Chapter 4
BILLY
Terror.
That’s what clenches inside my chest as the night wears on.
Drinks are placed in our hands, one, another, then another, but Nellie doesn’t drink, she doesn’t smoke, she doesn’t dabble in drugs.
So her hand remains empty, not unsurprisingly, she doesn’t want a non-alcoholic beverage either, because she doesn’t trust anyone.
Anything.
She never has.
Not even me.
When we were children, she was drawn to me just as quickly as I to her, but she kept her distance, her suspicious eyes tracking my every movement until I approached her.
Her hands balled into fists at her sides, her dark hair hung in her face, but her jaw was set, her eyes narrowed.
Nothing but suspicion flooding off of her.
And then I offered her my hand, a smile on my mouth, my blue eyes twinkling.
She took one look at me, just a few feet before her, and spat on my shoes, turning and running away.
That was the first mistake, even back then, the primal instinct in me told me to hunt and kill.
It became a game of cat and mouse, she ran, I chased.
Until one day it just stopped. Something bigger than me, with more teeth than me, something just more than me, scared her, and she came to me to save her.
We were inseparable after that. Until the year was out and I was summoned home.
Left her.
“Nellie,” I breathe her name against the top of her head, her wavy hair shifting with my breath.
We’re looking out over one corner of the manicured gardens, standing on one of the many stone balconies as we wait for midnight.
“Do you want something to drink, Little Lamb?” She tilts her chin, her eyes blinking up at me, and in the dark, they are the same as everything else in my life, obsidian.
“You think I would let someone poison you?” I arch a brow as she licks her lips, giving me a single shake of her head.
“What do you want?” She shrugs. “We have everything, and if there’s something you want that we don’t have, well,” I dip down, turning her so we’re face to face, the cold October wind blowing around us, my hands curling around her biceps making her shiver, I grin.
“I’ll just have to kill the bartender.” Giggles peal out of her, shocking the fucking shit out of me, but I don’t let my surprise show on my face, revelling in the sweet sound as it rolls through my head.
“You think that’s funny, huh?” My grin morphs into a smirk, my eyes dragging down her goosebump smattered chest, her skin bright as the moon in the dark. “Tell me what you want to drink.”
She bites her lip at the same time I bite mine, both of us hiding our smiles, and I’m not sure I like that, if I want her to hide her happiness, the very minute amount she’s going to get in this new life.
I don’t think I want to hide mine either, but I will, to keep her safe.
She moves even closer, eradicating the sliver of space between us, her small hands coming to my chest.
“Just water,” she whispers over my mouth, her bitten smile pressing to my own.
“Just water?”
“Ice cold.”
“Ice cold it is.” I beam, drawing back, fucking giddy with having her here, something I never thought I’d see happen, well, certainly not as my Pair.
Turning back towards the doors that let us out here, still thrown open, welcoming in the Novus night, our hands linked, I find my brother standing in the opening.
“It’s time,” Bram says coolly, his hands clasped behind his back, blue eyes only on me.
Nellie’s hand tightens in mine, our fingers laced, her at my back, I glance over my shoulder, peer down at her, her big eyes like saucers on mine.
Waiting, watching, listening.
Terror.
Because she knows something is going to happen, and the unknown can be… petrifying. But the anticipation, that can be worse.
“It’s okay, Little Lamb,” I assure her, even though she knows it’s a lie.
I turn to face her, feel my brother’s presence at my back, waiting for us.
“All you have to do is trust me to lead you.” With my finger and thumb, I tilt her chin, “Just like Italy, I didn’t let you get hurt then, I won’t now.” I mean it, even as the words spill so easily from my lips, smooth as silk, the lies.
‘All of those pretty little lies you told me when you were a boy, you’re still fucking telling them.’
It’s true.
Her words from earlier tonight.
I push it all aside, even as nerves rock my core, it takes everything in me to steel my spine, to exhale a slow deep breath.
I wonder why I find it so easy to lie, so hard to tell the truth.
“Physical pain is only temporary,” I tell her, pinching her chin just a little bit tighter, and that, as much as it’s hard to say, is true.
She swallows, her throat bobbing with the harshness of it, and then her hand finds my free one, her thumb stroking along the back of my hand.
