scooted back in my seat, unable to look away from, or stop listening to, another Blackthorne brawl. It seemed the way to get Spade talking was to make him angry.
Is that why Riot did it? Or was he simply an ass? Regardless, my attention was wholly focused on their display. The history of the Blackthorne daimons intrigued me to no end, and I watched as more pieces of their story unraveled in fury before me.
“Have a good time trying to help your newest little pet,” Spade snarled, still inches from Riot’s face.
“It might get her to let you fuck her, but when you inevitably fail and disappoint her, like you do everyone around you, she’ll come crawling back to me.
Do you want to know why? Because while you’re a presence so demanding of attention, of every breath of air in any room you walk into…
I am the dark shadow in the back of her mind.
She’ll never shake me off, never forget how I make her feel multitudes of emotions without trying.
How I haven’t even fucked her yet and I’ve fucked her better than you ever will. ”
My cheeks reddened at Spade’s words, his darkness radiating around him.
Was he right? Something inside me stirred silently.
The mix of both Blackthorne boys’ magics tingled over my skin, making the hair on my arms raise.
Hot met cold, and fire raged against ice.
It felt in the air as if a lightning storm were brewing in that very room.
Riot shoved his brother, making Spade fall back a step. “Arrogant has-been. The height of your magic has passed, brother, and it leaves in its wake a bitter old man. Not even your daimon form wants you, much less an Underworld witch.”
Something jolted inside me. A lightning strike. “Wait, a what?”
That was it.
That was it, wasn’t it?
Hedge witch, sea witch, gray witch, ceremonial witch, dark witch… no… that was it, wasn’t it? The door would open, would accept something true, to that, wouldn’t it?
Riot shot me a glance and cringed, as if he’d said too much, while Spade’s breathing went heavy.
Before Riot could answer, Spade had pushed him back.
Riot, caught off guard, stumbled, knocking over a stone statue of a deer and making it shatter across the floor.
Spade stomped over, not finished, apparently, and pulled Riot up by the shirt collar.
Something white flashed in the atmosphere, blinding me momentarily.
Something crashed and the floor rumbled.
When my eyes adjusted from the shock of light, I gasped, beholding the splintered table.
Spade lay in the middle of the broken wood, rubbing his jaw and checking his hand for blood.
“Oh, now you’ve fucking done it,” he threatened, standing and brushing off the splinters.
“Stop it!” I yelled, knocking over my chair as I fought between running to get in the middle of them and running to get away from them.
Suddenly, pain shot through my temple. The electric agony melted down my spine, and I fell to my knees in shock.
In an instant, someone was holding the back of my head, while someone else supported my middle.
A vision flashed across my senses.
A gray-haired man with cat ears ran past twisted black thorns, stopping and falling onto a tree stump. As he turned, his eyes widened, though I could only see him and not whatever he was fleeing. “Oh, shit. Oh, shit.”
With a flash of darkness and a bellow that sent chills down my body—he was gone.
When I opened my eyes, my body pulsed in pain and ached. Riot and Spade looked down at me with concern, seemingly forgetting how they were both about to kill each other five minutes prior.
“You saw something, didn’t you?” Spade asked, reading my expression.
“He’s in trouble,” I rasped. “He’s in pain, too. I feel it—it hurts. It hurts so bad. And I… I think he’s been taken.”
“Who?” Riot asked, holding me up from where I lay slack on the carpet.
“Twenty,” I answered. “Someone, or something, has Twenty.”