Chapter 31
MIA
Yes, secrets are like fucking poison. But the truth can do a thousand times more damage than the slow death of toxins ever could. If it doesn’t kill us first.
It’s only been two days since the night they found me in the cabin. The night that the Skelker became mine, and Bones somewhat got his little brother back. But they are all still at each other’s throats. Sonny is the most into mine in particular.
Harker Mansion is now a house full of monsters. My monsters. As I glance around the room at the five of them, I feel a slight twinge of guilt. Some aren’t lucky enough to have even one great love… I am as blessed as I am cursed.
I leap from the couch when I hear the tires crunching over the gravel. “Lettie’s here!” I practically sprint to the door.
I hear Bones let out a groan.
“We’ve kept her in the dark long enough,” Draven tells him as I squeal in excitement the second she steps through the door.
“Mia!” Her eyes widen when she spots the bone on my face. “Fuck. Are you okay?”
I nod and embrace her. I sigh into her arms, basking in her scent—a mix of burnt sugar and freshly baked cookies. “I’m better now that I’m out of that ridiculous outfit they dressed me in.”
Back in my ripped jeans, motorcycle boots, vintage band tee—Pearl Jam, of course—and my favorite black leather jacket, I feel more like myself.
I was told that the seventeenth-century ball gown didn’t make it, and I’m so fucking relieved.
I refuse to wear one of those traps ever again.
The only thing cool about it was the pockets.
She giggles and hugs me back. “I’m so happy my brother didn’t kill you.” But her face falls as she looks past me, throwing murderous glares into the foyer.
“You and me both, girl.” I lock my arm through hers and lead her into the room.
All the guys stand up except for Sonny. Bones smacks him in the ribs. “Show some fucking respect for your sister.”
Lettie stiffens, her grip tight on me when she sees him. I forgot that we’ve all had some time to get used to Sonny’s deer skull face and antlers.
He hisses as he stands. “Do you remember me, princessa?” he asks, using Bones and Felix’s pet name for her. It sounds odd in his mouth.
She breathes heavily, and I can feel how hot her hands are through the leather of my jacket. “I was just a baby. Of course, not. But your picture is everywhere at Abuelita Carmen’s villa. Even though you don’t look like that anymore… She prays for you every day.”
“Sounds like a shrine for someone who doesn’t deserve it,” Aries lashes out.
Before anyone else can respond, I interject, “Sonny, why don’t you and Lettie catch up in private later. She’s staying for dinner, aren’t you, bestie?” The guys all slowly return to their seats.
“I’m good with that if you are,” he tells her.
She shrugs. “That’s fine.”
I almost laugh at the fact that they don’t even realize how much alike they all are. These Cranes are the most stubborn people I know. I can only imagine that Felix is the same.
“Fine,” Sonny echoes.
Draven hands her a glass of whiskey as I coax her down into the seat next to me.
The tension is thick but understandable. “I’m so glad you’re here, Lettie. I’ve been cooped up with these heathens for too long.”
She smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. This isn’t like her. And it worries me. She takes a sip of her drink and clears her throat. “Okay, someone start. Fill me in on what’s going on and what you need from me.”
We spend the next hour catching her up. Draven and Bones do most of the talking. While Aries chimes in now and again with ancient lore. He likes to remind us how the Thorns are excellent record keepers.
She has two more whiskeys neat during this time. I, on the other hand, have gotten addicted to Aries’s French 75s. I never thought I liked gin before, but these go down as easily as water.
“So Felix is coming with Maureen and the rest of the guys? And Libra too?” This is the most hopeful I’ve seen her look since she arrived.
“Yep.”
“And Bailey Bishop with her guys,” Draven adds. “We still need a Wickford. And a Graves girl, so maybe Riot can point us in the direction of a cousin or something. He doesn’t have any siblings, right?”
Lettie shakes her head. She casts an apathetic glare into her drink. “No need to ask him. I know a girl with that last name.”
Bones folds his arms, his shoulders tensing. “Oh, you got to be kidding.”
She purses her lips together before downing the rest of her drink. “Yes, Skyler is a Graves.”
