Her Dark Promise

19. Chapter 19

Chapter nineteen

I sat restless in the library, still feeling like Bastian was between my legs. I fought images of us in the kitchen—how he felt, the anger in his eyes, the passion we couldn’t deny. And I felt giddy from our talk afterward. He was coming around! My heart was still pounding.

I held the quill in my hand, ready to write to Belle. But what would I tell her? My mind felt foggy, my thoughts a strange mess. I could tell her the truth; that I was becoming attached to my prisoners, but then it would be too real. And I was already feeling so close to Bastian. It was probably best that things would progress slowly from now on; give both of us time to adjust.

I pushed up from the small desk in the hidden room in the library, pinching the bridge of my nose. I blew out the candles and left. I was tired and craved another full night's sleep. It was shameful to seek him out after having just been with his brother, but I needed him. The virgin had become useful to me, in ways I couldn’t have ever predicted.

I went to Soren’s room and pushed open the door. Mischief twinkled in my eyes, but he wasn't there. Strange. I conjured the ball of light and thought of Soren. He appeared to be in the chapel, bending over a stack of books. I sighed. I should have known he would be in there; it seemed like it was his new favorite room.

I wonder why… I thought to myself coyly.

I let the ball fade as I gleefully walked over there and saw that Emilia was scolding Soren.

“What’s going on?” All thoughts of lust went away when I saw Emilia tense and on guard. I thought they were past this.

She looked at me, then took a deep breath. “He is getting into things that do not pertain to him.”

I followed her finger and found multiple books open with a notebook next to them, having been just written in.

“Soren? What is this?” I was too stunned to fully understand why Emilia would be in such a rage with him when he constantly had his head in a book.

“Your grace—let me explain.”

I ignored him and scanned my eyes over the words and what I saw had me holding my breath. I slowly turned to him and asked, “Where did you get these?”

“I—”

“Do not lie to me!”

“I found it in your secret room.”

He had out a stack of my books—my private books—that I recognized from the room in the library. All the books were about witchcraft and my history, including the book he had shown to Bastian.

“You went in there after I explicitly told you—no—ordered you not to?”

“Just listen to me. I am learning so much from these texts, and I know that if I have more time with them I will find something.” He was trying to plead his case, but the room was starting to spin. He needed to be punished.

“You had no right!”

Violence. Always your go-to when emotions run too high. I taught you well.

“Shut up!” I needed to get away from him, but I was curious how Emilia knew about what it was he was looking at. “Emilia, what did you mean just now?”

“What do you mean?” She looked shocked that I would ask.

“You said that he is getting into things that he has business getting into. How do you know what he is getting into?”

“Well, these are obviously your books, and I didn’t think that you would want him snooping in your private rooms.” Her words sounded off, too proper.

I opened my mouth to question her further, but Soren pleaded again, “I think I’m getting closer to understanding how curses, in general, work. Specifically, the rules.”

Emilia and I whipped our faces over to him as he stood, head lifted, as if he were declaring something ordinary like the weather.

“I don’t remember asking for your assistance.”

He looked exhausted and it dawned on me that this had been consuming him—this research. Me.

“I can read some of the books in that room that are in other languages, even some of the dead ones.” He walked over to the table. “I have studied over thirteen different languages and thank god I did because I can be of use to you.”

“I don’t need your help,” I repeated, quieter. I was mildly curious, but feared letting that curiosity turn to hope.

“I know you don’t want to be stuck here for the rest of your life.”

“I don’t have a life, Soren. I exist. That’s it.”

“You could be so much more. Have so much more.”

Don’t let him get your hopes up.

Go away! Go away! Go away!

My heart beat grew erratically, I felt it beating in my chest, shaking my rib cage. “There is no way around the curse, and if you think that helping me break it will free you and your brother then you are mistaken.”

