Chapter 46
Two days pass in the log cabin. I don’t leave, don’t go outside, barely move off the sofa because my body still hurts too much.
The only time I do move is when the sun rises, streaming through the bay window in the kitchen, and Sterling helps me to bed.
I can’t even pinpoint the pain. It’s like leaving Requiesse has damaged something deep within me.
No matter how much of their blood I consume, I’m not getting any better.
Zeke insisted Sterling and I take the bed our first day here, staying up all hours of the day to keep watch over us. I don’t know when he’s sleeping, if he’s sleeping at all. But the rigidity in his shoulders is wound so tight, I’m worried he may snap at any moment.
Zeke and Sterling tiptoe around each other in an odd dance—neither one wanting to offend or set off the other.
Like strangers trapped in this house together.
Zeke goes out when the sun sets, checks his traps, makes his rounds, comes back covered in blood and offers something to Sterling, which he accepts silently.
He won’t feed from Zeke. I’ve overheard them arguing about it when they thought I was sleeping.
It appears Sterling also has a bloodbond to Zeke.
But Sterling insists on only allowing me to feed from Zeke—seems to think saving Zeke's blood for me will somehow help me heal faster. But at this point, I’m starting to wonder if I will ever heal at all.
Or if I’m damned to the pain infecting my blood and bones for the rest of my life.
“You need to go hunt.” Zeke’s clipped, harsh voice wakes me. I’m back in the bedroom now, but the sun has long since set and I’m surprised I slept as long as I did.
“I’m fine.” Sterling’s voice drifts from the kitchen.
“You’re not. Consuming animal blood will only help you so much. If you won’t drink from me, then you need to go straight to the source. No more drinking the blood of dead animals.”
Zeke’s right. I’ve noticed the sluggishness in Sterling’s movements since we arrived here. The bags under his eyes. The taste of his blood going sour and flowing slower each time he’s had me feed from him.
I push myself slowly from the bed, my bones protesting at the movement, and stumble over to the door frame.
“I can take care of myself, Zeke." There’s disdain in Sterling's tone, so much so that it makes me cringe. "I don’t need you to mother me.”
“You’re fucking poisoning yourself, Sterling! And for what? Some heroic idea that you’re saving her? Did you ever stop to think that if you don’t take care of yourself, you won’t be able to take care of her either? That poisoning yourself may actually be poisoning her too?”
“You’re one to talk about self-deprecating heroics,” Sterling scoffs.
“And what the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Zeke comes around the far side of the kitchen counter, towering over Sterling.
“He’s right,” I call out, interrupting them.
Both of their heads snap up from the peninsula.
Sterling rushes over to help me to the sofa, but I shake my head, turning towards the kitchen instead.
I can’t waste another night lying on that gods-forsaken couch.
Even if it pains me to do so, I want to stand in the kitchen with them.
He guides me over to the peninsula and I lean against it for support. “He’s right, Sterling” I repeat again. “I can taste the difference in your blood. You’re going to kill yourself if you keep at this. You need to go hunt.”
“I’ll be fine, Angel.” Sterling offers me a tight, hollow smile. One that illuminates just how not fine he is. I shake my head, taking in a burning, deep breath.
“You won’t be. Go hunt. Zeke can stay with me.” Sterling opens his mouth to argue, but I don’t let him have the chance. “I’m feeling better tonight anyways,” I lie.
Sterling watches me for a moment, not believing me in the least. But he swallows, his jaw feathering, before he nods once and turns away. He makes eye contact with Zeke. “Be nice. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Zeke huffs but doesn’t say anything. He picks up the rifle from where it’s propped against the door. Sterling looks like he’s about to argue, but Zeke lowers his voice in that commanding, intrusive way he does. “Take it.”
Sterling sighs but accepts the gun without argument before trudging out the door.
I watch him go, glad he’s finally listening, but terrified about him going out on his own.
The door closes behind him and I can’t seem to pull myself away from the peninsula, to focus on anything other than what Sterling will encounter beyond that door.
The minutes tick by, turning to hours as I watch the door. At some point I migrate over to the sofa, but my eyes never leave the rough wooden frame Sterling disappeared behind.
“He’ll be fine.”
I turn, realizing Zeke is in the kitchen, watching me. He disappeared some time after Sterling left, and I don’t recall noticing him return.
