12. Thorne
Chapter 12
Thorne
I brought Ivy back to my place.
Now she’s asleep on my bed.
I lean against the doorframe of my bedroom watching her lithe, doll-like body resting peacefully on my king-size bed.
She looks even more delicate and beautiful in this vulnerable state. That hair of hers has spilled across my navy pillows in contrasting waves, making her look like a silver-haired Venus painted against the sheets.
In my fantasies of this moment she was naked instead of wearing the yoga pants painted to her legs and the T-shirt hugging her breasts. The circumstances of her being here were also definitely different from what I’d conjured in my mind.
I never thought I’d run into her in the secret tunnels beneath Raventhorn Hall and have to knock her out.
I had to do it.
It was the quickest and easiest thing I could think of to hide her.
I tossed her over my shoulder and barely managed to escape the Knights who’d gone down there to investigate. They would have found her and they would have punished her.
It was the motion detectors that picked up activity down in the tunnels.
The Knights also heard Ivy scream along with the army of rats that had suddenly taken up residence down there.
I just happened to be at Raventhorn Hall tonight. Lucky for the little deer.
Caspian and I had to attend a Knights’ council meeting. Afterwards we were going to head back to Erebus House for the party.
I went down to the ceremony hall to speak to one of my friends and that’s when I heard the commotion—aka Ivy. I decided to join the guys who were checking it out but I almost didn’t.
There are cameras down there in the tunnels but they were switched off.
It’s not the first time that’s happened. People like me do that all the time. We also use the secret tunnels when we want to get on and off campus without being seen or recorded.
The moment I saw her, frightened and terrified, I knew exactly what happened— Tiffany and her pranks .
The evil bitch set Ivy up to get kicked out of Raventhorn. If Ivy had been found, her stepfather, Levgen, would have been reprimanded, so he would have been restricted from his senior Knight privileges for a year.
He would also be excluded from the annual collective fund award, which can earn you a million dollars in bonuses each year.
I don’t know what the hell Ivy did to Tiffany to deserve this sort of punishment but she crossed a line that shouldn’t have been crossed.
I’ll definitely be having words with her, but I’ll admit I’m not too mad that her prank got me the woman I want lying in my bed.
Ivy is sprawled out like a virgin sacrifice.
I should wake her. She’s been out for a little over two hours. But the fascinated part of me wants to savor this moment just a little longer. In this quiet, intimate space, she’s mine.
Mine to watch however I want.
Mine to dissect from head to toe.
What would she do if she knew all the lewd thoughts running through my head, and all the ways I’ve fucked her in my mind in just the last five minutes?
I smile at the thought and the memory of her perfect, perfect naked body.
What I’d imagined hadn’t done her any justice. The real naked Ivy I saw was a goddess.
Now she’s here. The little deer is caught in the hunter’s trap, and the only way she’s leaving me is if I say so.
I could certainly have some fun with this because no matter what Tiffany did, Ivy now owes me for saving her ass.
The sound of my front door opening pulls me from my wild fascination.
Moments later Lucian finds me. He helped me get Ivy here. He met me at the tunnels in his car and we drove her back here. It’s crazy how the two of us have become as thick as thieves.
“She still asleep?” he asks, glancing at Ivy in my room.
“ Yes . There’s no need for you to check.” I step in front of him so he can’t see her. I don’t want him or anyone else looking at her.
He smirks and rolls his eyes at me. “Alright, Thorne. Let’s not forget that I was the guy who helped you get her here. And I’ll be the same guy who’ll keep his mouth shut about where she was.”
“And that’s why you have the privilege of being called my friend. Otherwise I’d have to kill you. Or at the very least cut out your tongue so you can’t speak and chop off your hands so you can’t write.”
“Jesus. You are one crazy motherfucker.”
I smile back at him. “Why are you back here?”
“Two things. I found this in the tunnels. Ivy dropped it.” He hands me a little blue pouch with Ivy’s name on it. “Two, I had to tell you that Eilish is worried about her. Apparently Ivy got on Tiffany’s wrong side when she defended Isabelle.”
Isabelle always needs defending. She thinks I’m scary. She’s right, but unknown to her, back in high school the bullies stopped bothering her because I kicked the ever-loving shit out of them for teasing her about her mother’s death. It was my parting gift before my graduation.
“Eilish doesn’t know Ivy is with me. Does she?”
“Of course not. If she did, Eilish would be here, not me. Please send Ivy back to Myrddin in one piece.”
“I swear. Scout's honor.” I make a show of placing my hand at my heart, but he can still see the horns on my head.
“Thorne, you were never a boy scout.”
“Exactly. Run along now, Lucian. We’re done here.” I raise my brows and he sighs.
He knows not to argue with me so he leaves.
As soon as I hear the door close I go back to looking at my prize, then I open her pouch. It reminds me of one of those little bags a bride would carry on her wedding day.
The pouch has a few things inside. A mini notepad has musical notes written on it, an iPod which probably has all the classical piano music that was ever created, including her own, and there’s a ring.
An old-looking platinum ring. It looks like the kind some old Knighting families would make for their children for their sixteenth birthday. I never got one because my family was dead by then.
I hold up the ring and look at it. My interest is drawn to the crest engraved on the front.
It’s a family crest. A Knights’ family crest. It’s not Levgen’s, but it’s one that looks familiar. So familiar it produces sharp tingles in my nerves. The kind you get when your nerves are amplified by fear.
The design of the crest is a griffin catching a leviathan snake with its mouth.
I don’t know all the family insignias of the Knights, but some are as memorable to me as the algorithms in a computer program. This is one of them but I don’t remember it as being anything good.
I stare at the crest a little longer until it suddenly hits me. The memory of where I’ve seen it before.
This is the family crest specific to the Bershov family.
The last surviving member of that family is Gustave Bershov. I remember him and that name because he sits in prison rotting for his part in the mass murder plot of the Russian Syndicate. And for his suspected connections to the attack on my family.
I saw this crest when I was looking through the files on my family and the people Aleksander suspected were involved with the attack.
Why would Ivy have this ring?
It makes no sense to me. How would she even know that family?
The answer comes when I flick on the light and notice an engraving on the inside:
To my daughter Annika, love you forever.
I look at Ivy on the bed again as my mind spins. Something pulls on my heart as I attempt to ask myself what this might mean.
I felt she had secrets.
But… not something like this.
If this ring is what I think it is then her secrets run darker than I thought.