Chapter 2 Arwyn
ARWYN
I gripped the edge of the bathroom sink, nails bending back against the cheap porcelain, delighting in the agony I could cause myself. Glass and blood decorated the bowl beneath me as I looked into the jagged shards left clinging to their place in the mirror in front of me.
My distorted reflection looked back, bloodshot ringed blue eyes hung with shadows, my jaw hidden beneath the recent growth of a scruffy beard and a grimace that had set upon my face since the day the Witch Trials had ended.
I hardly recognised the person I saw, and yet I still preferred seeing this stranger instead of the demon lurking beneath the confines of my skin.
Amongst the shards of broken glass and the smudges of my blood from my torn knuckles, a needle waited. Its vial was empty, the liquid currently pumping through my veins as it worked to subdue the demon inside of me.
I hadn’t taken my dosage of thistlebane for two days and Bahmet had almost taken control again.
The injection I’d administered would offer me another couple of days of peace from the demon at most, but I’d found that the more I took thistlebane, the more I needed it.
My first dosage of thistlebane had kept Bahmet at bay for over a week, but now it barely kept me safe for forty-eight hours.
Breathing heavy, my throat sore from last night’s sobbing, I tried to steady myself.
If I didn’t let go of the sink, I would force the porcelain to snap beneath my fingers.
I wanted to break it, Goddess I wanted to break everything around me.
If I could I’d turn this entire house upside down, smashing through walls and tearing down the ceiling until I was buried beneath all my work.
Perhaps I would have done just that if the throbbing ache in my torn knuckles wasn’t enough.
The pain was close to pleasurable, a feeling that wasn’t new to me.
Finger by finger I pried myself free of the sink, lifting up my mangled hand before wide eyes.
In the fluorescent glow of the bathroom light I saw bone beneath where the glass had made a mess of my flesh.
I held my breath, silently counting down the seconds.
As I expected, it healed. Bahmet stitched my broken skin together and closed it with fresh seams until only old blood remained on unmarred skin.
I sensed what his act was. A final plea, ‘I can help you’ or ‘you need me’ before the thistlebane completely severed his ties to me—at least for now.
Allowing myself a moment of contemplation, my eyes fell back on the biggest shard of broken glass.
I imagined what it would feel like to pick it up and draw the edge across my neck again and again until even Bahmet couldn’t help me.
Would the agony quench my burning need? Would it be enough to bury all other thoughts, all other sufferings unseen?
Would it finally take him off my mind?
Hector Briar lived within me as much as the demon possessing my body. And yet he was one occupant that I didn’t really wish to evacuate. No matter if I deserved his memory or not, I clung to it because I had no other choice.
Without Hector, I couldn’t survive this.
Everything I’d done since my victory of the Witch Trials had been for him. Whether he knew it or not, my actions were a direct result of me still trying to prove myself to a man who hated me, and rightfully so.
I had killed his mother—took the athame from my father’s hands and drove it into her body too many times to count.
I then lied my way into his orbit, only for the truth of my deceptions to bring his universe crumbling down.
I was the rightful owner of Bahmet and his power, because I was a monster through and through.
A monster waiting for his just punishment.
So, I left the glass shard in the sink and turned my back to it, because if there was one soul who deserved to offer me pain it was Hector.
When this shit show was over, and the world was safe from interfering people and their nefarious desires, I’d give myself to Hector and allow him to wreak whatever punishment he felt was justified against me. And all the while, no matter what he would do, I’d love him.
I would love him because that feeling was far more painful than drawing glass over my flesh.
Day and night, no matter the hour or the distance between us, I yearned for him in ways I’d never believed possible.
My heart burned—my mind ached as though claws tore through it whenever he occupied my thoughts.
I left the bathroom, my knees almost buckling beneath the weight of my feelings for Hector Briar.
If the footsteps beyond my bedroom door didn’t prickle in my consciousness, perhaps I would’ve fallen down and given in to my storm of regrets.
But I had a part to play. I had a job to do whilst I bided enough time for Hector to do what he needed to do.
Find me.
