Chapter 21 #2
He looks at me once more, green eyes locked with mine.
I hope he knows Elizabeth is right, even if he won’t let me speak.
The ground shakes underneath our feet with Zyran no doubt fighting Orion’s power to get free—but this is Orion’s land.
He’s going to win any battle here, deep in the earth.
Orion says nothing, watching me for a long time.
His hands are clenched shut and his eyes scream a million words my way.
Most of it betrayal. Elizabeth’s body is shaking as she steps forward to the front of the bars and reaches a hand towards him. “Orion.”
“Fine,” Orion snarls, a low growl echoing around us. “Five minutes before I take my woman and make sure she never betrays me for you again. She is mine.”
“There is no doubt about that, Orion.” Elizabeth lifts her chin.
“Thank you.” She blows out a long, shaky breath before she begins.
“It wasn’t until I was about fifteen that I decided I wanted to know more about my mother.
I was told she was a prostitute that the alpha hired, and I knew she died in childbirth, but I didn’t know anything else.
I asked around the other prostitutes, and they never heard of her, and if she was one, she didn’t work at any of the whorehouses in the city.
I began to suspect I was lied to. Who was she?
I didn’t even know her last name or what hair colour she had.
I knew the chances were I wasn’t going to find out something happy or good, but I needed to know.
So I asked father.” Her voice shakes. “He got so angry with me for asking that he struck me across the face and told me never to ask him again. That in his eyes, she was paid for sex, got lucky with a child, and that’s all I needed to know.
That I was selfish for asking when I had a mother that brought me up, and it was a betrayal.
But we both know Gaia was never that to me.
I never had a mother, and Gaia hated me as much as our father liked to pretend she didn’t.
” She huffs out a laugh with no humour in it.
“Frank found me crying on the floor, and he is a kind man. He picked me up, took me to the kitchen, made cookies for me, and asked what had happened. I told him everything. He said that he knew my mother—that she had worked right alongside him there in the kitchens. He told me all about her. How she was funny and brave, how she was an orphan, how she was actually from the mountain range but had a skill in cooking and was brought in by word of mouth. I learnt she looked like me too.”
Elizabeth’s hand is still reaching for Orion.
“She was eighteen when she caught father’s attention, being as beautiful as she was, and yes, she was paid to sleep with him for a time.
She was using the money to save up and leave.
Then she disappeared. Frank said he never saw her again, and then he whispered, low, that many disappear.
And still are disappearing. I was confused, wondering what he meant.
He didn’t speak to me again for a while after that, but it stayed in the back of my mind.
What did he mean, people were going missing? Right here in the court.”
Her hand drops back to the bar she was clenching.
“He wasn’t wrong. I spoke to so many people over the years—guards, nobles, everyone.
Women were going missing. Always beautiful, young, always ones without family to look for them.
I don’t know what made me follow father that day, but I did.
I followed him into the throne room, into secret rooms buried beneath it.
Rooms that smelled like death and everything rotten in the world.
I stayed quiet, hidden in the walls until he left, knowing that if he found me there, he’d likely kill me. ”
She takes a deep breath and her voice steadies, just barely.
“Orion, there were forty women there. Each one of them was wired up to machines and being experimented on by him. They didn’t speak; they were dirty and broken things.
Some were pregnant. Some were not. There were children there too—five, by my count.
Our siblings. There was one woman who could speak, and she told me many had died before.
She said I was the first one experimented on who survived being different, and they all prayed their children would be taken above ground like me.
He was keeping those women there, raping them and torturing them with experiments, trying to make some royal powerful heir that he desperately wanted.
Not a single woman there was over the age of twenty.
My mother died there. I should have too.
” She meets Orion’s eyes. “Do you understand what I walked in on?”
He says nothing.
“Of course, I did the only thing I could. I set them free. I led them out of the throne room and made sure they got out of the lands. I couldn’t get the images out of my mind, when I walked to my father’s study, without a real plan.
He could tell straight away where I’d been because I smelt like them, and he was furious.
He said I was ungrateful for my birth, that I wouldn’t have existed if it weren’t for those experiments, and that the other children down there were never going to be brought up in the court—that he decided with me, because I was the first, that I would have a normal life.
The others were to stay underground because Gaia didn’t want any more troubled children.
She wanted a girl, always did, but she said I was too much like my wild mother. ”
Elizabeth pulls her hand back and crosses her arms. “Our father said he would hunt the proof down and kill them. The three boys and two girls that I met—terrified, small children. Our siblings. He was going to kill them and make sure no one believed me. I couldn’t…I just couldn’t let him do that.”
Orion is shaking as he watches Elizabeth and listens. I want to hold him, knowing how much this must be crushing him to hear. He loved his father.
“So I did what I did. I shifted. My wolf was furious. Just as furious as me. I made a vow not to tell the truth to anyone but you, and I ripped him to pieces because my wolf is stronger. Whatever he did to me and my mother, he made my wolf too strong to be stopped when I shift. My power—maybe not as great. But my wolf is different. I always hid her from everyone, even you. I thought I was just a mess, and it turns out he made me like this with the blood of my mother’s suffering.
” She lifts her face up, tears soaking her cheeks.
“I do not regret a single part of what I did except for the pain that it caused you. I wish you hadn’t had to see it. ”
The vines fall off me, but Orion doesn’t look my way.
His eyes are locked on Elizabeth, and I don’t want to interrupt.
I can feel Orion’s heart shattering into pieces, and only his sister can fix him now.
“I vow by the Mother—this is the truth. I will show you the rooms if you wish. Show you everything that’s left, if your mother hasn’t destroyed it.
” Her voice drops. “She knew. She always knew what he was doing. When she locked me up after his death, she came to see me once and told me I should’ve just let it carry on.
His silly experiments. She called my mother a lab rat and said she was nothing.
There’s something broken about Gaia too. ”
Orion walks forward, and Elizabeth sobs.
He wraps his hands around the bars and yanks them clean off, then walks straight up to his sister.
My throat is tight as I watch, wondering what he is going to do.
“I’m sorry.” Words I never thought I’d hear Orion say leave his mouth, and he pulls his sister into his arms. They both cry, clinging to each other for a long time, and I hold my hand over my mouth.
“I should have listened, and I should have come to you. From now on, it is us and this is our court, Lizzy. We will fix it. I’m so fucking sorry.
” He holds her as she mumbles agreements. “Are our siblings safe?”
“You’ll find those bastards are not. It’s a shame you didn’t let the last one just die…
now I have to punish you, son.” I swivel my head around just as Gaia appears out of the dirt.
She’s right next to me in the blink of an eye, and she wraps a vine around my throat and yanks me to her side.
A sharp dagger presses against my neck as I reach for my shadows, but I pause as she pushes it harder.
Orion turns, fear flashing in his eyes just as the earth rises up around us, pulling me under with her.