“Isn’t that your ex?” I whisper.
“Yes, she’s my ex,” she says loudly. “I have multiple exes much to all of your confusion.”
Aries clicks his tongue at her. “Looks like you have some juicy secrets of your own.”
She tilts her head upward. “They aren’t secrets, Ries. It’s just not any of your business.”
Sonny cackles at that. “That’s it. Lettie’s my favorite. I denounce the rest of you.”
I nearly spit out my drink. Good for you, Lettie. These boys need a humbling reminder now and then that the sun doesn’t rise and set just for them.
“Will she do it?” Bones asks.
“For a price.”
“So what will that cost you, princessa?” Sonny asks.
“My loyalty. I’ll have to return with her to Hemlock Prep.”
Bones curses under his breath.
“It’s fine,” she continues. “We have unfinished business anyway… It seems like she’s going to have her way after all. She always does.”
I squeeze her hand. “I’m sorry, Lettie. I didn’t want to involve you.”
“It’s my family. My curse too. I’m involved whether I want to be or not. It’s okay.” She forces a smile as she tries to invoke her usual warmth. But I can see that so much is weighing on her. Skyler Graves is so far underneath Lettie’s skin she can barely breathe. I hate seeing her like this.
As if reading my mind, Sonny bounces up from his chair. “Come on. Let’s go talk, princessa.”
She pauses mid step, hesitating for a moment. He is a lot to take in. “I’m bringing the bottle.”
Draven and Nox break off to go for a walk outside while Aries and Bones head over to the apothecary to pick up a few more cases of poison for the arrival of our incoming guests. Harker Mansion will soon be full of the most dangerous heathens from Raven’s Gate to Wickford Hollow and Hemlock Valley.
There are deals being made even as we speak. Secrets still fester, and we are all scrambling to find our place within this new dynamic…
I make another cocktail and head to the upstairs veranda. I lean against the iron railing and gaze out across the poison fields. I think about my grandmother’s letter. The one she wrote for me before she died. Between the living and the dead, secrets abound.
I still remember how shocked I was when my Uncle Dorian gave it to me. The day he came and got me out of Absentia Asylum. I went from being a penniless orphan to one of the richest women in Melancholia overnight.
But it was that letter that really saved me. Kind and loving words from beyond the grave, pointing me in the direction I needed to go.
Roses bring Thorns. Night is ever Black. When the shadow comes, the Crane will attack. Heads will roll when the nightmare roams. Stick close to the well of broken Bones.
I hope she’d be proud of me. Am I respecting her wishes? Is this what she wanted for me? I’m quickly learning how the Harker women have not had it easy. Even though my ancestors grew up with more money than I could ever dream of, they were not free from the burden of pain and suffering.
Willa, her daughter Ophelia, my mother even, and then me. And I’m sure a dozen more stories of hardship in between. We are a cursed family. But maybe I can end it. It feels unbearably impossible right now, but I have to at least try. Maybe then the bones of my ancestors can rest.
“Hey, Trouble. Penny for your thoughts.” Draven nestles in behind me and wraps his arms around my waist.
I lean back against him and breathe him in—vanilla mixed with juniper berries and tobacco. The scent of this man will never get old. It will always comfort me. “Just processing everything. And trying to gage how angry you are with me for what I let Sonny do to me.”
He spins me around to face him. The look in his eyes is mournful but also full of longing.
He rakes his thumb over my scar. “I have no right to be. We gave you no choice but to surrender to us when you came to town. We hunted you, manipulated you, and forced ourselves upon you. In the end, we broke you and pushed you over the edge.”
I unzip his pants as he talks, freeing his cock so I can stroke it. “Yes, it was so unfair what you did to me,” I tease.
He draws in a sharp breath, his eyelids fluttering as he leans into my hand. “Mia… my love for you is unconditional. Even when I’m angry, and I want to strangle the life out of you… You are mine and always will be. Being his too doesn’t change that.”
I strip out of my boots and jeans before walking backward into the patio table. I hoist myself up onto it and part my legs. “Come here, Slick. Come get your peace.”
He bridges the gap between us in seconds. “Mmm… this troublesome fucking pussy.”
