Chapter 4 | Anna
I banged through the door of the workout room. Ophelia was there doing yoga. Eyes closed as she held the Warrior I pose.
I stomped around her and headed for the punching bag, my hands in fists. I took one punch at it. And then stopped.
The last time I took out my anger on the punching bag, I shredded my knuckles. I looked down at them now. The scars were still there. Faint. Silver. But there.
I flexed my fingers, took a deep, grounding breath.
“Oh, hey, Anna. All that slamming and stomping, I thought you were Kincade.”
Funny girl.
There was humor in her voice as she said it. I glanced over to see her moving into the next position. Reverse Warrior.
I sighed. I should get my gloves to take out the rest of my pent-up emotions on the punching bag.
Yoga was something I never got into. But she made it look effortless. I rolled my shoulders and glanced around the gym—which my uncle had set up long before I returned to England—trying to decide what my body needed.
I half expected Kincade to follow me in here. I sensed similar emotions rolling off him and figured he’d want to kick my ass to work it off. But he didn’t.
Ophelia moved to Warrior II. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Sure, okay.”
She held her pose, looking out at the wall across from her. She knew me well enough to know that I was lying. She didn’t need an internal lie detector for that.
“I know it’s not trouble in paradise,” she continued. “So, what is it?”
I snorted. Paradise. As if anything about Kincade and me had ever been soft or untouched.
“Does everyone know we’re sleeping together?”
“Please,” she said, deadpan. “Everyone knows he vacated his room after that whole Ark incident.”
Ugh. I hated having my entire life on display to the inhabitants of the manor. It was bad enough Grace grinned like a loon every time she saw us in the same room together.
I’d never named what we were. Neither had he.
Boyfriend would earn me a look sharp enough to draw blood. Significant other felt like something you selected from a dropdown menu.
This was neither.
And that was the problem. Not that the manor knew. But that I didn’t. I could survive secrets. I could survive whispers. What I didn’t know how to survive was standing in the space between us without a name for it.
Ophelia shifted into a Side Angle Pose. Her body was fluid. Effortless. Like she’d done this all her life.
She had.
“So, what gives?” she asked.
“The Brotherhood wants Kincade to come back.” There. I said it.
She dropped her pose and gave me her full attention. Her eyes wide. She went quiet. Still. She had history with the Brotherhood. She killed high lords for them. I guess that’s why I told her hoping for some shred of advice.
“That’s not a request,” she said.
My jaw locked so hard my teeth ached.
“It’s never a request,” I snapped, remembering the day Sebastian showed up on my doorstep and took him back.
They tried once. I should have known they’d try again.
“No,” she agreed. “When the Brotherhood wants someone back, it’s never because they miss him. They want leverage. Or obedience.”
I thought of chains disguised as orders. Of obedience dressed up as honor.
My hands curled into fists. Leverage. That’s what I was to them. Something to be used. Exploited. Something to make him bend.
I hated that.
Then she added, softly, “Or all three.”
Fuck. All three. Him. Me. Obedience.
“The manor is the safest place—”
“Is it?” she interrupted. Her blue eyes glittering with a hint of concern.
Something snapped within me. “They wouldn’t—”
“They would. They don’t care if this is your home.”
She stepped off the mat to the bench and grabbed a towel, dabbing at the sweat on her neck and face. She knew them and I needed that knowledge. I needed to know what I was up against.
“How did you find this out?” she asked then, as if it mattered.
“Silas,” I said.
Her brows rose. “He came out of hiding to find you?”
That did not inspire confidence. “Yes.”
She took a deep breath, expelled it. “If he knows, then the Brotherhood let it leak.”
That got my attention. “Why would they do that?”
“They want you to know.” She clutched her towel tight in her hands. “They don’t threaten the person they want. They’re showing him who matters. They want him to know that.”
I didn’t like where this was going. My gut clenched into a tight knot. Then, I asked, “Is Silas a threat?”
Because if he was, I’d throw him out on his ear in a second.
“No, I doubt that. He’s another pawn on their chessboard.”
Like me. My jaw clenched so tight my back teeth ground. Her gaze met mine then. In them, I saw the seriousness of the situation.
“Kincade doesn’t belong to them anymore. And they hate that.” She paused, pressed her lips together. “But you do.”
My first instinct was to argue. My second was I couldn’t.
Belonged to him. Not owned. Not claimed.
Chosen.
