Chapter 21
21
Pace
I take a drag off the joint before blindly passing it to Bruin.
Family Dinner in West End, while not a contractual obligation, is still something Verity demands to attend. My first time at one of these things wasn’t so bad. Decent food, good booze, and an orgasm on the rooftop. What’s not to like?
But that was before I knew.
Bruin and I are outside in the alley. Despite the frankly great weed, he’s twitchy, constantly glancing toward the door. Something about his girl giving him shit if she catches him smoking so soon after his throat injury.
But my eyes are focused on the old car at the mouth of the alley.
Or, rather, the man tinkering around beneath the hood.
When Bruin hands me the joint back, I ask, “You know him?”
He follows my gaze, lifting his chin. “Pauly? Yeah, he’s the trainer.”
I pull a deep drag, watching as the man in question reaches inside his rusty toolbox, pulling out a wrench. “What’s his deal?”
Bruin shrugs. “No deal. He’s been here longer than I’ve been alive.”
“Is he,” I work my jaw back and forth, “good?”
“At training?” Nick’s eyebrow arches. “Sure. He’s probably responsible for most of the frat’s boxing acumen.”
Exhaling, I say, “No—I mean, is he good? As a person.”
When I pass the joint back, Nick’s giving me this baffled look. “Spare me with the moral ‘good’ bullshit, Ashby. No one’s good. On the scale of humanity, there’s super-shit, kinda-shit, and lesser-shit.” He points the joint at Pauly. “He’s less shit than most. That’s about the highest bar I’ve got.”
I hum. “Right.”
He twists to look at Pauly, the thick, raised scar on his neck stretching. “Are you worried about him with Ver or something? Because he’s always been good to her and Mama B. Like a dad.”
My eyes narrow. “A dad, huh?”
If I thought it’d make me feel better to know Pauly has been some upstanding guy to my Princess’ family, then I’m sorely mistaken. Mostly I just get this hot flare of indignation, like… how fucking dare he give other people what should have been given to me and my mother.
Just then, the door behind us opens, and Nick mutters a sharp, “Shit, shit, shit,” tossing the joint to the side. Lavinia’s head pops out, blue-hair first, and she spots him instantly.
Her eyes harden. “Motherfucker, I know you aren’t out here smoking weed when you were specifically told to lay off!”
Nick holds up his hands, cool as a cucumber. “Just shooting the shit, baby.”
Her glower lands on me. “You. Spill.”
“We were smoking a joint.”
Nick’s fist bangs into me. “Dude, what the fuck?”
Shrugging, I say, “Her and Verity are friends. I’m not sacrificing pussy to cover up for a Duke. You’d do the same.”
Still pissed, he replies, “Of course I’d do the same. Welcome to the super-shit club, Assby.”
I flip him the finger as he trudges inside, the sound of Lavinia Lucia’s growling admonishments disappearing behind the door. When it’s just me, I look back at Pauly and think, fuck it.
“Shit,” he says, almost banging his head when he realizes I’m lurking beside him. “Goddamn, son, wear a bell.”
The term of endearment—little too fucking pointed—makes my stomach drop. “What are you working on?”
I inspect him more closely this time, trying to find any resemblance, and a part of me thinks Lex’s test has to be wrong. This guy is a complete dud, with his scratchy beard and backwards baseball cap, which is probably hiding male pattern baldness. Maybe time was hard on him, but he looks older than the math would suggest. Aged. Worn.
“Changing an alternator for one of the girls,” he explains, tugging a part up onto the engine block. “Hand me that belt tensioner, would you?” When all I do is stare blankly into the toolbox, he rears back, eyeing me. “The one that looks kind of like a bike pump.”
Spotting it, I bend down to grab it, passing it over. “Did you used to be a Duke?”
The question catches me off guard as much as him, and when he props his forearm against the block, he swings a confused glance at me. “Afraid not. Almost—not quite.”
I watch as he pulls a belt through some pulleys. “Why not?”
“Ah, just life,” he answers, shrugging. “Heartbreak, drugs, and gambling. Went a little far west, you might say.”
Watching him carefully, I ask, “You ever go east?”
He flinches, dropping the tensioner. “Goddamn it,” he mutters, snatching it back up with a hard sigh. “Yeah, I played around in East End for a while. Not the kind of story a guy tells over a serpentine belt, though.”
My eye twitches. “You ever play around with someone named Odette?”
The flinch this time is full-body and he jolts back, fixing me with a scowl. “How do you know about her?”
“She was a Princess,” I reason, but already feel exhausted by the pretense. “Also, I’m her son.”
