Chapter 20
Twenty
Corabeth
If Corabeth thought she saw little of Rooke in the days leading up to the feeding incident, as she had started to call it in her mind, she saw even less of him afterward.
He disappeared for days, neglecting even his one constant—preparing Corabeth’s dinner.
Some nights, Corabeth heard his bedroom door shut somewhere down the hall.
The next day, the house was bathed in silence once more, and it was as if he was never even there.
In the mornings, Corabeth went on walks where she was always accompanied by two or three ravens who flew along and watched her from the branches high up.
She wondered if they were there of their own accord or if Rooke had instructed them to keep close.
But each morning, she noticed fresh tracks leading to and from the forest in different directions.
She recognized them as signs of an ongoing search.
It was close to a week later when Corabeth found herself wandering the halls of the manor in a darkness that she had become accustomed to. What she did not seem to grow accustomed to, however, was the silence.
The nearly full moon bathed the halls with a cold, silver light that was enough for Corabeth to navigate the house. Her first thought was to head to the library, where the space wasn’t so yawning, where the emptiness wasn’t threatening to swallow her alive. Where the silence didn’t echo so sharply.
As she walked down the grand stairs, her eyes instead caught on double doors she had never seen open before. They led to a room next to the dining room, and stood now wide open. Corabeth’s silent steps took her towards them.
It was a grand ballroom where one entire wall was made up of floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the gardens.
The white marble floor was almost glowing in the silver moonlight, and it reflected the cold light back towards the glass chandeliers hanging from the ceiling.
And in front of one of the windows stood a familiar figure clad in black.
Always in black. Despite the gleam of the rest of the room, his form seemed to swallow the light.
Corabeth was sure Rooke was aware of her presence as she approached, although he did not turn. He simply stood, hands clasped behind his back.
“Where have you been?” she asked, unable to keep some of the hurt from leaking into her tone. The intimacy of the feeding had brought them closer, or so Corabeth had thought. And yet, Rooke pulled further away than ever.
“I have doubled my hunting efforts,” Rooke replied, still facing the window.
“And have you been successful?”
The following silence was answer enough. For a moment, it seemed like Rooke’s figure might dissolve into shadows completely. His contours blurred and rippled before he became solid again.
Corabeth came to a stop some steps away from Rooke, feeling a distance between them that had not been there since her first days in the mansion.
“You left me alone,” she whispered so quietly a normal person might not have heard her at all. However, Rooke was anything but normal.
He half-turned but stopped himself, not allowing himself the sight of Corabeth.
“It was better this way,” he said curtly.
“For whom?” Corabeth demanded, taking a step closer to him. She had to fight to keep her voice from breaking.
Rooke was silent for a long moment, his figure unmoving in the darkness. Then he lowered his head in resignation. “You’re right. I have been selfish.”
“How, Rooke?” Corabeth asked, throwing up her hands in frustration before letting them fall again. Whatever was going on in Rooke’s thoughts, whatever connections he had drawn, Corabeth could barely understand half of them.
Rooke finally turned and looked at her then, an infinite sadness swimming in his eyes.
“In many ways. In bringing you here. In keeping you,” he said before adding in a much lower tone, “In feeding on you.”
“Do you really think you’ve done any of that against my will?” Corabeth asked incredulously.
“There are many ways to bend someone’s will. To trap someone, not with violence but with honey,” Rooke said and turned again, his gaze fixed on something outside.
The words sent chills through Corabeth, and for a moment, she considered if she was simply a moth, too dazed by the glow to see the flame.
But they had shared genuine moments; she knew this in her soul.
She had come to consider him her friend.
She wasn’t there just because Rooke had finessed her.
The question was if Rooke himself saw it.
“What was your plot, Rooke? What were your evil plans?” Corabeth asked and came to stand next to Rooke.
Rooke scoffed at this without much amusement.
“You must have figured it out by now, Corabeth. I am nothing but a lonely man stuck in time, unable to move forward,” he said with much disdain.
He paused for a moment before continuing.
“No one had followed me before. That night, at first, I was toying with you, pulling you deeper into the woods. But when I finally decided to leave you to find your way back to your village, the ravens intervened and led you here. And after all that… you still asked for death. In spite of myself, I found myself trying to keep you alive instead. Before long, I was terrified you’d want to leave.
And I have never felt that fear more sharply than after I fed on you, when I saw that fear in your eyes that I promised myself I’d never put there. ”
Corabeth’s chest tightened impossibly as she listened, making it hard to even breathe. She had not guessed that while she had been terrified of being left behind, he had been in the grasp of similar fears.
“Rooke,” she said gently, taking another step closer to him. “You thought I was afraid of you? After that night?”
“You did a poor job of hiding it,” Rooke scoffed.
Corabeth almost wanted to laugh. “If you saw fear, it wasn’t because of you,” she said, before she realized she’d taken a step down a path that inevitably meant confessing her true feelings.
She had not even properly acknowledged or examined them herself, instead keeping them neatly tucked away along with everything that felt too heavy.
