Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
Briar
“Yes!” Gizzi shouted in my head. “Fuck them all!”
With a sinking sensation, I realized that’s exactly what I might do by refusing to return. “I’m condemning the shifters to their current fate if I refuse to leave with my mother,” I told him.
“You didn’t condemn them to anything; your mother did.”
“But I might be able to help fix it.”
“And why should you be the sacrificial lamb who rights the wrongs of others?”
“None of this would have happened if I hadn’t fallen in love with Seth… I mean Knox.”
“You cannot help who you love.”
“No, but I knew my mother would destroy us if she ever caught us together. And then she did.”
“He knew the consequences of that too, right?”
“Yes,” I reluctantly admitted.
“And he was also willing to face them. He stayed there willingly with you. I know neither of you expected her to destroy the shifters, but you’re not at fault here.”
“She destroyed Seth too.”
“And she also made you suffer. You were both punished for years over something you never should have suffered for. It’s not on you to suffer more by returning to that place. You are not the key to fixing this.”
“Then who is?”
“Your atrocious mother and her cohorts.”
I didn’t argue with him, but I couldn’t help thinking I was condemning all the shifters to a fate worse than death by not returning to Nightshade. Was my one life really worth more than thousands of them?
No, but I couldn’t go back to my kingdom; my mother had punished me before, but this time, I’d beg her to lock me in a tower and shun me again, as I had no doubt she had far worse plans for me.
She might put me in the harem. I had no doubt there was torture in my future, and she might try to make me bind myself to Mond, the moon god.
I hadn’t suffered through my Needing with absolutely no relief to be forced into the harem and bound to a deity now. I would not become a night or day caster.
“Does she really think she has a choice?” Malakor tittered. “Your daughter’s a silly child, Marina.”
I glared at the king of the strigoi. “I’m not a child.”
“He looks as appetizing as shit, but I’ll bite him for you, if you’d like,” Gizzi said.
“Are you trying to start a war between the kingdoms and get us both killed?”
“No, but I don’t like that ugly prick.”
“No one does.”
“I’d hold your tongue, child, unless you want me to rip it out,” Malakor snarled.
When Knox planted one hand on the table, his claws raked the surface. “You make one move against her, and you’ll be wearing your intestines as a necklace.”
My mother’s smirk vanished as she gazed from him to me and back again. His earlier statement about me being poison had made her think… and me as well… that he had little care for me. His defensive position and the ruthless tone of his voice indicated that might not be true after all.
We would never be the old us again. All hope of that was dead, but a little surge of optimism filled me.
Maybe we could be something different. Something more.
“She’s my prisoner, and while she’s here, no one will mistreat her,” Knox stated.
And just like that, my hope burst like a bubble of soap chomped on by a dog. When would I get it through my thick head that I was nothing more than a means to an end for him?
“Do not threaten me, boy,” Malakor hissed.
“Easy, easy,” Alwin encouraged as he held up his hands. “We are all reasonable men and women and will discuss this issue as such.”
Devnair bent and whispered something into the king’s ear. Alwin listened before nodding.
“My brother-in-law has made a suggestion that I think we’ll all agree with,” Alwin said. “He’ll take the young lady for a walk while we talk rationally about this.”
My eyebrows rose at the revelation Devnair was Alwin’s brother-in-law. Such a connection must have granted him a fair amount of power in the elf kingdom of Terra.
While I liked Devnair and didn’t think he meant any harm, I was reluctant to leave. “Since you’re all discussing me, I think I should stay,” I said.
Alwin had maintained an air of calm joviality, but now his eyes glittered like black ice. “I think we can all agree you have no choice in this.”
My teeth ground together as I bit back an angry retort. Outside of Gizzi, Devnair might be my only ally in this room, and I couldn’t risk enraging the elf king by arguing with him. And his stony countenance said he wouldn’t tolerate any more arguments, even if they were about my life.
Warm breath tickled my ear before Lyra spoke. “It’s best if you go willingly and quietly. If you fight this, it could push Knox over the edge.”
I turned my head to meet Lyra’s lime-green eyes; the sympathy in them surprised me as her gaze willed me to go. Reluctantly, I nodded.
If, while I was gone, they decided to return me to Nightshade, I’d let Gizzi bite whoever he wanted. If I got killed in the process, so be it; death was far preferable.