Chapter 36
MARIK
The cambion sprints toward me. I spin and crash my sword through its neck. Its head goes flying, landing with a thud halfway across the training center. Three more come. I run toward them and leap, lobbing their heads off in one motion.
Another group runs toward me, but I hold my hand up. They come to a stop.
“Go back to your creator,” I mutter. They skitter away, all of them moving in unison and out the doors. Back to Cora. I clean their blood from the sword and sheath it.
I hate those fucking things. I always have.
When Cora first showed them to me, my skin crawled.
But they get the job done and they’re easy to control.
Since I no longer have a brother to train with, I’ve been using them to spar with.
But all they know to do is run and try to bite. Elle is better at attacking me.
I exhale a frustrated sigh. My thoughts won’t stop. I came to the training center to get my mind off everything and yet, here I am thinking about Elle again.
How is she my mate?
How did I get this all so fucking wrong?
What the hell have I done?
From the time I was little, my parents pushed the ideas of power and control. Power over everyone. Control over everything. They knew Asmo would take over our House when the time came, but they wanted me to have something of my own. I just didn’t know it would be this.
Despite all they did to us, they did care for us in their own way. Asmo has always resented them for the way we were raised, but not me.
It made us stronger.
It left me always desiring more, something Asmo has never had to think about. He was always destined to rule. He’s never had to consider how he’s going to leave a legacy behind, how he’ll be remembered in House Serpent history.
I have.
When my parents first agreed to work with Cora, I was excited. It was a chance for me to have a future of my own. And now, I finally have it all. Power. Control.
But none of it matters because there’s something inside me that I have no control over, and I can feel it all slipping away.
“Fuck!” I hurl the sword at the window. It collides, but the window doesn’t break.
I want to tear my hair out.
I stomp to the window and snatch the sword from the ground. The stairway to the weapons room is dark, but I descend anyway.
When we were younger, Asmo and I were forced to stay in the dungeons for weeks without any form of light. All to “sharpen our senses.” We were five. But it worked.
Even so, dungeons and basements have unsettled me ever since.
But I force myself to overcome the fear, the discomfort, as I always have.
My eyes acclimate within seconds and I locate the weapons door, placing my palm flat on its surface.
It unlocks and I toss the sword on the floor.
Someone else will put it back. Probably.
The door clicks shut behind me as I exit and ascend the stairs. Vicente is waiting for me when I return. I could smell his greasy hair from the other room. He stares at the decapitated cambion bodies littering the floor.
“Vicente,” I mutter in greeting.
He whirls, his gaze flicking to the cambion blood on my shirt, then to my face. “Your Highness,” he snivels before forming a bow.
“What do you want?”
“Cora wants to see you.”
Of course Cora wants to see me. She always wants to see me. “Where is she?”
“In her bedroom, sir,” Vicente says with a grin.
I want to tell him he can go service her, then. No, what I really want is to fall to my knees and beg the Mother—or the Sister—to kill me.
“Thank you, Vicente,” I say, less so in gratitude and more so in dismissal. I grab two of the cambion bodies and haul them toward the door. Vicente clears his throat. I stop and turn back to him. “Yes?”
“My apologies, sir, but she made it clear she wants to see you now.”
I close my eyes and focus on not exploding into a ball of unchecked rage. I drop the bodies to the floor. “Handle this,” I say, waving a hand toward the dozens of cambions now laying dead on the training center’s floor.
Vincente’s nose crinkles. “Yes, sir.”
He gets to work, a clump of greasy hair falling forward as he reaches for one of the fallen cambions and grasps its shirt between two fingers. I smother my smirk with a hand and exit. Vicente could have warned me it was freezing out here. The City of Sand is never this fucking cold.
Something darts through the woods in my periphery.
Cora’s witches’ pets coming out to play as the sun goes down, probably.
A rabbit leaps across the path in front of me.
Since I’ve been on the throne, the woodland creatures have mostly gone into hiding.
Gone are the deer that used to graze through the forest, that used to watch as you trudged along the cobblestone path.
“Better go hide, little bunny,” I mutter. “They’re coming.” Wraiths and cambions and drabar, to name a few.
I’ll never forget the first time I saw one of the Cursed.
I was six. Asmo and I had been playing outside.
We were covered in red sand and dirt, and I was fully expecting to be yelled at by Mother for tracking it inside.
We walked into the living room, and there was Cora.
Sitting on the vintage black leather sofa, an undead wolf at her feet, its massive head resting on her lap.
Asmo shifted me behind him, and I peered over his shoulder.
Its milky eyes stared right through me. I wanted to sprint far, far away.
But I didn’t. Father wouldn’t have liked that. Between Father and the wolf, I knew the greater threat.
Days later, he made us fight it. Then, he made us fight every single one of Cora’s monsters.
Cursed bears with teeth the size of fingers and panthers with claws sharper than daggers.
Wraiths and osseri, made of shadows and malevolence.
Cambions, who I thought were just sick kids, but were just another nightmare come true.
It didn’t take long for Asmo to beat every creature.
Even at that age, he was better than me—quicker and stronger.
But I was the one thinking three steps ahead and making the plans to get us out of whatever hell Father had put us in.
I would usually go down first, but Asmo was there to pick me up or defend me while I got up. He always had my back.
Except for when it really mattered. When he abandoned me for Mae.
He didn’t trust me enough to see the long game.
Cora was always going to win. There was no stopping her.
She would have found a way to the throne, with or without me.
By agreeing to help her, I just ensured I wouldn’t die.
I secured power and security for my family, my court.
And my brother walked away from me for it.