And that was the problem. I took him from them not once, but twice. First when he broke his oaths to stand beside me. Second when he stayed. Which likely meant they were done with me and ready to make an example.
Not because I was weak.
Because I mattered.
“We’re trapped then,” I said.
“Maybe,” she said. “They don’t need to take him to win. They need to make him choose. You or them.”
And for one terrifying second, I wondered which choice would be the lesser of two evils.
Anger flared, bright and hot. “He won’t go back.”
I knew this as sure as I knew my name.
She nodded agreement. “And that’s what they’re counting on. The only way to beat the Brotherhood is to anticipate. Not react. That’s what they want. Reaction.”
“Then we need a plan.” But I hadn’t a clue what that plan was.
I wasn’t prepared for this threat. I was prepared to fight demons, and that was about it. This… this was totally different. The game had changed. The pieces were different.
I told him I faced Lucifer, that I could handle Sebastian. Perhaps I didn’t understand the rules.
I started to walk away, but she caught my arm and stopped me. I met her gaze.
“They won’t knock on the front door this time,” she said. “They’ll come when you least expect it.”
“Then we have to be ready.”
The manor felt too open. Too exposed.
I pulled from her grasp and walked away from her feeling like I’d lost everything in one morning.
Back outside, I stood a moment to take in the early summer breeze.
I looked across the lawn to where tent city used to be, where the Fae had camped after their sacred forest burned to the ground courtesy of Lucifer.
Now, they’d moved into the woods that bordered the manor.
Killian, the last standing Fae king, had made their home into something incredible.
I wondered if they could help, but I didn’t feel like I had a right to ask since they’d lost so much already.
Then I caught sight of my mother rounding the back of the manor toward the gardens.
Her dark hair was pulled back at the nape in a low ponytail.
She wore faded jeans, a pale t-shirt, worn sneakers.
Garden gloves. The side of her face coated in sweat.
She was laboring to carry a large bag of potting soil. I jogged over to her.
“Here, let me help.” I held out my arms as I reached her.
She gave me a grateful smile and handed over the bag. “Hi, Anna. Thanks. Will you bring it over here?”
She motioned toward a raised planter. I nodded and followed her.
It wasn’t as though the bag was heavy, but she was still trying to regain her strength. She had moments of clarity where she remembered who she was and who I was. Calling me Anna was a good sign. That meant today was a good day.
Her true-born name was Annabelle—like me.
But she called herself Natasha these days.
Or rather the men who modified her called her that.
It stuck, and she hadn’t bothered to change it back.
I think because she wanted to hang onto it to remember who she had become and what she had to endure to get there.
When I was an infant, the Knights of the Holy Lance captured her, put her in captivity, and altered her mind. They turned her from a dream walker, like me, into what I called a super dream walker. She had this ability now to kill with a thought.
It had been a long recovery road from the day I found her in Antarctica to now. But she was surviving, and that’s all that mattered.
At the raised planter she paused. I dropped the bag and watched as she ripped it open and started shoveling handfuls of dirt into the planter.
“What are you planting?” I asked.
“Herbs,” she said with a smile in her voice. Like this was something she’d always wanted to do.
It surprised me.
I don’t know why. I guess because I’d never seen her do anything outside of the manor.
“Grace said gardening was therapeutic.”
Grace. I smiled. My adoptive mother had a gentle way about her that seemed to keep everyone on an even keel.
I watched Natasha’s gloved hands as she continued to shovel in the dirt, then smooth it out as she prepped to plant seeds.
“Is something bothering you?” she asked.
Like she sensed it.
“No,” I said.
She gave me a knowing, motherly smile.
Was I that transparent?
Apparently.
I watched her hands work and wondered what it was like for her to go through that horrible ordeal with the Knights.
Some days, her memories were crystal clear.
She knew she was forged as a weapon for them.
She knew they released her into the world to do their bidding without question.
But she didn’t remember how she ended up in their hands or the alteration of her mind.
A small blessing. Or perhaps forgetting was mercy.
“Do you remember what they did to you?” I asked after a moment.
We’d never talked about it, but I needed to.
Her hands didn’t stop moving. Soil slid between her fingers, dark and rich.
“I remember enough,” she said.
“Does it still feel… off?”
She paused then for a breath. Looked at her hands like they belonged to someone else once.
“It feels different,” she said. “Not broken.”
Her gaze flickered up, meeting mine.
“They can change how your mind works,” she said gently, “but they can’t decide what you do with it. That part is always yours.”
I didn’t know yet how much I would need to believe that.