Chapter 6
Chapter
Six
Selene
The stone walls don’t swallow my breath. Each exhale bounces back, warming my face. My cheeks heat, but my hands are finally steady.
“I have you to protect me,” I said to Galen. I can make threats just as well as he can!
But will he protect me after this?
The question is how badly Galen wants peace? If that’s what he truly wants with my people, he’ll let my transgressions go.
If he wants war, he’ll kill me for my crime.
I don’t see it as a crime.
It’s justice.
A life for a life. If I have to sacrifice my life in order to avenge my brother, so be it.
What future do I have, anyway? Married to a prick with a huge cock—sexual pleasure doesn’t make a marriage last. It helps, but love is the only way a marriage can truly survive. Love has the power to endure both good and bad times.
Love is both an ember and a fire. Some years, it roars, and others, it flickers but remains lit.
Galen and I don’t have that. There’s no fire, just sparks that never fully catch aflame.
Eventually, I’ll be forced to bear his children. But what if those children are fae and not vampires? Never has a mixed-species child survived past birth before. It’s one magic or the other, never both.
If our child is gifted with fae magic, Galen would not let them stay here. He will demand vampire children as his heirs. My child, if born fae, will be forced to return to fae lands. Since my brother is dead, my child, if male, will inherit my father’s crown.
What if they are female? That was never mentioned. Will she be killed or traded like a playing card?
And if the child is a male fae, I cannot raise them. Galen would not let me leave to return home to watch them grow.
Death and loneliness. That’s what defines my future.
So why not die with a purpose instead of a broken heart?
Galen will suspect me first. So I hid my tracks, returned to my room, changed in front of my maid, and slipped into bed. Deception began when she departed; I then secretly left my room, traversed the gardens, and reached my hiding place.
My arm is steady, but the weight of the weapon feels unfamiliar in my hands since it’s not my usual hunting bow. The ash wood is rougher to the touch and in need of a good polish. It’s smaller, better suited for close range.
“This is it,” I breathe as I draw my elbow back; the weight of the string helps to steady my fingers. My biceps clench as I demand the string to pull tighter, but the hallway is so narrow that my elbow digs into the stone.
My eyes trace down the arrow I made. I sat by the fire and carved the wood, standing hunched under the light of the moon as I shaped the stone into a point, and polished it under the sun until it was so sharp that it rivaled my husband’s fangs.
“There you are, the famous heart thief.” That’s what the songs call Titus. Ballads can turn monsters into heroes and heroes into villains.
Good, you’re tall, taller than Galen, and easy to spot. That hair, rivaling my shade of black, shines under the chandeliers. His shoulders are wide, arms muscled in a way that proves he is more familiar with swinging a sword than lifting a fork.
His stance is steady and sure-footed. His jaw is square and hard, firmly clenched, unlike Galen’s, which is used to seducing a crowd with a warm smirk.
Titus is every ounce a killing machine.
I move on from his face, because it makes him more human. Those hands belong to a beast. His fingers, which gripped my brother’s heart as it still beat, are holding his newly gifted sword with confidence.
Did he cheer and laugh as Everett felt?
A dip of my arm has my arrow lining up directly to his heart.
“You don’t want to meet him first?” My sister’s voice startles me. I keep my bow aimed at Titus, but my neck turns to see Sable grinning at me, one perfectly plucked brow arched. “He’s really handsome.” Her lips curl up into sharp points, resembling the thorns that protrude from the rose stems.
Sable, my twin sister, looks exactly like me, but she wears a more voluminous dress with intricate black roses that draw attention to her pushed-up breasts.
Sable never lets an opportunity to dress up slip through her poisonous fingers. She likes fine things—jewels, dresses, crowns, cocks that are attached to men with titles, preferably crowns, but I got the king. Unfortunately.
“You disrespect our brother.” I peer through the wall’s narrow opening. “He killed him.” I aim my elbow high. The string stings my finger from the tension as I pull it back with all my might.
Sable moves slowly, like a koi fish gently swimming closer.
I don’t want her here ruining this memory as she usually does.
“Did you ever stop to think?” She pauses long enough for my arm to begin to ache. “Maybe Everett wasn’t as skilled a fighter as you imagined him to be?” The sick joy in her voice bleeds through her next words, which are my final blow. “Maybe Everett deserved to die.”
Clatter! The bow drops to the ground. I shove her back into the stone. Instead of grunting in pain, she grins. I raise my hand and press the arrow into her neck; the dark black stone I used to make the arrow’s tip makes her skin look more luminous and tan.
The slight tremble my fingers had at the start of the evening is nothing compared to the earthquake-sized movements my hand now possesses.
Her smile spreads from ear to ear, but her eyes relax. The pulse in her neck pushes against the arrow’s tip.
I want to pierce it, to slice the vein that supplies her brain with blood. I want to end her, just like she has tried to kill me.
So many times she has tried. It’s a wonder either of us is still alive.
I never wanted it to be this way. She’s my twin.
Once, I did love her. However, things shifted at the age of five when she attempted to drown me.
I knew then, even as a child, that Sable’s magic controlled her.
That fact motivated me to train my magic.
It would never best me. I ruled it, not vice versa.
I tried a few more times to help her, but you can only pet a biting dog so many times before it gets lucky and delivers a deadly blow.
This is where we stand, always at odds, how we will forever be.
Like everything else in my life, I hate it, but I accept it. That’s how I was taught to survive. Accept and move on.
However, I refuse to accept what Galen has done.
“That won’t kill me,” she purrs as if being on the verge of death seduces her. I want to shove knives in my ears. It’s not enough that we look alike; no, we sound the same, too! She’s my worst enemy, speaking my fears back in my own voice! “You’d have to plunge it into my heart.”
