Chapter 13
Chapter
Thirteen
HAVEN
Iwasn’t dead.
My eyes were crusted shut. Exhaustion made twitching even a finger an impossibility. My back ached. Ached, not burned. Aching was better than burning. Aching was way better than death.
The air carried the scent of lavender and something medicinal—sharp and clean, nothing like the stale dampness of the pit that had clung to my nostrils for days.
I’d been moved. Clean linen sheets replaced the rough stone floor. The mattress beneath me was soft enough that my body had actually sunk into it. After days on a cold, hard floor, it felt luxurious.
“When will she wake up?” Grayson snapped. My being unconscious inconvenienced him? Was he just eager to resume torturing me? What an asshole.
“She almost died,” a woman replied. “And she’s not out of the woods yet.”
I was, but I wasn’t about to pry my eyes open and tell her. Especially not with Grayson in the room.
“Can you hurry this along?” he demanded.
How is she? Will she recover? No such questions for Grayson. Instead, he reduced me to “this.” Such. An. Asshole.
“So you can beat her again?” the woman shot back. She was my hero.
“You dare?”
“I changed your diapers. I held your hand when you learned to walk. Dried your tears and patched your childhood wounds.” She tsked. “I hoped you would grow into a man I could be proud of.” Her tone made it clear he hadn’t.
Ouch. She was definitely my hero.
“We had no choice. Either Drake whipped her or Carron killed her. Those were our options.”
“And the poison?”
“Poison?” Grayson was loud enough to shake my bed.
I barely kept myself from flinching.
“You didn’t know?” the woman asked.
“I did not.”
“Then I’d say Carron did kill her, and Drake tortured her on her way to death.”
“She’s not dead.” Did he think my clinging to life somehow excused them?
“By rights, she should be. They used ricopin. No one survives that. Combine ricopin, her wounds, hunger, and dehydration, and she should be dead four times over. The fates must have plans for her.”
Nope. No, thank you. Hard no. The fates could keep their plans. I was still alive thanks to Grandmother and her potions, not the fates’ dubious auspices.
“She’s just a shield.” I could hear Grayson’s sneer. In his entitled mind, a shield was beneath the fates’ notice. Not that I wanted them to notice me.
“What happened to that sweet boy who used to bring me flowers from the garden? Who cried when he accidentally stepped on a beetle?” The woman sounded genuinely curious.
“We’re fighting two wars. I can’t afford to coddle a shield.”
“No one would accuse you of that.” Her voice was as dry as dust.
“Wake her up.”
“Why?”
“We need her.”
“To act as your shield?” I could only assume a disbelieving expression matched her disbelieving tone. “You expect her to protect you after what you’ve done to her?”
“I didn’t poison her.”
“No. You just watched as she was whipped within an inch of her life, then you tossed her in the pit to die.”
“Enough talking.”
“Pardon?”
“I am not the villain.”
Wow, he was in denial.
“What you did to this girl would break your poor mother’s heart.”
“May.” His warning was clear; he’d brook no criticism.
“Marian begged you to go with her. Instead, you chose your father and this.”
“This?”
“Treating women as if they’re worthless. Using their power for your own ends, then discarding them like trash.”
“She could have stayed.” His voice was barely a whisper.
“He beat her, Gunn.” Her voice was soft, tender. “He’d begun beating your little sister. She chose to protect her daughter.”
“By abandoning her son.” The pain in his voice revealed a deep wound. One that had festered. “I was eight years old when she left.”
“You told your father about her plans. She barely escaped.”
He’d done that? He’d betrayed his mother? Any hint of sympathy vanished.
“I didn’t mean to. He made me—never mind. Wake the shield.” It was an order.
“No. And she has a name. Alina came to visit her and called her Haven. Her name is Haven. You should use it.” She’d done it now, gone too far. Would he punish her for reminding him I was a person, not a weapon in his war?
“May, do as I say.” He’d brook no further arguments.
“I said no. Will you whip me next?”
The sound of a door slamming reverberated through the walls.
May sighed and pressed a gentle hand against my forehead. “There’s still a decent man in there. I’m sure of it.”
That made one of us.
“He needs someone to remind him what it is to feel something besides anger.”
Hopefully, she didn’t mean me.
With gentle fingers, she brushed a strand of hair away from my face. “Sleep, pet. The world will come for you soon enough.”