“That’s not why I’m doing this.” He clenched his hands together, frustrated that his words weren’t coming out the way they were intended. He obviously wanted to do more research before bringing his findings to me. “From all of the research that I have gathered, even from a few fairytales, curses can be broken. It is merely finding out the true meaning of the phrase that was used. What exactly did the witch say?”

I had heard enough.

I walked up to him as he backed up and hit his back against the wall. “Go into that room again without my permission and I will torture you until an inch of your life, heal you, and do it all over again. I’ll even make your brother watch.”

“Just think about what I said.” He was still trying to plead his case—Gods, he was relentless when he set his mind to something.

“Why should I?”

“You want out. I know you do. Or else you wouldn’t have looked into my memories, specifically the ones about my travels. I know that you once planned to travel the world with your sister.”

The blood drained from my face. “You read my diary?”

It only took him a moment to realize his mistake. A moment to know that he had ruined anything that could have ever been between us.

“No—wait.”

I felt betrayed. Violated. If I didn’t leave now, I would kill him. I tried to walk past him, but he blocked my path.

“Soren, what are you doing? Get out of her way,” Emilia hissed. “She needs space.”

“Get out of my way, scholar,” I sneered. “All I want to do is hurt you.”

“Because someone hurt you,” he reminded me, his voice cold. “You are right—I am a second son with privileges, and those privileges have granted me knowledge. The kind of knowledge that is going to help you. I shouldn’t have read your diary, but I needed to understand the horrors you have faced… I needed to understand everything. Now, I do.”

“You don’t understand anything,” I ground out in defense. I wanted him to shut up, to stop speaking the truth. “You’re just a child.”

“I’m not a child,” he said. “You were cursed younger than me. You were a child then,” his voice lowered. “You are still one in so many ways.”

I lifted my hand, my bottom lip quivering. I imagined squeezing his throat, fingers crushing his windpipe. I resisted, holding my hand in mid-air. “I want you to shut your fucking mouth, Soren.”

“The temper of a child,” he mocked. “The selfishness of a child. You’d only been with one man before Callum, that stable boy. Does Callum know? Does he know that you’re all talk? That beneath the magic is just a sad, scared, girl, wanting to be loved and saved, but too afraid to ever admit it?”

Emilia gasped, covering her mouth with her hand.

I gripped his throat and shoved him down, his body thumping against the hard floor. He groaned when the back of his head made contact, then gasped, clawing at my hand. I leaned down, my hair dripping to his face, covering us both. I felt the words slip out of my mouth through gritted teeth. “All you had to do was obey the rules. Why couldn’t you stop? Why couldn’t you just listen to me?”

“I don’t know how,” he croaked out. “I don’t know how to stop when I want something.”

“What do you want, Soren?” I begged him, eyes watering.

“I want to,” he pried my fingers off his throat, “show you the ocean.”

Time felt still, the air around us thick with tension. I battled for control, desperate not to hurt him, but my body longed to. I didn’t want to hear him speak again—I didn’t want someone to know my darkest secrets.

Kill him , Circe mocked. Get rid of him.

“Get out of my head,” I shouted. I jerked off him and stood, backing away from him.

He knows too much . Kill him .

“Is that her?” Soren’s eyes widened as he sat up, his throat raw. “You wrote about her in your journal. The witch, Circe. Is she talking to you right now?”

I pounded my fist against my head, trying to silence her, and Soren. Emilia walked closer, reaching out for me. I shuddered away from her. “Please, don’t touch me. I don’t want to hurt you.”

I stood, moved through the chapel door, and took off into the night. I ran down the steps on the side of the castle until my feet hit the green grass and pumped my arms as fast as they could go. Needing the wind in my face, the bite from the chill air. I passed the greenhouse, the castle walls, and the rose garden, and then my feet took me over the bridge. I could hardly register the pain of the gravel cutting into my bare feet as I pushed my body faster and faster.

