Chapter 36 #2
“If you wanted me at your mercy, pet,” she says to me, anger lacing her voice, “you could have just asked. I would have come willingly—even brought the rope.”
I frown at her, confused about how we managed to summon the wrong sibling yet again.
“We shouldn’t have,” Malakai states. “Not with the blood we used.”
“Twins, after all?” I ask him, assuming this might be the only explanation.
Malakai shakes his head. “We would have gotten both in that case.”
Her eyes dart from me to him upon hearing these words, a wicked and malicious smile forming on her face as she steps back from the circle. “You haven’t figured it out yet?” She cackles, her voice cold and cruel. “I have to admit, I’m disappointed, Father.”
Then it hits me, and my eyes widen as I realize why we always summon the wrong sibling. My breathing stops for a moment when it clicks why Nahesa didn’t refer to Nagamaru as he but as they—why she gave us the impression that there was something she wasn’t telling us, keeping us in the dark.
Malakai sucks in a breath a fraction of a second later when he comes to the same realization. He growls—a sound deep and low, borderline feral, animalistic.
Her eyes fly between Malakai and me, and I’m certain she sees that we know. We know. She sneers at us, and Malakai snaps. His magic crashes down on the circle that contains her, rushing through without hesitation and wrapping around her.
She snarls back but is unable to resist the pull of his power, forced to transform. She grows taller, her facial features become slightly more masculine, her hair turns a shade darker, and her short dress shifts to a suit with a corset, until a man stands trapped in the circle.
Nagamaru grins at us unapologetically, straightening his jacket.
“How?” Malakai sounds furious, his voice laced with anger and disdain. His magic coils around me, making it clear that he’s holding back the urge to rip their throat out.
Nagamaru shrugs, plucking some lint from their shoulder. “Magical anomaly,” they say in a bored voice. “Mother could probably tell you more about it.” Their mint-green eyes flick up, piercing Malakai’s golden ones as they sneer. “Disappointed to have both a son and a daughter, Father?”
“Disappointed that I only have one neck to snap,” Malakai retorts, vibrating with anger.
Nagamaru chuckles, their gaze drifting to mine. “You, on the other hand, didn’t seem to mind a more feminine touch every now and again.” They change again, and the red-haired woman winks at me. “I don’t mind, pet. Any way you like it works just as well for me.” They smile.
“Enough.” Malakai’s voice booms through the courtyard, his anger reaching a boiling point.
Nagamaru turns their head to him and giggles. “You should learn how to share. We both know she would love that.” They change once more, and I find the whole thing both upsetting and unsettling—the ease with which the male and female forms replace each other fills me with unease.
Malakai’s magic charges the air around us, and before he can say or do anything, I step up to Nagamaru.
They look surprised when I stop short of touching my nose to the circle.
Crossing my arms over my chest, I study them for a moment.
Malakai’s magic is at my back, sizzling against my skin, allowing me to take the lead while ready to intervene if necessary.
“Why are you killing them?” My voice is cold and emotionless, masking the fact that I want to make good on Malakai’s threat of snapping Nagamaru’s neck myself. Even if it can’t kill them, it would feel so good to hear their bones break.
“You found my gifts, then?” They smile, baring venomous fangs that make my stomach turn.
I have to hold back a flinch. “Yes, and I don’t like them. They mess with my magic, with my curse.” I’m not completely certain if that’s the case, but they don’t need to know that.
“Oh.” They frown as if they find this off-putting. “I thought you would appreciate it—seeing those filthy bastard children getting what they deserve. After all, it’s a fitting punishment for what that man did to you. What he made me do to you.”
Nagamaru reaches out to touch me, but their fingers can’t extend past the circle’s boundary.
When they touch the magic that holds them, it sparks against their skin.
Nagamaru snarls at this, but for the briefest moment, I see something in their eyes—they hate Henry as much as I do, despite what they themselves did to me.
When Nagamaru looks back at me, their frustration shifts to something else. “Father wasn’t the only one watching you. I had my eye on you for a long time—even longer than him.” They glance at Malakai, then their gaze returns to me.
“When the family needed someone to get into your husband’s head, to influence him to get rid of you… it was too easy to offer them my services and then offer them to your husband as well.” They smirk, cold dread filling my body.