He turns fully now, regarding me with a long, thoughtful stare. “You’re—what, twenty-one? Twenty-two? That’d mean you were…” His frown falls away, understanding crossing his features. “So you were the kid she had with the Princes.”
For some reason, it makes my blood boil. “Let me rephrase that, Paul.” Crisply, I clarify, “I’m your son. Your son with Odette Delisle.”
The blood drains from his face and he takes two steps back. “Look, that’s not possible. Odette strung me along and then tossed me away more than once, and I think I’d know if she’d had my fucking kid.”
“Well that’s funny,” I reply, “considering I’ve got a pretty credible paternity test that says otherwise.”
His face goes slack. “Holy shit, you’re serious.” At my unflinching stare, he sucks in a breath that seems to never stop, his chest expanding comically. “Fuck, man, I’ve gotta sit down.” But instead of sitting down, he leans against the wall, rubbing a palm over his chin. “When did this happen?”
Astonished, I throw my arms out wide. “How about you fucking tell me? It’s not like I was there.”
He looks shaken to his core, snagging a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his pocket. “Odette and I—we had a fling the summer before that kid and his mom died. Michael and Miranda, wasn’t it?”
Nostrils flaring, I say, “My mother was her handmaiden.”
He nods, eyes squinting. “But she had a lot of free time over the summer, and we became a bit of an item.” Lighting the cigarette, he takes one shaky inhale before instantly tossing it on the ground, stamping it out with a grimace. “Once she became Princess, it got too complicated. She dropped me like a bad habit. I found her again a few years later, but there wasn’t any kid with her.”
“I was in foster care.” My voice feels brittle and dry, and when I look up, Pauly’s staring at me like he’s seeing a ghost.
“You have her eyes.”
I rub my forehead, grousing, “This isn’t going how I expected.” I thought I’d look this guy in the eye, tell him he’s to blame for everything that went wrong in my life, and hopefully get a good shot in.
Instead, the anger fizzles to ash.
Pauly’s face twists. “What did you expect, dropping a twenty-one-year-old bomb on a fuck-up like me?”
Spinning on my heel, I decide that I’m not equipped for this. Having a father I hate? I’ve got that shit down to a science. I could write a whole textbook on it. But having a father who was never given the chance to be one?
Good or not, I’m not ready to give anyone that opportunity.
It’s quiet down in the dungeon.
The smell is mostly gone, replaced by the sharp scent of bleach and disinfectant. The cot is an empty metal frame, the thin mattress having been disposed of at some point in the last week. And it’s dark.
Comfortingly dark.
It rankles to know that no matter how hard we try to make upstairs feel like home, nothing soothes the frantic vigilance quite like being in this darkness. Down here, nothing actually matters. The senses are so deprived that it dulls out even the twitchiest nerve.
I can’t say what compelled me to come down here. One second, I was gathering my stuff for my first lecture of the day, and the next, I was tugging the sconce to open the passageway down here. Now, I’m standing in the doorway of the empty cell, gazing into its shadows.
Father is dead.
Gone.
He died knowing this blankness. This void. This aching expanse of loneliness.
My only regret is that he couldn’t die in here.
“Hey.”
The voice doesn’t startle me. From down here, I know every sound in this palace. I could hear her coming from the second-floor landing.
I flick one of the bars. “I don’t like you being down here.”
“Funny.” When I glance behind me, she’s giving me a tense grin. “I was going to say the exact same thing about you.”
Shrugging, I bury my fists into my pockets. “Just seeing if the Barons earned that clean-up fee.”
She steps next to me, winding her arms around my waist. “Maybe we should fill it in with concrete,” she says, but I know I couldn’t bear to.
“Then where will we run our lucrative torturing business?”
Humming, she takes a beat to consider this. “Port-o-potties.”
Snorting, I place my hands over hers. “And damage the palace’s curb appeal?”
“You could just,” she burrows her face into my side, “not torture people.”
I turn, tipping her face up to search her eyes. “You don’t approve of what we do,” I wager.
Frowning, she looks away. “I’m not saying people like Bruce and Rufus don’t deserve it. And I know justice doesn’t come without imparting a little pain. It’s just…” She bites at her lip, wondering, “Doesn’t it cling to you?”
I thumb her lip from her teeth. “What?”
“Inflicting hurt.” Her eyes are so wide and innocent that another man might fold.
“Did it cling to you?”
Humming, she winds her arms around my neck. “If it did, it was more like… static cling. Easy to shake off.” She shrugs, as if proving it. “But I’ve also only done it once.”