Then I saw the broken main gate appear ahead and I pushed my body as hard as I have ever pushed it. And ran straight into the invisible barrier. The pain that radiated through my body was something that I had never experienced. The air was knocked from my lungs and I was thrown back with such force that when my body hit the ground it bounced a few times.

I ground my teeth together and roared. I pushed my body up and wiped the dirt off of my face and it stung. I looked at the back of my hand and found blood. I snapped my head up at the barrier, called my shadows to me, and sent a blast of energy straight at the barrier.

Blast after blast after another fucking blast of energy.

Nothing.

I strode up to the barrier and punched the wall. “I am done! I am so fucking done! Fuck you, Circe for doing this to me!” Punch. “Is this what you wanted?”

I expected her to answer me, but she wasn’t saying a word.

“Shy now are we? Figures!” I threw my entire body into punching the wall. After a while the bones in my hands began to ache, my muscles atrophied from not using them like that in so long. Not even my healing abilities were healing me fast enough before I was injuring it all over again.

I collapsed, trying to catch my breath, and sobbed. “You made me into this. Bloodthirsty. Reveling in the pain of others.” I hung my head. “A monster.”

“A monster indeed.”

I whipped my head up and found an older man standing just on the other side of the gate. Did he just see everything? I needed to kill him before he could get away and tell others about me, but panic delayed me. “Who are you?”

He said nothing.

My thoughts ran rampant, spiraling down scenarios that had yet to happen when I finally took him in and realized that I knew him.

He had graying hair that was pulled back by a strand of leather, and his clothing looked to be finely made, with not one hole in sight. Even in his later years, he looked fit and deadly. And his face. The mirror image of Soren.

Oh gods.

“Father?”

We both turned to find Soren and Callum standing a few feet away from me. All the color from Soren’s face drained and Callum kept looking between their father and myself. Concern was etched on his face as he took a step in my direction, but Soren’s hand flew to his chest, effectively stopping him.

“Son…what trouble have you gotten yourself into this time?”

Soren didn’t take his eyes off of his father as he commanded Callum, “Get Bastian.” Callum was staring at Soren, clearly irritated that he dared to keep him away from me. But, before he could argue, Soren pushed him back toward the castle and pleaded, “Hurry. Get Bast.”

Whatever look Soren gave him was desperate enough that he looked at me one last time before sprinting off in search of the elder brother.

Soren walked up to me and bent down, but he didn’t dare touch me. “Are you alright? Did he hurt you?”

I narrowed my eyes at Soren as their father scoffed, “You haven’t seen me in months and you don’t even greet me properly? I taught you better.”

Soren gritted his teeth together. “ You didn’t teach me a damn thing. You sent me away!” He scoffed. “But that isn’t even the fucking point. What are you doing here?”

“Would you believe me if I told you that I was here to see you?” The man smiled.

“I would sooner believe that you grew two heads than the lie that you just spat out of your mouth.”

I looked around, if he was there then there’s a high possibility that he wasn’t alone. My worst fear was coming true. “Are there others?”

He didn’t even glance at me while he continued to stare at his youngest son, the same inquisitive look that Soren always got when trying to figure out a problem. “Yes, I can’t have my people knowing that my sons were bewitched by the beast. How would that make our family look?”

“Of course, the only thing you are worried about is your image.”

“So, you know?” I arched a brow and stood up, not caring to wipe away the dust and grime on me.

“I’ve known for years, dear girl. This land is rich with the history of the witches that used to roam. I always knew there was no beast; we would have seen it after centuries, but I never imagined it could be someone as delicate-looking as you.” He smirked. “When you sent back those butchered men to warn my people of the beast in the forest, you did me a great favor.”

His voice robbed me of all my courage. There was nothing more terrifying than a man who could rally forces against me. Burn me like all the others—like my father. I was a covenless witch.

“You created a fear that would allow me to hold power, real power. Power that perhaps, is even stronger than what grows inside you.”

When I said nothing in response, he grinned widely and said, “Hysteria.”