“Okay, Billy,” she whispers, nodding so very slowly. “Okay.”
Hand in hand, we follow Bram through the gathering crowd. Everyone in attendance is in a circle now, parting for us without instruction, dipping their heads as we pass as a sign of respect, until the three of us reach the very centre.
Gore and Tolly are already there. Dolly, Gore’s Pair, now at his side, her blue eyes glazed, blonde hair limp, pale cheeks gaunt.
They’re centre circle, facing the long rectangular table placed in the middle that could easily seat ten a side, but there are no chairs, no place settings, none of those things are required for Novus.
Nothing but the naked woman lying face up atop it.
Bram, Nellie, and I move to stand at their sides, me beside Gore, Nellie on my right, Bram on hers, Tolly on Dolly’s left, her between him and Gore.
Milus isn’t here tonight, not this year, he’s visiting another Cradle, one in Romania, to bring in the new year, so it’s just us.
The next generation.
And for Nellie’s first, it’s probably best this way.
Gore steps up to the table, the crowd of people around us are so still, so silent, waiting for their future leader to speak, to act, to start the night off properly.
“Welcome,” Gore says loudly, head held high, dark green eyes scanning the crowd, making eye contact with as many of his followers as he can.
Gore begins his short speech, the same drivel Father spews every year, nonsense about fortune and peace and success. Blah, blah, blah. As if anyone gives a fuck about that anyway. We all know The Obsidian isn’t about peace and success. It’s all corruption, darkness, and death.
I’m only really interested in what comes next, anyway.
The blood.
The Pairing.
The sex.
The next step in binding Nellie to me for the rest of our lives.
So many steps to go, but this is just one more that’ll prove her strength, her worth.
I glance down at her, her eyes wide, flicking between Gore and the woman on the table.
Alert, curious, frightened. She isn’t new to death.
With the way she grew up. But I’m sure she has never witnessed anything quite like this before.
It makes my dick hard, watching her, her every tiny reaction, everything about her draws me in, holds me there. Captivates me.
Gore lifts a silver blade, and alongside Nellie’s soft, sharp inhale, ultimately, he is what snags my attention, drawing my gaze back to him. The muscles in his broad back shift, pulling at the black shirt he wears as he spreads his arms wide, light reflecting off of the dagger.
The woman on the table lies still. Her dark hair pulled back, braided at the nape of her neck hidden beneath her body where she lies on her back.
Her eyes are closed, her chest a slow, even rise and fall, no fear of what’s to come.
Her sacrifice is for The Obsidian’s strength going into the new year, for fertility.
She’s performing her duty for Novus. There’s a young girl just like this every year.
I’ve never once cared about who she is, but this year, with Nellie here, it feels as though I study the girl for far too long.
“Vita nova,” Gore bellows. Eliciting the words back to him in a chant.
“Tonight is about indulgence, celebration, rebirth.” I feel Nellie’s body inch closer to mine, hearing the word she so correctly used earlier.
“We had twenty-three births gifted to us this year.” Cheers erupt, yells and shouts of joy.
“Yes, I know,” Gore says warmly, quieting the crowd, but he doesn’t smile.
“May this fertile sacrifice bless us with twice as many this coming year!” The low chanting picks back up again, a soft vibration throughout the huge room as he speaks.
“This sacrifice gives herself freely to The Obsidian. Her virgin blood will anoint each one of us tonight, blessing us on Novus.” The chanting is low but loud, a rhythmic drumming that rolls around the room.
“On this night!” Gore shouts now, his voice a deep bellow, something so unsuited to him, to his naturally quiet persona, but he sounds like a leader, is a leader.
“We will anoint our brothers and sisters in claret and be born anew!”
Everyone cheers, clapping, stomping their feet, the vibration working its way through the wooden floor, ricocheting up through my feet, and then the blade is thrusting down.
The dagger meets flesh and bone, a crunch-squelch hitting my ears at the same time warmth flecks my face, causing me to momentarily squeeze my eyes shut as the blood splatters my skin.
Gore tears through the woman’s chest, just as I did not forty-eight hours ago.
But this time, he doesn’t stop, ripping the blade down the abdomen, all the way through to the pubis.