“You hit Heather with a frying pan,” I remind her.
She groans. “Am I never going to live that down? Of all my actions, that one was the most justifiable! She broke the girl code, and she knows it.”
I point out, “You helped me kill Charlie.”
“That was self-defense.”
Tugging her closer, I add, “I bet, given half the chance, you’d castrate at least a dozen of the men in Forsyth,” and she frowns.
“That’s not true.”
“Yes, it is.” I lean down to kiss her, licking my way through the seam of her mouth. “And it wouldn’t be because you’re an Ashby, it’d be because they deserve it. This town doesn’t raise happy, well-adjusted men, Rosi.”
Maybe Nick Bruin had a point before.
Maybe there is no such thing as good.
She gives me a long, pitying look, like she wants to take away the pain—erase the past—but these are the men we are, the men we were raised to be.
Creation doesn’t just happen in the womb.
“Things are going to be different.” Curling her fingers at the nape of my neck, she draws my forehead to hers. “Our son will have the one thing none of you did—a mother. And mothers aren’t just here to love and care for you. They're also here to kick asses, teach manners, and show you how to treat women. Mothers,” she concludes, “show you something a father can’t always teach.”
Skeptically, I wonder, “And what’s that?”
Rosi smirks. “How to be a real man.”
I think about the dungeon cell a lot once I get to campus.
Voices seem louder, stares seem more pointed, and even with the mildness of an impending autumn, the warmth of the sun feels searing. I have no one walking at my side. Wicker and Verity are taking the semester off, and Lex is on a completely different campus almost an hour away. I start to regret coming back at all.
Until lunch.
“Hey, you dropped this.” Hearing Ballsack’s voice, I turn just in time to see a blonde snatch the charging cord out of his hand. Her lip curls in disgust and I’m pretty sure I hear her mutter “asshole” before she rushes off without so much as a ‘thanks’.
“Ouch,” I say when he walks by my table in the student union. “Smash and dash?”
He looks up, surprised to see me. “Huh?”
“That girl.” I take a bite of my sandwich. “Old hookup?”
“Oh,” Ballsy glances over the shoulder of his leather DKS jacket at her retreating form. “Nah. I don’t even know her.”
I pause. “You bang her sister? Break into her car?” I keep probing, but he just shrugs. “Dude, you did something for her to react like that.”
“Nope.” He drops into the seat next to mine, and I notice everyone at the table next to ours not-so-discreetly peek over. “The Royal Gazette just released an article identifying me as a ‘person of interest’ in the missing girls’ case.”
My eyebrows hike up. “But Agent Knight released you.”
“On a technicality.” He slumps back in his chair. This summer’s been hard on him, the strain visible in the corners of his eyes. “And there are no other suspects yet, so I’m pretty fucked. Once you’ve been tagged as a criminal, it’s impossible to shake.”
Behind him, two girls whisper to one another. Our eyes lock and I realize that sitting next to me, an actual felon, isn’t helping. Wryly, I respond, “Oh, I wouldn't know anything about that.” I take a sip of my drink. “I’m sure they’ll forget about it when Knight drags someone else in.”
“Maybe.” We’re both aware of the number of eyes watching us, but although I’m used to hiding how it affects me, Ballsy shifts uncomfortably, hardening under the scrutiny. To be fair, cybercrimes are a far cry from kidnapping girls. “Honestly, I can’t tell if they’re staring at us because of the criminal thing, or if it’s because we’re from opposing frats.” Sighing, he grabs his backpack off the floor. “Either way, I need to move.”
“Fuck that. Stay.” I push over my bag of chips, and he takes a few while I chew my mouthful of sub. “Did you do it?”
“Do what?” he snags another chip.
“Kidnap those girls?”
His head snaps up, face pinching. “Jesus, Ashby!” Leaning forward, he gives his response with absolute conviction. “Hell no. Why are you even asking me that?”
“Because I just wanted to hear it for myself.” I shove the last bits of my lunch into my mouth and stand. “Come on.”
He squirms stiffly, eyeing a passing group of sophomore girls who give him an obnoxiously wide berth. “I’ve got class.”
“Fine,” I sigh. “I guess I’ll go alone.”
Despite the refusal, he stands pretty much instantly, because I know something about Ballsack that none of these sheep surrounding us have even considered.
He’s innocent.
And sitting around doing nothing is going to drive him insane.
Looping his backpack over his shoulder, he follows me sullenly out the door. “Go where?”