I blinked slowly, thinking about what hysteria did to my father, all the women and children he burned. All those lives taken out of fear.

“You have no idea of the power inside me,” I threatened.

“Your grace, do not humor him,” Soren warned.

“I stay on this side of the line, I am safe.” He motioned at the barrier.

“Safe? I am sure that a mere female would be no match for someone like yourself.” I tried to taunt him, pull him closer with words.

“I haven’t lived this long without a strong sense of self-preservation and good judgment. And something tells me to not underestimate you.”

I sauntered over to the line, and Soren flinched the closer I got. “How about you come over here and find out?”

I was baiting him. He just needed to walk over that line and I could kill him. Bring justice to Emilia. To Soren. To Bastian. To every child that he sent out into my woods to be slaughtered.

He huffed a laugh and walked up to me until only an invisible line kept us apart. “Why would I do that?” He slid his booted foot forward until it was millimeters from the line and pressed a straight line across it. “You are the beast. I need the beast to live.”

He was arrogant, but incredibly observant.

I wanted to laugh because that was exactly who Bastian and Soren were. One was passionate to a fault and the other too intelligent for his own good.

I heard approaching footsteps and knew that Bastian and Callum had arrived. I didn’t dare take my eyes off the man—biding my time to attack him.

“Father?” Bastian was shocked, but recovered faster than his brother and stood a little straighter. After everything he learned about his father, he still sought his approval.

“Good. Now that you are here, we can go.” Their father called them over, pointing to me as if I were a stray animal. “Say your goodbyes, boys. You will return to the village infamous, survivors of the beast. They will crown us.” He thought long and hard, tapping his chin. “But do I need the beast to live?”

No one moved.

Soren swallowed audibly. “Father.”

“Perhaps not—we could slay the beast, stop the Reapings. What a legacy we’d hold. With her death, we can move into this very castle.” He played with the idea, staring past me. “We could crown ourselves.”

Callum got too close, pulling a weapon free—a blade.

“Don’t!” I took my eyes off the man for a moment to push Callum away from me, when I felt a searing pain in my side, I turned my attention back to their father before hearing shouting from behind me.

I looked down to find a calloused hand gripped around the hilt of a deformed blade protruding from my stomach. I slowly looked up at the man and found him staring down at me, eyes wild and determined.

I brought my hand up to use my magic, but nothing. Not even a drip of power came to my aid when I needed it most.

“Not so powerful now, are you?” He laughed a bit, and I felt powerless. Helpless. My legs gave out, having no strength to keep me up, when he wrapped both hands around me and held me to him. “Beautiful, though, isn’t she?” And he shook me, causing the blade still in my side to move and jerk. More pain seared through me and I couldn’t help the cry that escaped my lips.

Callum yelled, “Let her go!” Spit formed around his mouth. Callum took a step in our direction when the man’s hand wrapped around the blade and warned, “Tsk tsk. I wouldn’t do that if I were you. Step back.”

He crushed me even harder against him, so hard that I could almost feel my bones snapping under the pressure.

“Enough, Father.” Soren stepped forward. “You have made your point.”

“Oh, I don’t think I have. It doesn’t look like she is going to give up easily.” A chill ran down my spine as his nose grazed my neck and he inhaled. I could feel my body betraying me as it grew weak, my limbs not obeying the order to attack him. My arms wouldn’t even raise, and I could feel myself sinking into his hold.

What was happening? This shouldn’t be happening.

You are finally learning your lesson.

Circe?

Everything started to slow. My mind was hazy, though I could feel his hands roaming over my stomach and took a few steps over the line he drew in the dirt.

“Did you fuck her?” I wasn’t sure which brother he was asking, but I could see both of their cheeks flushed at the question.

He laughed. “Both of you? I don’t blame either one of you for being enticed by this witch.” The word was poison on his tongue, not having the same effect as when Bastian said it.