“What do you mean?” Rooke asked, his frown deepening. The moonlight gave him an ethereal look, turning his skin nearly translucent, as if he belonged more to the mists outside than to this flesh-and-blood form Corabeth’s fingers ached to touch.
She swallowed, her head filled with thoughts that kept chasing each other, but somehow, she was unable to voice a single one of them.
It all seemed too complicated, too sudden.
But was there ever a perfect moment when she would feel entirely ready?
She took a deep breath and instead thought back on that night, on what exactly had terrified her.
“I was frightened of what I was feeling,” she finally confessed, looking down at where she was wringing her own hands.
“Perhaps I should have been afraid of you. I saw the logic behind it even then, I just couldn’t bring myself to feel it.
I never could. Instead, I was consumed by how much I wanted it. ”
Rooke’s hand reached out to rest on her own hands, settling them.
Corabeth lifted her gaze, only to find Rooke already watching her. “Why are we each other’s tormentors when we are afraid of the same things?” she asked.
“I did not dare to hope…” Rooke said, awe and astonishment mixing in his own expression. Tentatively, he lifted his hand to Corabeth’s face, fingers gently brushing her cheek, as if he were afraid any sudden or harsh movements would scare her away.
Corabeth closed her eyes and leaned into his touch, letting him cup her cheek.
She was grateful Rooke’s other hand was still on her hands, for she was afraid they might tremble terribly.
When she opened her eyes again, Rooke had barely moved closer, although it was now clear they were destined to collide, two heavenly bodies caught in each other’s gravity.
Torturously slowly, Rooke drifted closer and bent down slightly until his forehead rested against hers. For an agonizing moment, their breaths, hot and heady, mingled. It was Corabeth who closed the distance and brushed her lips against his.
It was a slow, almost tentative kiss, meant to put all of their fears to rest. It was all that was needed to ignite Rooke.
The world outside of them ceased to exist, everything narrowing down to the press of his lips, to his hand that now confidently found its way to the back of Corabeth’s neck, pulling her closer.
As the kiss deepened, Corabeth leaned into Rooke and snaked her arms around his neck.
His lips, soft but firm, moved sensuously against hers, stirring something deep within her.
She felt him tense against her—a tightening of his fingers on her waist, lips, hungry and deprived, demanding more—before he softened again.
There was a wildness in him that got tamed over and over again.
She longed to unleash that wildness then, upon her, upon the entire world.
When Rooke finally pulled back, breath uneven, his gaze searched hers. Corabeth peered back only with gentleness in her eyes as she reached up, brushing her fingers along his jaw.
“I know how to help you, Rooke,” she said, letting her hand slip down to his chest where his heart beat wildly. There was comfort in knowing her heart wasn’t in this chase alone.
“What do you mean?” Rooke asked with the slightest frown, still dazed from the kiss.
“I can bring them to you,” Corabeth said.
At this, Rooke almost reared back. He would have succeeded if Corabeth had not fisted the lapels of his jacket and held him in place. Now that he was so close to her, she did not want to let him go at all.
“What are you saying, Corabeth?” Rooke asked, but stopped pulling away.
“The Fabels need to die to break your curse, you know this. I can bring them to you,” Corabeth explained once more, although Rooke still seemed equally confused.
“I will not turn you into my accomplice,” Rooke said, shaking his head.
Corabeth smiled up at him and ran a gentle hand over his cheek once more.
“I’m doing it for quite selfish reasons, you see,” she said.
“Ely pushed me up against a wall and squeezed my neck until it was impossible for me to scream for help. His brother, Turner, had taught him that neat trick. He stood watch, said it was time for Ely to become a man. Moments before that, I witnessed a distressed girl stumble out of their house. Their father, the Village Elder, saw them assaulting me. I saw in his eyes he knew the truth of what had happened. And yet, he turned the entire village against me, accused me of seducing his son. The youngest, Giles, was the one to throw the rock that injured my head.”
As she spoke, Rooke’s expression turned thunderous, his hold on her tightening ever so slightly.
“I want you to become my weapon,” Corabeth finally said.
There was still a silent war raging inside Rooke. Corabeth saw it in the way his features shuddered. His eyes told her he was still unconvinced whether she was being entirely serious. But she had never been more serious about anything in her entire life.
“If you are hesitating for my sake, no need,” Corabeth comforted him.
She ran a soothing hand down his chest. A strange calmness had come upon her now that she had voiced her desires.
The craving for revenge had wormed its way into her, eaten away at her, and finally, the empty shell fell away, exposing her hideous insides.
If there was anyone who understood that hideousness, Corabeth hoped it would be Rooke.
“Do you think I am a monster for suggesting it?”
Rooke sighed, his shoulders sagging slightly as he brushed a strand of stray hair behind Corabeth’s ear. “If you are a monster, then you are the monster that they made you,” he said. The doubts finally cleared from his expression, leaving behind only acceptance. “And what a pair we make.”
At this, they smiled at each other. A somber kind of smile that spoke of quiet understanding. They were two wronged souls that had found solace in one another against all odds.
“I will be your weapon,” Rooke finally said, “and you, my mistress.”