I stop once we’re outside, facing him. “My father hung me out to dry when I was arrested. I was fucked by him and the system. No one had my back, and I know we’re not from the same crew, but you’re a good kid, Eugene, and I don’t want to see anyone go down for something they didn’t do.” I start walking again, this time toward the parking lot. “If Knight is going to have tunnel vision, then the only thing that’ll shift him away is to give him an alternative.”
Ballsy’s footsteps sound out behind me. “You mean another suspect.”
“Exactly.”
The drive is spent in subdued silence, and I don’t even argue when Ballsack reaches over to flick on the radio.
The DJ’s low, smooth voice rings out. “Let’s call that song a little tribute to a fallen brother. He paid the price of capturing a wicked heart. But who among us, right? Who among us…” His laugh is quiet and uncomfortably sinister.
I roll my eyes. “Jesus, my bird loves this fucking asshat.”
Ballsy chuckles. “So do some of the cutsluts. Something about his voice, I guess.”
“Well, it’s definitely not his message. It’s all Lit Major gibberish.”
Proving my point, the DJ goes on, “But if not for the savagery of brittle lips and ruby blood, what would rattle the tin can of a Royal’s hollow soul?” There’s a long, hissing inhale, and then, “It’s two-o-clock. Do you know where your brothers are?”
Ballsy glances over at me. “This guy smokes way too much weed.”
I snort, turning off the Avenue toward North Side. “Seriously,” I say. Then, after a beat, my gaze drifts to the glove compartment. “I’ve got a pen in there.”
Ballsy deflates, saying, “Thank fucking god,” and immediately pops it open to find the vape. He and I trade it back and forth for the rest of the drive—past East End, around the Barons’ territory, through North Side, and over the river.
I know I’m good and stoned when the DJ starts making sense.
“These are the dark days, my friends,” he’s drawling, “because they have to be. The smallest slant of light would show us that we shift around in our little crews, pretending we’re not part of the same rotting corpse, but we are. Limbs and corrupted organs. Hair follicles and fractured bones. Irises and perforated muscles. Our women keep getting plucked away like trophy molars because you’ve all forgotten. Your crowns are made of clay and straw and dead things.” Another one of those chilling chuckles. “Remember that you will die. Wake up, Forsyth. Wake up and smell that sweet decay?—”
The sound cuts with a flick of Ballsack’s finger. “What’s the over-under on Agent Knight questioning that fucker?”
I glare at the radio, thinking it might be time to find out who this Sorrin dude is. “He sounds deranged enough to pique my interest.”
When we arrive, I lead Ballsy to the front of the SUV, giving him a pointed glance as I check my clip.
“Are we where I think we are?” he asks, voice grim as he checks his own pistol.
I start walking. “Yep.”
The forest here is thick and full of bramble patches. There’s no path to walk, no treads in the mushy undergrowth, just limbs and thorns. Ballsack and I force our way through it, and I don’t know this Arianette chick, but if she was running through this shit, she must be tough as nails. By the time we reach the riverbank, Ballsy and I are panting and soaked with sweat.
“This is where they found her?” he asks, bracing his hands on his knees.
There’s a scrap of muddy police tape on the bank. “Looks like it.” I take a second to assess the scene, noting the steep cliff face on the opposite bank of the river. “There’s not much online about the girl they found. She’s Dean Hexley’s niece, nineteen years old, but I can’t find any enrollment history at either Forsyth High or Preston Prep.
Ballsack hacks a breathless cough. “Maybe she was home-schooled.”
I hum. “Maybe.”
Picking through the overgrowth, I try to find a clue about any direction she might have come from, but it’s too dense to say for sure.
“Who has access to this area?” he asks, inspecting a low-hanging branch.
I crouch down to pick up a smooth pebble. “Historically, it’s kind of a no-man's land. Access to the river has always been public property—an easement owned by the city. The river cuts straight through town. If she was dumped upstream, it could have been the Counts. Sex trafficking was always their brand.”
Ballsack doesn’t seem convinced. “My intel says the Counts are still too disorganized for anything like that. They’re barely able to keep up with the Scratch trade, let alone extracurriculars.”
I rub my thumb over the pebble’s glossy surface. “The current that runs through here can be strong, especially after a hard rain. The assumption that she came from upstream mostly came down to her injuries. Scrapes and bruises, like she’d hit the rocks on her way down.”
He hedges. “Maybe she was dumped?”
My mind goes to the other option for sex trafficking in Forsyth, although no one would call it that. It’s far more upscale and secretive than whatever the Counts could pull off with their Scratch whores. I wouldn’t even know it existed if it weren’t for Wicker.
Mayfield.