“Do not speak of her like that,” Callum hissed, taking another step forward, but Bastian stopped him.

“Any of you get closer, I’ll stab her in her heart and end it!”

Callum shook, I could see him. My eyes pleaded with them. “Just do what he says,” I told Callum, my voice weak. “Don’t hurt him,” my voice begged, and that seemed to delight him.

The man looked me up and squeezed my body hungrily. His hand had roamed up, pulling at the fabric of my dress to expose my breasts. He scooped up one of my nipples into his mouth and bit down—I cried out. Tears began to form in my eyes.

“I wonder if she would like to fuck me, too? Wouldn’t want her to miss out on having a taste of the entire family.”

Soren lunged forward to grab me, but Bastian released Callum to go after him. With one swift hit to his face, a punch that sounded as if it cracked his precious cheekbones, he fell to the earth.

Callum took the freedom to move around Bastian. He was going to try and save me, and he was going to die if he did. “Don’t,” I said again, harder. “Don’t you fucking move, Callum.”

He froze mid-step, nostrils flared, eyes watering.

“You like my boys, don’t you?” He freed my other breast from the fabric, toying with it. “Have they grown on you?”

“Yes,” I said weekly, feeling my body start to go numb.

Bastian merely stared at the scene, warring with himself on what to do.

You can’t blame the boy. He has been searching for a way out of here ever since he arrived.

I swallowed hard. I knew that he hated me, but I hadn’t realized that it went this deep.

You forced him and his brother to stay here forever. You can’t blame him for jumping on this opportunity.

I knew I didn’t have any reason to feel this way, but his betrayal hurt. Why did it hurt? My vision started to blur, and I felt his hand snake up my neck. “I think I’ll fuck her, then leave her dead on the earth where her ancestors burned.”

“Get your filthy hands off of her!”

My head bobbed up and down until I found enough strength to see that Emilia was standing next to Callum, holding up a small knife of her own. Shaking from head to toe.

There was a pause, and then the man said, “Another beauty hiding away in that castle?” From the tone in his voice, I could hear him appraising her, but he didn’t recognize her. Had there been more after Emilia? So many little girls he’d hurt that he couldn’t even remember their faces?

I gritted my teeth together, finding my voice. “You will not touch her.”

I screamed out in pain as he twisted the knife further into my abdomen. “Enough out of you.”

“What is that blade laced with?” Bastian asked.

His father chuckled. “Soren never told you that this specific metal and belladonna is a weakness to magic folk? All that history and lore he’s consumed over the years…you didn’t use it to your advantage? Have I taught you nothing?”

“He didn’t tell me,” Bastian said.

Soren knew how to kill me? All this time?

“I always said if I could combine the two of you into one man, I’d have my heir—my real legacy.”

I couldn’t even think straight. The pain was unbearable, it felt as though acid was traveling throughout my body.

The man pulled the blade from my side and pushed me down into the dirt. I pushed my hand into my side to try and staunch the bleeding, but it was coming out too quickly.

I looked up at Bastian, my eyes pleading. I thought I had nothing in this world to live for, but I did. “Please, protect them.”

“Women speak when they are spoken to.” Their father wrenched my head back painfully by grabbing a chunk of my hair and hissed in my ear. He then threw his blade to Bastian.

“Go on, son. Kill her and let’s go home.” I could see the grin on his father’s face out of my peripheral. “Prove to me you are ready.”

I looked over to find Bastian staring down at me with a sadness there that I couldn’t pinpoint.

Just go to sleep, Callie. This is what you have been praying for.

“Not yet,” I mumbled—the poison was doing its job, coursing through my veins. It took everything in me to stay present.

“What was that?” The man asked. “Bastian, is she talking to herself?”

Bastian didn’t answer him, still staring down at me.

This was happening. My powers were locked far away from me, and who knew how long it would take for them to come back. I needed to fight.

“Do it! Get it over with!” His father urged.