“You don’t have one,” I hiss.
“True,” she giggles. She leans into the stone wall as if it is a plush mattress. “But how poetic to die the same way our brother did. Pierced through the heart.”
“One day you will die, and it will be alone. You won’t beg.
Your pride is strong, but deep down, fear will arise without a comforting hand to hold.
Your fingers will grasp nothing but raw, deserted air, Sable.
Because that’s what your soul is. Frigid and barren.
” I lean closer, nose to nose with the version of myself that is truly the definition of evil. “You reap what you sow.”
I push my feet back with force until my back hits the stone opposite her. This arrow is meant for one person, and it is not Sable.
“That is why I am spreading so many seeds, sister. You’d be wise to do the same. When the harvest time comes, you will be the one who is petrified.”
I look at her feet, too sickened to meet her eyes again. Sable’s always scheming and plotting something.
“I’m happy Everett is dead. He was always meddling in my business. He tried to stop me; he did for years. Now, I can’t be stopped,” she gloats. Her chest inhales wide like a dragon that finally landed on the pile of ashes it created.
“I’m free. My only regret is that I did not end Everett myself.
I did enjoy all the attempts, though. Killing isn’t the fun part; it’s the plotting.
The actual attack is just the blink of an eye.
When the victim shoves out their last breath, it’s always such a letdown.
Then I have to start over again, choose a different target.
It’s like creating those needlepoints they forced us to do as children.
Again and again. Select a design, make it, finalize the details, finish it, then start again. ”
She leans against the wall with relaxed ease. “You should see my next design, Selene; it will outshine everything in this world. Everything.”
“A shine is just a reflection,” I retort. “A reflection is a trick of angles and light. It makes something small appear grandiose. It’s momentary, every light must dull, Sable; yours already is.”
Do you like my wicked smile? You taught me how to make it.
I tip my chin up and add, “Oops, you just showed your temper. Put your mask on quickly. The beast inside you is too grotesque to be seen in court.”
Her lips snarl back, showing off her white teeth. “You’re a bitch!”
I shake out my arm, relaxing it so I can make the shot. “I could respond likewise, but I’d rather not share anything in common with you.”
“You will fall one day, Selene.”
I flick my hair back over my shoulder. “Tell me something I don’t know. Fae have long lives, but eventually,” I look at her, “everything dies, Sable.”
“It’s how they die.” She rolls her shoulders back. “I have a feeling you will die with such heartache and agony, it will be unimaginable.”
“That means I loved, and if I loved, then someone loved me. Someone will mourn for me. Who will mourn your death, Sable?” I tilt my head back, gazing down at her with disdain. “I know who will rejoice. It’s how they die, right?”
There’s your own medicine on a spoon. Open your evil lips and lap it down like the bitch you are.
I look out the window again. Good, my target is still there.
Go away, Sable! I employ my only known technique to encourage her exit.
I keep talking. “You think you are free, but you are not. Your leash is long, but one day, it will snap back.” I smirk.
“And those people holding your leash, whom you think are your friends, you will be reminded they are not your friends but your masters.”
“I’m freer than you.” She argues in a weak defense. “I will be after tonight. Are you really planning on killing him?”
Turning, I try to ignore her, but Sable hunts down attention.
“You know,” she begins as I bend down to grab the bow, “I think you’d do it. Kill me, but then you’d feel guilty and use your life magic to bring me back.”
I have a rare gift; so do all my siblings. My family bred for that sole purpose. I have a form of life. My twin balances me. Sable’s magic is death. One prolonged touch from her magic and death can set in and start to spread.
It works slowly, thank the gods. She needs contact for a few minutes to kill a grown man. My life magic is best at healing. One touch from me, and I can heal what she did to an extent.
Although I’ll never admit that Sable is stronger, she can kill; I can’t bring back the dead.
I have been cleaning up her mess my entire life. One time, she disliked the lettuce of the local farmer, so she went to the farm, poured her magic into the soil, and killed the crops.
Father allowed her to get away with it because one, Sable was learning how to use and control her magic, and two, I could heal the land and nourish the soil. That became the reckless cycle of how Sable and I mastered our magic.
Father forced her to sicken, and me to heal.
During the war, I spent my time in the healing tents. But the one person I wished I could have saved was Everett.
Sable is always one step ahead, one move ready to inflict pain, so my next statement shocks her. “Did you ever consider I’d only heal you so I could kill you again?” I hold my bow and peer through the narrow window as I take my aim. “Over and over again,” I mutter.
Silence.
Thank the gods!
“Killing him won’t fix anything, Selene.” Why did she have to speak? “You’ll only start another war.”
Contentment lifts my lips into a smile, crinkling my eyes.
“That’s where you’re wrong, Sable.” I look at her one more time, watch the confusion wrinkle her forehead, and then her eyes dilate.
Good, she is thinking about all the moves I’m playing.
“You spoke to the guard who was on the northern wall; he saw you walking this way, not me.”
Oh yes, it’s clicking in her head.
You see, Galen will suspect me, but he won’t know the truth.
Which twin was it?
I knew Sable would follow me here; she always likes to torture me. Galen has seen how Sable has been sucking up to his court, trying to win favor.
But why?
Was it so that Sable could kill the hero and be spared because the people would forgive her?
See, that’s a smart suggestion. Sable just realized it, but wait, dear sister, there’s more.
Galen thinks Sable and I disagree, but has he considered it all a game so we can trick him?
Oh, the plot thickens.
He must contemplate Sable’s possible involvement. Which means… Sable’s leash is about to be tugged back hard. Those freedoms she enjoys will vanish soon.
Ultimately, having an evil twin offers me one significant benefit. She can be a scapegoat.
“You will start this war.” I look at Titus and release my arrow. “Not me.”