“I’m more interested in what’s near here,” I say, pulling out my phone. With a couple of taps, I have the map pulled up, waving Eugene over. “See here? That’s where we are.”
He looks, eyebrows knitting together. “There’s nothing out here but forest and random ponds.”
“Look closer,” I press, zooming out. “Right there, in the corner.” It’s easily ten miles away, and it doesn’t matter that their land has no river access. A girl who was running hard enough? She could make it here.
“Baron territory,” he realizes, eyes hardening.
I nod. “It’s where they do the hunt.”
He wipes the sweat from his forehead, looking bothered. “It doesn’t make sense. Why would they hunt her only to re-hunt her?”
“I don’t think they did.”
He huffs, swatting at a bug. “Explain.”
“The Baron King…” I begin, leveling him with a look. “He has this real hard-on for the old ways. He doesn’t like guns. He doesn’t have a digital footprint. That time I was in the House of Night, everything was on paper.”
Finally following, he snaps his fingers. “But Arianette had a tracker.”
“The Barons wouldn’t tag their prey,” I conclude, tucking my phone back into my pocket. “There’s no glory in a rigged hunt.” I’m not sure what I was expecting to find out here. A footpath? Tire tracks?
Frustratingly, there’s nothing.
On the trek back to the car, I broach a difficult topic. "We wouldn’t think less of you if you just ran. None of us. The Dukes, Lex and Wick. Especially me.”
Ballsy tosses me a glare. “Innocent men don’t run.”
Which is a nice sentiment, but… “There’s a lot of innocent men who spend a lifetime in prison for crimes they didn’t commit.”
He stops in his tracks, turning to me with tired eyes. “Back home, our trainer has this saying. Some men hit rock bottom and bounce back up. But others hit rock bottom and ask for a shovel.” He claps me on the shoulder, not realizing that it's the mention of Pauly that makes me stiffen—not the words. “I’m not a digger, Pace. I told Verity I’d do everything I could to find Stella, and I can’t do that if I’m hiding like a little bitch.”
“No one wants you free from this more than Verity,” I insist, searching his eyes. “Why are you so hell-bent on going down with the ship?”
His shoulders sink, face falling. “I think…” Reaching up, he grasps a fistful of his shirt, right over his heart. “I think I love her, Pace. I was too chickenshit to say it, but I felt it, and she’s out there right now, thinking she belongs to nobody. But she does.” He exhales, asking, “I mean, what if it were Verity?”
This is easy to answer. “If it were Verity, I’d burn this whole fucking city to the ground to find her.”
“Yeah.” Ballsy nods, glancing back at the forest. “You’re a Prince, you can do that. But I’m just a nobody who makes it easy to pin this shit on.”
He’s not wrong about that. Names, blood, and legacy control this city, and as far as I know, Ballsy is a regular soldier. It’s a fucking tough pill to swallow and it’s on my mind as we walk the rest of the way to the car.
“Just promise,” he eventually says, “that no matter what happens with me, you’ll keep looking for her.”
I came out here to help him get his mind off his troubles, but I don’t think it worked. For me, all I can see now are the thick woods and thorny brambles. The rushing, punishing water. Whatever that Hexley girl was running from was bad enough, but surviving the forest too? Those are shit odds.
Any girl that makes it out of here alive has to be made of steel. But I know what it’s like to need hope, to be stuck in a dark pit of despair waiting for the light to shine in. If Ballsack needs me to be that light, then fuck, I’ll be it.
“No one,” I assure, “East or West, will stop until Stella St. James is found.”
I just hope this is a promise I can keep.
We get home right before sunset.
It’s weird enough to think of it as my home, but lately, it’s felt a little like Ballsy’s, too. “Do you think the Baron King would allow a search party?” he asks, gathering up his bag. “I could get DKS out there, maybe even LDZ. They keep what’s theirs.” He conspicuously doesn’t request PNZ, even though we’d give them.
Shrugging, I admit, “I doubt it. But I’ll ask.” I’ll have his son ask.
If Remy’s going to be related to half my family, then he can damn well make himself useful to it.
We part ways in the foyer, Ballsack going left, me going right. I watch the dejected line of his shoulders as he trudges toward the room he once basically shared with Stella, and I feel a twinge in my chest.
What if it were Verity?
I find her in the solarium with Effie, hanging back a second to watch as she waddles from urn to pot, considering the plants inside. “This one won’t make it through the winter. I guess we cull all these and find some evergreens, huh?” At first, I think she’s talking to Effie, but then I see her stroke her belly. “I won’t have much time to tend to it once you come, but maybe when you’re a little older, you can help me in here. Would you like that?”
