Chapter 38
There Was Some Good in this World
Raven
An Hour Ago – Grypheem
Twirling in the dress—my wedding dress—I attempted to calm my nerves and accept this was happening. I hadn’t seen Julian or Griffin since the ceremony. The one we had apparently passed.
My mind flicked further, to Levi.
To Jayce. To Sparrow.
My heart ached, but we would be reunited soon enough. I just needed to finish this act and then I wouldn’t rest any longer, I would force action.
“Knock, knock.” I expected Amelia at the door, so it was a surprise to hear Matty’s voice.
Gathering the billowy material, I moved across Griffin’s quarters. I had been the only one allowed in here for preparations.
“Hey, I was expecting Amelia,” I said, looking back and forth in the hallway. This part of the castle was the typical empty I had grown to expect.
“She got held up.” Matty offered a quirk of his lips. “Want a chaperone on your big day?” He reached across the doorway grabbing hold of my wrist.
The move was a shock, the speed, the grip, his appearance.
My hackles rose. “Matty?” I reached with my other hand to his wrist, attempting to peel him off of me, raising his sleeve in the process.
Goosebumps pricked up along my entire body at the sight of his skin there. At the familiar scar. “Fuck, you weren’t supposed to see that. You were supposed to follow me willingly to visit with Levi.”
“No.” It was a cry, a plea, an attempt to believe there was some good in this world.
But there wasn’t. There never had been.
Matty was exactly like Quinn.
A friend from my past sent to destroy me.
“Let’s go.” Matty’s grip tightened as he yanked me from the room, as he led me towards the hidden stairs. I dragged my feet into the ground, but the heels I wore made it impossible to keep my balance and easily enough, he was able to wrench me along.
I was in too much shock. Too startled. Too unprepared to fight him. To stop him.
I wasn’t sure if I could.
“Please Matty, you don’t have to do this. Wherever he is, you can just say you couldn’t find me.”
Matty’s head spun to me, but he didn’t pause as we passed the dining hall, as we headed to another secret set of stairs, the ones that would lead us to Levi. To the prison beneath the castle.
“You didn’t recognize me. We met in his home. Except I had been there for years before you.” Matty’s voice was cold, empty. “My emotions are no longer my own, Raven. These words and memories I fed you were the ones he gave to me. My existence is his. And once you return to him, as will I.”
And then he unlocked the bottom door and pushed it open.
Thrusting me through it first, I came face to face with my darkest nightmare.
With the man I attempted to forget about.
The one who I had never truly escaped.
He looked exactly like the first time I met him, perhaps by design. Inked, stringy hair curtaining the front of his face, eyes mucky and chaotic. His lips lifted in a cheerful smile as he took me in.
“There’s my special bird.”
Ivan.