And he would, if given enough time. After getting to know the air-witch, I knew that he wouldn’t be wasting a single hour not looking for me. Not for the reuniting I longed for, but to finish off the one trial Hector never managed to complete.
Hector Briar would kill me, and I would let him. In doing so, he wouldn’t only free me from Bahmet, but also from another demon who had lorded over me my entire life. My father—the man who didn’t bother knocking before he entered my bedroom.
“My son. I trust you are well?”
Father Tomin stormed into my rooms, looking anywhere but at me. My body stiffened in his presence, as if every muscle was made from stone, My spine straightened out to a rod of steel and my blood turned to liquid fire within sizzling vessels.
“I’m well, Father,” I lied. “Are you?”
Our interactions were, and had always been, detached since I returned his victor. Tomin wouldn’t look at me in the eyes, and yet he kept me on a leash, close enough that he always knew where I was and what I was doing. Because, as much as he hated me for it, he needed me.
I was his half-witch son who held the key to giving him a kingdom. A key who refused to fit in any locks as of yet—even though Tomin hadn’t worked out how I managed that part yet.
“I’ll be better once tomorrow is over with,” Tomin said, pacing grooves into the floor. “Everything is in order. Everything we’ve worked tirelessly on will go to plan. As long as the Coven doesn’t catch wind of our movements until the final chance, we should see success by dusk tomorrow.”
My father’s boots scuffed over the rug in the shape of a red car, except the colour had faded since he’d bought it for me.
That was the thing about my bedroom; it hadn’t changed since I was ten years old.
The same childish books sat on the bookcase, the same stuffed teddy bears lined the top of my wardrobe.
All that was different was me. I stood like a giant amongst my past—a past my father refused me exit from.
Every night I slept on a mattress on the floor, since I’d broken my childhood bed years ago from the weight of my adult body.
I’d asked him to replace it for me, but he never did.
For years I’d wondered why Father stopped paying me the love of a parent that I deserved as someone the age of ten.
It took me until I was sixteen—six whole years of contemplating his disdain for me—to work out that his love and interest in me stopped because it was when I was ten that my Gift revealed itself.
Ten was when I manifested my mother’s curse.
Ten was when I became a witch.
“Are you sure this is the right thing to do?” I asked, not caring to go against him anymore. After all, he needed me. I didn’t need him. “I’m not confident that I can be of service.”
My father stopped suddenly, finally lifting his eyes and fixing them to mine. “The question is, why are you not sure it’s the right thing to do?”
“Because Bahmet is still unresponsive.” I kept my voice neutral as I lied. “No matter how hard I try to connect with the demon, he refuses me. We’re in no position to go against the witches until I am in control of this new power and I—”
“You’ve had two long months to master the demon, and yet you fail over and over.
” He was inches before me in a blink, cheeks red and eyes wild.
For a pious man who always carried a pocket Bible in his breast pocket, my father loved violence.
I say loved because whenever he lifted a fist, or hurt someone, it was as if he truly came alive.
Until then he was merely a robot existing as he thought a person should act.
His passion was in agony; his joy came from tearing that very thing from others—including me.
“It worked once before, and it will work again. I just need more time.”
“The first time was clearly a fluke, Arwyn. Let us not pretend that what you achieved with the first group of Hunters was anything but an accident. Do you take enjoyment in failing me? One begins to think you’re doing it purposefully.”
I stepped up to him, lip curling. “I won the Witch Trials. I hardly see that as a failure.”
“Until you do what I ask of you, you will always be a failure in my eyes. Control Bahmet, and then I may just change the way I view you.”
My skin crawled at the mention of what I’d achieved using Bahmet. I had vowed to never do it again. That was when I started taking thistlebane.
“I’m trying,” I lied, hardly bothering to fix my expression into one that was sincere. “Every day I try, but it doesn’t work. Perhaps we displeased the demon because of what you desire. Giving humans access to the Gift was—”
“You’re not trying hard enough.” Father’s spittle slammed into my face as he forced the words out.
I took a small bit of pleasure every time we were standing this close, because he had to look up at me due to our height differences. “Do you not trust me, Father?”