The sight of her soft smile makes my stomach swoop, that twinge in my chest transforming into a clutching fist. Sometimes she hardly seems real. How did she bloom her way into our lives, filling it with such soft, sweet, warm things? And how on fucking earth did we ever think of smothering it?
“Hey,” she greets, eyes lighting up as she turns at the sound of my footfalls. “I was wondering when you’d—hey!”
“Come on,” I say, tugging her by the hand toward the doors. “I need to show you something.”
She protests with a sputtered, “But—” even though she follows easily. “Pace, I have Effie.”
Pausing, I glance around the space. There’s something I’ve kept in here for a few weeks now, trying to work up to the idea of actually using it again, while we’ve let Effie practice her flying. Snagging it from the bench, I decide, “Good. We’ll take her outside with us.”
Verity’s eyes widen. “Really?”
“Just for the walk,” I assure, clipping one end of the tether to my belt loop. “Effie. Pretty bird?” I click my tongue against my teeth, holding out my hand, and Effie effortlessly swoops down from the rafters to perch on my wrist.
It’s not hard to clip it onto Effie’s leg. She barely looks curious about it, instead walking up my arm to perch on my shoulder. Verity lets out a surprised, airy laugh as I take them both out the door.
Both of them are quiet as I lead us to the shore, eyes on Verity’s footfalls as I navigate her over stones and branches. The back of the palace grounds is notoriously neglected, mainly an access to the waterfront that’s never really used. The moat around the palace is actually a branch off the main Forsyth River, a creek that splits off before rejoining it upstream. It’s nothing like the riverfront, the water mostly still and placid, a thick layer of algae resting on top.
The whole walk, Effie just stretches her neck, taking everything in with uncharacteristic stillness. When another bird squawks in the distance, she shrinks low into her plumage, crouching into my neck. But it’s not long before she’s curious again, twisting this way and that.
As soon as the jon boat comes into view, Verity gets a little buoyancy in her step. “Oh, you were serious about the boat ride.”
“Deadly,” I say, helping her into the boat with a steady hand—one foot over, then the other. Once she’s seated on the little bench, I unclip the tether from my belt, handing it to Verity.
Effie looks dubious when I prod her onto Verity’s knee, but ultimately lets out a trilled, “Gentle, gentle.”
“That’s my good girl,” I say, giving her head a little scratch. “Hold on tight.”
Verity’s eyes hold mine as I push the boat into the water, planting my feet with a series of strong heaves that make the hull scrape against the muddy rocks. “We could wait for Wicker,” she offers.
“No,” I wheeze, giving another push. “Got it.”
Just then, it slides into the water and I jump in, easing myself in behind her. The boat has a motor that probably hasn’t been primed in a decade, so I give it a wincingly hopeful yank.
Luckily, it flares to life.
Unluckily, it scares the shit out of Effie, who flaps her wings with a panicked, “Suck my balls!” Making sure she’ll stay put, I steer the boat into open water.
As soon as we get up to speed, Effie trills, spreading her wings against the wind.
Verity laughs. “She thinks she’s flying!” That’s exactly what she looks like, her wings extended to full span as the air speeds through her plumage. “This is a really big deal, Pace. Look at her—she’s loving it.”
Effie’s little head sways in the breeze, her beady eyes taking it all in, and it’s not quite what I was expecting. The worry of her escaping is there, but it’s buried so far beneath the warm, happy feeling of hearing her delighted squawks that it’s impossible to get to.
I take the boat out to a quiet cove surrounded by trees ablaze in yellows, oranges, and reds. Just like I promised. Satisfied with the location, I cut the engine, and the boat rocks gently, and everything around us is abruptly serene.
Well, everything but the hard-fast hammering of my heart.
Leaning over, I gently detach the tether from Effie’s leg.
Verity frowns as she watches her, wondering, “Aren’t you afraid she’ll fly away?”
Truthfully, Verity sounds more nervous about it than I do. I’m not sure when that happened.
“Yes,” I confess. But I look at Effie—at her wide eyes and craned neck as she takes in this big, wide world—and say, “I’d rather lose something I love than condemn it to a lifetime in a cage.” When Verity glances back, I give her a wink. “You taught me that.”
Effie takes a few more tentative hops on the edge of the boat, then flaps her wings, tottering around the edge. I hold my breath, not knowing if she’s afraid of the next step. I sure as fuck am.