“Yes, do it, Bastian,” Callum said. His eyes were cold—locked in. He was holding Emilia so tightly that her arms were likely bruised. “Because that is what you were bred to do. You are whoever your father makes you. You can never be anything more.”

Bastian shook his head, looking between us three.

Callum didn’t relent. “Kill her, and kill that part of yourself with her.”

His breathing quickened. He looked to his father, his voice desperate when he asked, “What about the Reaping? Joséphine?”

Their father laughed. “Did you really think that I would allow my own flesh and blood to be sacrificed to the beast? No. I was going to switch her out with a girl that looked similar. No one would be able to tell the difference from a distance.”

Evil incarnate. That’s what this man was.

“What are you going to do with them?” He pointed to Callum and Emilia. Was he stalling? Or did he truly care about their fates?

“They will die, of course.”

I snarled at him.

“It’s a small price to pay for his silence; can’t have him coming to the town and spilling all of our secrets.”

Bastian kept staring at him, and then Emilia. Their eyes locked for a long few moments before he asked the question I’d known the answer to the moment we’d met. “She was one of the children. Her name is Emilia. She said she was raped before she was thrown into the forest. She was thirteen, the same age as Joséphine. Did you…?”

His father scoffed, not even sparing Emilia a glance. “Did I what, son?”

“Did you partake in it?”

“I don’t fancy little girls,” he said simply, but Bastian looked like he was going to be sick. Something about the response told him everything.

“You’re lying,” he said.

He breathed deeply, growing frustrated with the delay.

“You’re a monster.”

His father pointed at me. “No, she is a monster…and if you don’t kill her, I will.”

Before I knew what was happening, Bastian had run toward us and rammed his body into his father, knocking me over. Then, they were nothing but a blur of grunts, fists, and kicks. I sucked in a shallow breath when it felt like hot pokers stabbing me everywhere. I wasn’t going to make it. Fuck.

I felt the blood pool in my mouth until I was coughing it up. Gods wait! Don’t take me yet. I needed to make sure he died. That Emilia got the revenge she rightfully deserved.

The man got Bastian under his feet and kicked him off his body. I looked over to find Bastian had been cut a few times. The poison would work its way through his body much faster than mine.

I dove into the well of my power to find even a flicker, but nothing still. Fine. I would fight him until my last breath. He was looking at his son when I pulled myself up and lunged at his side, catching him off guard.

I dug my nails into him wherever I could grip. I would rip him apart with my bare hands if I had to. I couldn’t fight him properly from the belladonna and loss of blood. Useless body.

His hands gripped my shoulders as he kneed my stomach and I doubled over, coughing up more blood. I looked up at their father as he reared back his fist and slammed it into the side of my face.

I could hear screaming around me as my body twisted and I landed on my side. I didn’t even have enough strength to move my head to see who was screaming my name.

Would they mourn?

They will all be dead soon enough.

I opened my eyes to find the man had straddled my stomach, put his hand around my throat, and raised his other hand high in the air that held the blade laced with belladonna.

This was it.

I could see my family.

I closed my eyes, welcoming the darkness, but I felt nothing happen. Was it over? Then I felt something drop onto my face. I barely opened my eyes to find Emilia was on the man’s back and was driving her blade into his neck over and over again. She was so quick that not even he could swing her off of him in time to save himself. His blood poured out of him, bathing me, intermingling in the dirt around us.

I couldn’t stop staring at her as she screamed things that I couldn’t hear. Letting all of her aggression, pain and suffering go with each strike of the blade. I felt a stinging in my eyes as his blood dropped down the side of my face.

No. Emilia. I didn’t want this for you. I was supposed to take on this burden. Not you.

His body slowed, and the damned blade dropped from his hand as she gripped her tighter and drove it straight through the side of his head.

She stood and pushed him off of me. Spitting on his corpse.

“Your grace?” I could feel hands touching me again and a distant voice screamed as darkness overtook me. “Your grace!”