CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE #2
Her gaze fell to the patchwork of scarred skin mended countless times, shiny, uneven, and sort of beautiful. Though the thick blood coated him, the skin on his shoulder she’d healed after the hound attack appeared slightly smoother.
“I could probably reduce your scars,” Emmery observed.
His eyes hardened. “That’s not necessary.”
She withdrew the little remaining magic inside her. “I don’t mind. The skin where I healed you last time almost looks normal, and—”
“I didn’t know you found my scars so offensive.”
His black stare bore into her, stripped her bare. She opened her mouth to speak, but Destonne clenched his jaw and turned away. Emmery didn’t know what to say, her tongue suddenly thick and a lump lodged in her throat.
Brennen raised his head and nuzzled his shoulder. Destonne rested a tired hand between the wolf’s horns in a familiar gesture they easily sank into.
“I’m alright, Bren. No need to concern yourself.” Destonne’s head slumped back against the tree trunk as the two fell into a conversation Emmery once again only heard one side of.
Her chest throbbed with a hurt she had no business harbouring. She shifted closer to the fire and willed the warmth to absorb into her core. Unfathomably tired, Emmery laid down on the ground and curled into a ball. Her eyelids closed as the silence needled her soul.
“Thank you,” Destonne finally said, but hesitance dragged his words.
Emmery sucked in a breath and held his gratitude, waiting for it to provide some relief after the pain she’d contained in her body.
It never did.
“It’s the least I could do,” she replied. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
“Done what?”
She wrapped her arms tighter around herself. “Taken my payment.”
“Why not?”
Always so many questions. She ground her teeth. “She could have killed you. She was going to kill you.”
“Though it’s very sweet you’re worried about me, I can handle it,” he said simply, his voice close behind her. “Are you going to sleep like that?”
“How else would I sleep?” she grumbled, her eyes still closed.
“You could sleep with me. It would be warmer.”
She huffed a laugh and fought a shiver. “No, thank you.”
“You didn’t seem to mind on the way to Reize’s house.” Emmery cracked an eyelid to see him watching her. Darkness circled his eyes and the hollows in his cheeks appeared deeper. “The invitation is open should you change your mind.” Then Destonne fell onto his side, and fell asleep in moments.
Emmery’s eyes widened and she sat up, looking to Brennen for assurance.
Brennen stared at Destonne’s calm face, once again consumed by that intoxicating innocence. “He’s been through worse. I wouldn’t worry.”
She didn’t know what to say as she studied the crown.
And maybe it all finally sank in, the way Destonne spoke of his father, the way he said the castle made him sick when he looked at it, how he’d shared his tale of being sent away with no return date, or how not a single family portrait hung on the castle walls, but she asked, “Did his father do that to him?”
Brennen lifted his chin to expose the metal stake embedded in his throat. “As he did this to me, too.”
How could someone do that, not just to Brennen, but to his own son? Then she remembered what Destonne had said about his brother. His half brother. It finally clicked. And every morsel of her being craved answers. So, she blurted, “He’s a bastard, isn’t he?”
Brennen’s eyes widened. The flickering fire illuminated in his irises like it lived within. “I shouldn’t speak for him.”
“But Arran and him shared blood. They were half-brothers so they had different mothers. Right?”
Brennen cocked his head to the side. “He told you of Arran?”
Emmery nodded. “Why?”
“Interesting.” He offered that infuriating and cryptic answer then stood, circled, and curled up closer to Destonne. Emmery heaved a sigh.
In the firelight, she could make out etchings in the spike, much like those on her ring and her mother’s pocket watch. “That’s enchanted, right? So you can’t shift?” She remembered Destonne telling her as much.
Brennen blinked thoughtfully at her. “Yes.”
“Why don’t you remove it?” Though the intrusive question might make him turn away, she was too damn tired to care.
“It’s not as if I haven’t tried. It’s embedded in my artery. Even if I could melt it out of my neck, it has been set into my body in a way so if it leaves, I won't survive it. I haven’t been able to use my magic since I was a boy and ran. But, as you know, Thellonius caught me.”
Emmery studied the spike, as if she could dismantle it with her eyes. “If you were so young, how did you have your magic?”
Brennen flashed her a sad grin. “I was only four years of age when I completed my trial. The youngest in history. Only a few days after Thellonius invaded our home. I never got to learn the ways of my people. Didn’t get to explore my magic.”
Emmery’s stomach tightened. She felt that sentiment down to her core with her own magic forbidden for so much of her life. “Do you remember much of your childhood?”
“The memories grow further away the longer I stay in this form.”
Emmery gnawed on her lip as she recalled how Briar shared that each Hollow magic has its own unique price. And how the burden of beast often made the user lose themselves. Because she didn’t know how to broach the subject, or how to even ask, she said, “How?”
“It’s complicated.” Brennen huffed a long breath. His eyes closed for a moment, before he stared up at Destonne with so much love that Emmery had to tear herself away. “Sometimes I forget myself entirely. I turn into the beast. I’m sure Dez has told you.”
Unsure what to say, she shook her head.
“I forget my soul.” The heavy words sat suspended in the air.
With her memories missing, those words rang true for her too. A piece of her would always remain vacant without them. Emmery traced the indent where her ring should lay. She missed it like an absent limb. “How do you deal with it? How do you remember?”
“Dez can call me back somehow. He’s the only one.” Brennen closed his eyes, whether in shame or fatigue, Emmery couldn't tell. But the tender way he spoke about Destonne made her heart throb.
“I thought you would hate him. After all this time. What his father did.”
“He’s the only family I have. He showed me kindness when no one else did.
Kept me safe. Things were a mess, and he’s faced his own hardships.
” Brennen glanced up at Destonne as if to assure himself he still slept.
“I know you asked before and I stated I serve him by choice. I hope you know I meant it. He’s a part of me as much as I’m a part of him. I owe him my life.”
The blunt honesty rocked her. “I might be able to help you. I’m a healer. Maybe I could try to remove the spike.”
“It’s not worth the risk.”
“But what if it is?”
Brennen paused for a beat before he answered, “I couldn’t.”
“Why not? If it gives you a chance at a normal life?” She thought of what Senka had asked. For the name of the one he loved but could never have. What did she mean by that? Whose name had he given?
“If it went wrong—I couldn’t do that to Dez. I’m all the family he has left.”
“What about Fionn? And Cyrilla and Soren?”
“Again, it’s complicated.”
Emmery watched Destonne for a long moment.
“I keep telling myself he’s a bad man but …
I’m not sure anymore.” His brows creased and he curled in on himself, his face pressed into the crook of his arm, like he hid from whatever horrors haunted his mind.
Was he having a nightmare? Emmery palmed his crystal still hanging from her neck.
“None of us are all bad or all good. Life is not that simple. There’s light in everyone, no matter the darkness they’re cast into.”
As Brennen settled down, Emmery laid on her back and studied the starless sky. She wondered what this place was like before Deimos fell in love with Kahlia and she trapped him behind an icy wall of his own magic.
Destonne mumbled in his sleep and made a small, sad sound, his arms outstretched, like he reached for something out of his grasp. Carefully, Emmery removed the crystal from her neck and with great stealth, clasped it around his. She figured, at this point, he needed it more than her.