Rubbing my hands nervously over my knees, I explain, “I came to the palace with nothing but a bag that had exactly two changes of underwear, one extra outfit, a pair of race car pajamas, a toothbrush, and my teddy bear, Mr. Pickles.” Verity’s eyes lift from watching Effie to mine. “The social worker handed the bag to Danner, and once we stepped inside, I never saw it again. It wasn’t much, but even as a kid, I knew it was mine. It was all I had.”
“Oh, Pace…” Her face falls, eyes already shiny and close to brimming, but I don’t want to make her cry. I just need her to know the truth.
So I lean down to brush my lips against the apple of her cheek. “Even though the house was bigger than anything I’d ever seen, I still had to share a bed with two boys I didn’t know. I had uniforms for school and hockey, but nothing was mine. Not until I convinced Father let me keep Effie.”
I reach out and stroke her black feathers, remembering the day I brought her home. She was sick and badly neglected. Hardly talked at all. I looked at her and saw a sad, frightened, lonely soul—just like mine.
I spent weeks online learning about her. What she needed. How to care for her—make her safe and happy. I tried to give her all the things I always wanted but could never find.
“Over time, even after those boys became my brothers, and Ashby became my father,” I gesture over my shoulder, where the palace sits behind the trees, “and that mansion became my home, I never felt like it belonged to me. It was always something that could be taken from me. Why wouldn’t it? Nothing in my life had ever been permanent. But when Effie came to me,” I watch as Verity reaches out to pet her, “she was already caged, and as long as she had someone to love, she didn’t even mind it. She never knew any different. She couldn’t… leave me. Not if I kept her locked inside.”
Across the narrow space in the boat, Verity’s hand reaches out and takes mine. Light against dark, scarred against soft. Wrong, but completely right.
I rub my thumb over her hand, as soft as that river stone. “I knew from the first moment I saw you on that dating app that I wanted you, and it wasn’t just because of your perfect body or your gorgeous eyes.” I touch her cheek, following the pink, warm flush down to her neck. “I wanted to keep you, Rosi, and I was blindsided by it. Obsessed. Messy. Stupid.” Shaking my head, I try to remember that crazed, manic month I spent consuming her on the screen, but it feels so far away now. “I know it’s dumb. I didn’t even know you yet—not really. But I was sure that was love. It had to be, right? Because when you rejected me, it actually hurt.”
“Pace,” she starts, those big eyes full of sorrow, “I’d never even had a boyfriend before, and you were?—”
I press my finger to her lips, stalling her words. “I was too intense, and it freaked you out. I know that now. And it took me a long time to realize that it wasn’t even real.” I watch as my finger drags against her bottom lip, falling away. “Whatever I was feeling back then… it wasn’t love. It was desperation to have something to love. It was sad and pathetic, and I don’t blame you for running. For striking back.”
Miserably, she tries, “When I reported you, I didn’t know?—”
“You didn’t need to know.” My words brook no argument, and I turn my gaze out to the water, wondering how many living things are thriving there, just beneath the surface. “The truth is, I keep Effie in a cage because I love her. But blaming Father for going to prison… that meant acknowledging that he kept me in a cage because he hated me. I couldn’t face that.” Meeting her watery eyes, I confess, “So I blamed you instead. Someone who hurt me. Someone I could eventually punish for it.”
She releases a long, shaky exhale. “Nothing about being an Ashby is easy, Pace.” Her thumb rubs over mine, soothing me when I should be comforting her. “I forgave you for all of that a long time ago.”
“God knows why, because I don’t deserve it,” I mutter before taking a steadying breath, summoning the courage I need to continue. “But I’ve thought about it a lot lately, and I want—no, I need you to know it’s real this time.”
A sad sort of hope swims in her eyes. “What is?”
I bring her hand to my lips, pushing a soft kiss into her delicate knuckles. “I love you, Rosilocks Sinclaire.” Watching the force of my words sink in, the tears spilling over, I whisper, “So fucking much that every breath I take when you’re nearby feels like a thousand daggers to the heart. So much that if you told me right now you wanted to leave and take our son to a better, safer place, I’d…” Pausing, I admit, “Well, I’d fucking hate it, and there’s not a power in this world that could stop me from still watching over you, but—but I’d let you go.” A fat tear rolls down her cheek and I catch it on the tip of my thumb. “I understand now that you don’t cage the people you love.”
She’s quiet for a moment, and I sit before her, stripped and raw. Water laps at the edge of the boat and Effie lets a soft trill loose into the breeze. Finally, Verity says, “What we have is different from the others. We have a history, Pace, and it’s complicated, but I also think that’s what makes us able to work through anything that challenges us. You’re going to be a good dad. You’re going to keep Justice safe in a world that’s filled with threats. I know you will because you already do that for your brothers, and for Effie, and for me.” Her hand cups my cheek, and she gets as close to me as she can with the swell of her belly between us. “I love you too, Pace, and we are never going anywhere without you.”