“How do you know?”
“It’s not our first time out here. He knows how to handle himself in the WildLands.” But I don’t miss the tension in Zeke’s features as he turns back to face the door.
I’ve heard them briefly discuss their previous time here, but neither have been exactly forthcoming with the details. “What happened? Before.”
Zeke doesn’t speak for a long moment, going instead to the kitchen table and sitting down so that he has a perfect view of the porch through the bay window, along with the moonlit woods beyond.
He’s silent for so long that I think he’s not going to answer.
I’m nearly about to retreat into the bedroom, resigned to pass the time by wallowing in more self-pity, when he finally speaks.
“Sterling and I . . .” Zeke won’t make eye contact with me, just continues to stare out the window. “We’re not from Requiesse. We come from a different city center. Sommael. It’s about four days north of Requiesse, by foot. I’m not sure what he’s told you, but it wasn’t a kind place.”
I push off the sofa and slowly make my way over to the kitchen table, lowering myself delicately into one of the wooden chairs across from him.
“Some would argue that Requiesse isn’t a kind place either.
I seem to remember a certain individual voicing their distrust of the Watchers rather passionately. ”
That gets me a sidelong glance. “And where do you think that distrust stems from? I promise you, whatever hells you’ve experienced in Requiesse, Sommael was worse.”
I flinch a little at his words, memories of my darkest moments assaulting my mind as I try to imagine how anything could be worse. He must notice my reaction because the rigid lines of his face soften slightly.
“So what happened there?” It’s a simple question, but it takes all the courage in my chest to voice it.
Zeke has never been a sharer. I don’t know what's compelling me to test my luck now, but something about this, something about him feels different out here.
In this cabin. Away from the ungoverned district and the Blood Order.
Zeke pauses again, an elbow leaning on the table, his fingers absently stroking the stubble on his chin. I think for a moment I’ve made a terrible miscalculation, that there’s no chance he would share something so personal with me. But to my surprise he turns to face me head on.
“I won’t speak for Sterling. His traumas are his to share. But I will tell you that the Alpha in Sommael had a certain affinity for him.”
I swallow hard, following his implications.
“The Watchers there are not like the ones in Requiesse. Nor are the laws. Your father has made a society of segregation. It's vile, yes. But at least those touched by the Arcane have the choice to exist in the ungoverned district, or live as servants in the Temple.”
“But is that even a choice?” I ask, brows furrowed. “It doesn’t feel like much of one to me.”
Zeke huffs out something akin to a laugh, nodding his agreement.
“You’re not wrong. The Blood Order is well off in the ungoverned district, but my duties have afforded me the opportunity to see much of the ugly underbelly of the area.
It’s not much of a life for many. And I dare say a life stripped of power and condemned to servitude to absent gods isn’t any better. ”
“It’s not,” I answer coldly. I’ve seen first hand how they are treated, spent countless hours beside them in Tamiel’s lab. I was treated much the same as many of them. And it’s a hells of an existence.
Zeke must follow my line of thinking, because he dips his head in an apologetic way before continuing.
“Regardless, Sommael's Alpha was not quite so charitable with the Arcane-touched. There were no options for us. We were born into servitude, every single mortal in the city. Only the Watchers were afforded any sort of freedom. The rest of us were forced to work like dogs for them. And Sterling and I—”
Zeke sighs deeply, as if he’s not interested in voicing what comes next. “Sterling and I were personal attendants to the Alpha. There were a small few of us who caught his eye. And he kept us close, used us to satisfy his vices.”
“Vices?” I ask, cocking my head as I lean my elbows on the table.
Zeke nods, turning back to look out the bay window.
“Sterling was so drugged up during his time there that I still am not sure he knows exactly what all happened. That was the gods' one saving grace, that the Alpha couldn’t do anything sober. And was, for whatever reason, always willing to share his indulgences.”
I sit and listen, scared that if I say anything, it will snap him out of sharing more.
“But out of all his vices, his wrath was saved for me. And that he had to be sober for.”
My eyes go wide. I can barely imagine it.
Zeke, the headstrong, harsh, rigid male at the receiving end of someone else’s temper.
He's always seemed so intimidating to me, so unstoppable.
But had he always been this way? Or had the abuse he suffered at the hand of this Alpha shaped him into what he is now?