I run a hand through my hair as I push open the door to Cora’s bedroom.
I’m instantly assaulted by the sound of her voice, and I grit my teeth.
I follow it, finding her on the balcony.
She stands against the railing, holding a handheld mirror as she talks to someone on the other side.
Most likely one of the head witches stationed in the other courts.
Mother used to use a dark mirror to communicate with Father when they were apart. Asmo and I have used them plenty of times, against Mother’s direct instructions not to touch her items. Alas.
Cora eyes me over the mirror and smiles. I resist the urge to shove her over the railing. She wouldn’t die, though. It would only succeed in pissing her off and earning her suspicion. Something I can’t afford right now. Now that I have a fucking mate.
I have to get Elle out of here. I don’t know what Cora has planned for Elle, but she’s wasting away while she waits for Cora to make up her mind.
The game has changed. And I wasn’t prepared.
Cora steps away from the railing, raven hair brushing against her silky white robe. The mirror hangs at her side. She walks to the wardrobe and opens it, placing the mirror delicately inside.
“How are things in the other courts?” I ask.
“Ursine still won’t budge, but that’s fine,” she says in a sing-song voice. “It’s no matter. We’ll kill them soon enough.” She turns, white eyes settling on me. “And now it’s time to celebrate.”
I lean against the wooden bedpost, arms crossed and one eyebrow raised. “Why’s that?”
“Mae is to be executed, the other Houses are in line, and now the witches are about to be a High House in a matter of days. It’s time to announce the ball.”
“For?” I ask. It comes out bored and apathetic. Her smile falters, and I refrain from smirking.
“To celebrate the witches becoming a High House, of course! We’ve been hunted and persecuted for years. It’s about time we’re treated with some respect around here.”
I sit on the bed. “Cora, what’s the plan here?
” For the most part, I usually go along with whatever she wants.
I give feedback and make suggestions, but she’s always the one with the final say.
I’m not exactly the type to ask an ancient witch about her plans, let alone push her on them, but my patience is wearing thin these days.
Her gaze narrows. “What do you mean? I thought we were on the same page.”
I consider taking a moment to reconsider this line of questioning, but I dismiss the idea.
“You want the witches to be accepted as a High House, but you’ve been using them to maintain your law and order since you took the throne.
The kingdom will never accept them if the witches are killing everyone they care about.
They’re even killing their pets and animals. ”
She scoffs. “I can’t do anything about the animals.
It’s a dog-eat-dog world. If the woodland animals can’t fend for themselves, that’s not on me or the witches.
As for the hybrids, they will accept the witches or they will die.
There would be no need to execute anyone if they’d just shut up and accept them.
And if they don’t, then I’m fine ruling a kingdom of just witches. ”
“And what of Elle?” I ask before I can think better of it. “Do you plan to have her pretend to be Mae forever?”
She tilts her head. “Why do you ask, Marik? Are you too weak to control her for much longer?”
I breathe through my irritation. “No. But eventually, she’s going to die being our captive. You know as well as I do that dark magic has a cost to the soul, and hers is already depleted. I’m not sure how much longer she’ll be able to continue using it. There has to be another plan.”
She waves away the concern. “I just need her for a little longer, then we can kill her.”
In that moment, I’ve never been more thankful for Mother and Father’s lessons.
If I were anyone else, Asmo even, I wouldn’t have been able to school my features well enough.
Not from the First Witch, at least. I act like her words don’t burn a hole inside of my heart, like my very being isn’t writhing in protest at her words.
Just in case, I turn my back to her and face the bed, hiding my expression. “Good.” I peel my shirt from my torso and toss it onto the floor, then stand before the bed.
Cora’s footsteps grow closer and I brace myself for her touch. I force my mind to empty, to go to the happy place I always envision, the only thing that gets me through this as I let my body operate on autopilot.
The little cave that Asmo and I would play in on the grounds of the Serpent Court.
Our safe space away from Mother and Father.
Where we would read books to one another and travel away from the hellscape we were forced to endure, where we would pretend to be voyagers to different kingdoms and live different lives.
When we got older, it became a place to drink in secret, to split a bottle of wine and commiserate over our problems, to just be ourselves.
But today, the landscape has changed. Instead of the usual cave, it’s a bathroom. Elle lays inside a clawfoot tub, her red hair splayed over the porcelain edge. There’s a smile on her face and freckles dancing on the apples of her cheeks. She holds out a bar of soap. “Come on, Marik.”
I have no choice but to obey. Not that I would refuse even if I could.
It’s like my feet have lost any will of their own.
I take the soap and kneel before her, knees hitting the stony floor.
I don’t feel it. She holds her wrist out to me and I begin to lather the soap.
Her head rests back on the tub’s edge, and she exhales a deep sigh.
“This is my favorite part of the day,” she murmurs.
“Mine, too.” My voice comes out rough.
I can’t resist the way my mouth tugs upward at her voice, at the fact that I’m able to give her this. I rub the soap in soft circles, careful to scrub every inch of her, loving the way it washes over her freckles.
“How was your day, my little snake?” she asks with a cheeky grin on her face. The water sloshes as she leans closer to me, her honey gaze flitting to my mouth. I close the distance between us and press my lips to hers.
The vision shatters as I erupt, spilling my seed all over Cora’s stomach, her skin so pale that black veins can be seen weaving their way down her hips. Black veins that pulse as she climaxes. I shudder, glad I can pretend it’s from my orgasm.
I collapse on the bed beside her. She rests her head on my chest, staring up at me with chilling bone-white eyes. I force myself to smile at her. It’s not hard once I picture the way Elle’s mouth quirked upward when she saw me.