Chapter 4
DAVID
Within the prison his father called home, David possessed an entire suite of rooms on the third floor.
His favorite of these rooms was the study.
A fireplace was bracketed by two windows that looked out toward the snow-capped peaks of the Sierra Nevadas, and the room smelled of the books that covered every surface.
There wasn’t much peace in David’s life, but this room was peaceful.
Or at least it was.
After eavesdropping on his mother and Sean Archer’s aunt, David’s head whirled with the mystery of it all.
He retreated to this sanctuary as he often did but drew up short when he entered to find a woman standing before the lit fireplace, gazing into its depths.
The light from the flames licked her skin in a strange cadence as she turned to face him.
He remained frozen, but his stomach clenched with…something.
He didn’t know this woman.
But somehow, he did.
Her hair was black as midnight. Gold flickered within the strands like glitter.
Her bronze skin shimmered with the same gleam.
The room was too shadowed to determine the color of her eyes, but the bloodred of her dress existed in some sort of hi-def technicolor that made him wonder if someone had slipped something into his drink.
Why was it so…red?
He stared, being sure to keep his face carefully blank.
She cocked her head, and her red, red lips curved into a crooked smile. “Well. The resemblance certainly is uncanny.”
She had a strange accent, one he’d only heard in some of his father’s seedier business locales.
David didn’t reply.
The woman stepped away from the fireplace, her gaze riveted to him. “This room reminds me of your father.”
David glanced at the books. He doubted his father had ever finished a book in his life.
“He, too, finds comfort in books.” She dragged one long, pointy-tipped finger down the spine of a tome on the closest shelf. “Though I doubt he finds comfort in anything at all these days.”
David considered asking who she was, but her air of mystery seemed to be purposeful, and he refused to give her the satisfaction of revealing he’d been caught off guard.
She turned from the shelf to take him in once more. “Kassandra’s forecast draws nigh, young one. You are needed back home.”
Stuffing down his confusion, he spread his arms to indicate the room. “Is this not my home?”
Her head cocked. “This is a place you live. It is not the same. This place has served its purpose, but now it’s time you come home.”
“I have no other home.”
She smiled and began a slow strut toward him. “You have an entire world just waiting for you, my love.”
As she advanced, her features grew clearer, and David marveled at the color of her eyes—like diamonds or opals, with facets that sparked rainbows. Had someone drugged him? How was this woman made of gold light and colors that didn’t actually exist?
He wanted to retreat. Step back. Exit the room and lock her inside.
Instead, he remained frozen in place, allowing her to approach until she stood but an arm span away.
There was something ageless in her features—an old crone trapped in a young woman’s body.
Entire lifetimes existed in her gaze, telling him she’d seen terrible things…
and had likely done them, too. He should have been scared, probably.
Instead, he just wanted this over. Today’s capacity for curiosity had been axed to pieces by the father-son murder followed by his mother’s silent declaration that she’d never loved him.
What could this woman do to him that would matter in the slightest? Kill him? Such an act would just be mercy.
“They will find the heir of Sidera soon,” she said, as if he was supposed to understand any portion of that sentence. “When they do, I need you there. Do you understand?”
“No,” he answered truthfully, because what the actual fuck?
“Suffice it to say that building an army in secret takes a great deal of time, but I am almost ready. With you in the way, distracting them all, there will be no eyes on me while I perfect my plans.”
Annoyed with the riddles, David crossed his arms. “Ah. Yes. Well, we can’t have them discovering your secret, can we?”
Her mouth stretched into a grin. “You truly are just like your father, aren’t you?”
David’s eye twitched at the slight. Of all the insults she could have thrown at him, comparing him to his father was the worst.
“No, I’m not.” He moved from between the woman and the door, holding an inviting hand toward the latter. “Can you leave?”
Her smile only widened. “Do you not fear me, child?”
“No.”
“Such bravery,” she said, mocking him.
Apathy must have often been mistaken for bravery. In order to fear her, he’d have to care what she planned to do to him, and he just…didn’t. He gestured toward the door again, but she continued to ignore him.
“’Tis no matter,” she said, and then her voice changed. It morphed into a timbre he recognized from his own little trick, when he spoke and people obeyed as if compelled. “You will leave this place. Find the mist.”
A shot of pleasure dosed straight to the least controllable parts of his brain, coating them in a desire to obey. Her voice was like sugar and sex, and no part of him even considered defying her.
“The…mist?” he asked, irritated by the slur.
“Find the mist, David,” she purred, “and when I leave this room, you will forget I was ever here, won’t you?”
“Of course,” he said. Why would he bother remembering her? That made no sense.
She cupped his cheek. “The longer you take, the more it will hurt.”
He blinked, and before he could reply, the woman slipped from the room, closing the door with a soft snick behind her.
David stared at the door, trying to remember what he’d been doing, why he was standing in the middle of the room instead of settling in the chair before the fireplace as he’d intended, but he couldn’t make sense of it.
He shook himself and glanced at the flames, wondering who’d lit it.
Ice slithered down his spine as he sat, and before he reached for his book, an urge woke to flee into the darkness outside.
David wanted to see the mist as it descended over the estate in the early hours of the morning. He needed it.
But that made zero sense, and he refused to rise from his seat. No. He’d remain right there, exactly where he wanted to be.
He would not move.
He wouldn’t.
A spark of pain ignited in his chest.