A warmth fills my belly as I remember the first time he said that to me. The night he crashed through my gates and fucked me on the parlor floor. We tried so hard to hate each other then. Every time we caved in, we’d swear it was the last time. But nothing could keep us apart from each other.
I pull my panties to the side and help guide his cock inside my pussy.
I grip his tie in my hands and use it to anchor me.
He moans as I choke him. While he fucks me hard against the glass table.
In the same spot where he watched Aries feed me pancakes just this morning, the surface still sticky from droplets of maple syrup.
He buries his head into my shoulder and weeps while he cums. And I hold him tightly, with one hand still on his tie and the other wrapped around the back of his neck.
I rub my clit against his belly, drawing my own pleasure out as he channels all his pent-up rage, sadness, and longing into this one single orgasm.
“You will always be my peace, Mia,” he whispers into my ear. “I will never leave you.”
I’m filled with love but also melancholy and a heavy sense of dread. “But Aries will.”
Draven grabs me by the throat as the last of his cum slinks out and down my pussy. “We’re going to find a way to fix that. I promise you, Trouble. None of us are going to let him go.”
I find my little psycho poison boy lying on his back in the boathouse, surrounded by an array of empty vials. He stares up at the ceiling. “I needed to get out of that house. It’s getting too depressing in there.”
“You’re not wrong,” I offer as I curl up next to him. “Did you save any for me?”
He shakes his head. “Not this time, little lamb. Sorry.”
I playfully punch him in the ribs. “Don’t be such a diva.”
He doesn’t crack even the faintest of smiles. “I’m going to die alone, Mia. And the only ones waiting for me in the After will be my asshole father and vapid mom. But none of you will be there. You’ll all be here. Together.”
I pull him upright so I can nestle into his lap, forcing him to look at me. “Listen, you can’t think like that. We have each other now. And I promise you, Aries, we’re going to figure out a way for us to all be together. I’m going to make those weirdos from Raven’s Gate help us figure it out.”
He presses his forehead to mine. “I know. I hate being a boring fucking drag. I’ll snap out of it, I swear.”
I sigh. “You’re allowed to be upset, Ries. And who knows, maybe someone’s already figured it out. I doubt your cousin Atlas is going to accept the same fate. There’s no way he’s leaving his lovers behind. We just have to trust that it will all work out.”
He kisses me softly, gently stroking my tongue with the tip of his. “You’re so right. Wait, is that the first time you’ve called me Ries?”
I feel my cheeks flush for some reason, suddenly shy. I shrug. “Is that okay?”
He laughs. “Are you kidding? I’ve been dreaming of this day. I love how it sounds in your mouth.”
We kiss and start to tug at each other’s clothes when the door to the boathouse bursts open, and the guys come barreling in. A tipsy Lettie saunters in after them. “The energy is too fucking heavy in that house, chica.”
“Are we having a party in the boathouse, then?” I ask excitedly.
Bones nods. “Fuck yeah, we are. We are gonna drink and smoke and consume copious amounts of drugs and poison. And then I’m going to fuck you to sleep.”
“Eww, Bones!” She covers her ears. “Give my girl a break already. There are five of you now.”
This makes Aries burst into laughter. The thought is daunting but it feels right. Even Sonny already looks more at home than he did even a few hours ago. And I’m guessing, by the way he clings to Lettie’s side, that their talk went well.
“All right, enough sad shit,” Aries declares as he pops up and nearly topples me. He rights me before dashing to the bar. “We’re doing shots.”
“Wait, why is it called a boathouse?” Sonny asks. “Where are all the fucking boats?”
The room falls silent before everyone bursts into a fit of laughter.
We need this. To laugh and let loose. And to get to know each other all over again.
For some of us, for the first time. There are so many terrifying possibilities lurking around the corner.
We’ve been pushed and pulled and prodded by darkness and evil for so long that we’ve forgotten what joy even feels like.
So yeah. We fucking need this tonight.
It doesn’t matter what happens tomorrow or the day after that. Not right now. Because in this moment, here in this room, everything is as right as rain on a warm, sultry Melancholia night.