“Why me?” My voice barely rises above a whisper, revealing more than I want. The hurt, betrayal, and lingering anger seep into the question.
“Oh, pet, I’ve asked myself that since the day I lost you. I drowned myself in men and women, but not a single one managed to scratch that itch you left. Not even those who looked like you.” They hold up a ring, a gold band engraved with flowers and a small translucent stone.
Recognition crashes over me when I see the wedding band that once graced my finger. “I destroyed that.” The hurt and betrayal melt away, completely overtaken by rage—the fury rising from deep inside.
Nagamaru nods. “The surviving son had it replicated years later. It’s how I found him and his children. They were fun.” Their mint-green eyes ensnare mine, and they smirk. “Though not nearly as much fun as you were.”
They close their hand around the ring, and molten gold drips between their pale fingers. It sizzles when it hits the symbols of the circle at their feet. Malakai steps closer, placing a hand on my back, sensing that all rational thought is about to leave me.
“Why me?” I repeat my question through gritted teeth, fed up with their vagueness.
Nagamaru’s face loses all expression. “I figured that the reason I can’t stop needing you is the same reason Father chose you.
” Their gaze shifts from me to Malakai and back.
“The call of your blood is too alluring. Even though I didn’t inherit Father’s specific brand of magic, I feel it reach out to me. ”
Their words twist my stomach, and I have to hold back from looking at Malakai over my shoulder.
“I need you, pet. I need you like I need the air I breathe,” Nagamaru continues, desperation filling their voice. “I should be thankful for the little taste I got, but it only makes missing you that much worse.”
“You raped me, you filthy piece of shit,” I snap, unable to hold it back any longer. “You had me once, and you’ll never have me again.”
They laugh as if I’ve told the best joke they’ve ever heard.
Their gaze returns to mine, and they lick their lips, that forked tongue darting out.
“First, you loved it,” they say, their eyes dark with desire as memories undoubtedly fill their mind.
“Second, it wasn’t just once, pet. It most definitely wasn’t.
Don’t you remember?” They laugh cruelly, clearly knowing more than I do, and it makes me sick.
“I tucked you away in that rancid whorehouse to hide you from him.” Nagamaru jerks their chin at Malakai, never taking their eyes off me. With every word they speak, more panic builds inside me, making me tremble. “To keep you as mine for just a little while longer.”
My breathing grows heavy and labored, something pressing at the back of my skull, between my eyes—something that desperately wants to break free.
“At least I was the one who showed you how you really like to be fucked. How thin the line is between pain and pleasure.”
No, I definitely don’t want to know.
A violent headache blooms between my eyes. My knees buckle, and I collapse, unable to see past the searing pain in my head. I faintly feel Malakai’s hands on me and hear his snarl aimed at Nagamaru.
“Don’t worry, Father. I figured it would be better if she remembers—that’s all.”
Something pops free, and a small, thin white shard floats in front of me.
“You used your bone magic on her?” Malakai’s infuriated voice rings out beside me, his arms strong and steady around my trembling body.
“Only to keep her from remembering. It worked even better than expected, considering how you missed it.”
I stare at the tiny shard floating before me—mesmerized. A second later, it turns to dust, and I scream as memories come crashing down on me once more. My hands clutch my head as images of them raping me bleed together behind my eyes.
They didn’t just sell me to a whorehouse.
No, they kept me there as their plaything, locked in a room with nothing to do but wait for them to come for me.
Because it was always them—only them. The worst part is that, in the end, I enjoyed it.
I enjoyed how they took me against my will, time and time again.
But I couldn’t admit it. I couldn’t live with it, so I chose not to live any longer.
Nagamaru made me feel things I had never experienced before, and it was that overwhelming sensation that drove me to take my own life.
They were there when I did, planting that shard of memory loss to keep me from remembering them.
The only trace of their presence that lingered through everything that followed was a green flash of their eyes and their scent: apples and nutmeg.
And then there was Malakai—the reason my life returned to me, my second chance. Even though my mind had forgotten, my body remembered. This time, I embraced the violence that enveloped me.
Unbeknownst to each other, father and child both shaped me into the person I am today.