The boat twitches, and I realize it’s Effie finally pushing off the edge, her wings unfurling like a flower. My breath hitches, and Verity clutches me back as we watch her silhouette rise against the fading sky. Each beat of her wings is a punch to the wind until she finally catches it. The sight of her soaring gracefully against a stream overhead is all at once terrifying and beautiful.
Just like life is supposed to be.
It’s dark by the time we go back to shore.
My heart still feels vaguely outside my body, but every time I glance up, Effie is circling right above us, never straying too far.
“You know, we used to go out on the boat when we were kids,” I say, helping Verity back onto the bank. If she slips and falls, Lex won’t have to kick my ass—I’ll do it myself. “Usually to get high or spy on the Princess.” I point to a window on the west-facing wall. “You can see right into our window from the middle of the creek.”
She shivers. “Well, that’s creepy.”
Laughing, I reply, “Why do you think I'm always closing those curtains?”
When we reach the garden, I plant my feet, take a deep breath, and raise my arm. “Effie, come.” I punctuate this with a whistle, and it feels like Verity holds her breath with me as we wait.
Although it takes a heartbeat longer than I like, my stomach drops in relief when she swoops down, her black wings slicing through the twilight.
Her talons curl around my wrist when she lands. “Sunshine,” she coos. “Pretty sunshine bird.”
Verity laughs, giving her head a little pet. “It’s dark, pretty bird.”
Satisfied, I release her back into the solarium and resolve to take a nice, long, hot shower with my Princess. I haven’t had this much outdoorsing in a day since the time we went to hockey camp up north.
When we get back up to the house, both Lex and Wicker are in the kitchen preparing dinner, the latter glaring at his phone as he reads out instructions. “It says not to crowd the pan. You’re clearly crowding the pan.”
“You’re crowding my last nerve,” Lex gripes back, noticing us enter. “Hey, was that Effie I saw out the window earlier?”
“Yeah,” I answer, ignoring their stunned stares.
“We took her flying.” Verity lumbers up onto a stool, all grins. “You should have seen her! I think she was even catching bugs.”
It’s not the scent of grilled chicken or mashed potatoes that catches my attention. It’s the black envelope sitting in the middle of the counter.
“What’s that?” I interrupt, eyeing it skeptically.
“Came this afternoon,” Lex says, drying his hands. “The Barons’ seal is on the back. We waited until you got back to open it.”
Verity picks up the envelope, studies the seal, and then runs her finger underneath it. She pulls out a sheet of black cardstock with silver ink across the front.
“Don’t tell me it’s another gift,” Wicker mutters. “I don’t know how Danner used to do it, but I’ve been trying to get the bloodstains out of my Versace for weeks. I’m on a murder fast.”
“Not a gift. An invitation.” She looks up, pulling a face. “To the black wedding. On Halloween, just like Sy said.”
“Jesus, any chance we can get out of that?” I ask, looking between my brothers hopefully. “Pregnancy card? She’ll be about ready to burst by then, right?”
Verity groans. “God help us all if the baby isn’t here by the thirty-first.” She rubs her belly. “By then, you’d have to roll me down the aisle.”
Wicker decides, “Well, I don’t care what Payne and Perilini say. I’m not going to some arranged wedding between an emo-gothy chick and one of the new Barons. Maybe it’s going against my creepy pedigree, but those masks freak me the fuck out.”
Verity inspects the invitation again, her jaw suddenly dropping. “Oh. My. God.” She slides down off the stool, barely noticing when I lurch forward to catch and steady her. “Oh my god!”
“What?” Lex rushes over, hand clamping over hers, face paled. “Is it happening?”
“It’s not the baby. It’s this.” She thrusts the invitation in his face, and his expression goes slack.
“Holy shit.”
“For god’s sake,” Wick bitches, snatching the invitation out of Lex’s hand. He begins reading aloud, “You are cordially invited to bear witness to the eternal union of Baroness Arianette Gowen Hexley to The King of Barons on the evening of October thirty-first, at the House of Night.”
I grab the card to read it myself, but sure enough, in silver and red, the invitation is clear.
It’s not just any Baron getting married. It’s their King, and his new wife is twenty-five years younger.
“I guess Killian was right,” Verity says, glancing between us. “Attending this wedding is a Royal obligation we can’t refuse.”