Chapter 12 The Face of Hatred
Chapter twelve
THE FACE OF HATRED
Ornella
“You are a coward,” I snarled once Arren was satisfied that my power had been suppressed and removed his hand from my mouth. “We both know my magic is far superior to yours, which is why you cannot face me honourably.”
“You speak of honour, kinslayer? I wouldn’t even need my magic to snap every bone in your body, but please tell me more about how I am inferior.”
There was a time when his violent words would have terrified me into silence, but I knew my power now. I also understood the truth of his fear and jealousy and hatred, which was why I could not help but laugh at him.
“Be that as it may, the only reason you can even put hands on me is because my power is suppressed. So can you actually be superior if you have to disable people to subjugate them?” I pretended to muse.
My cousin was momentarily stunned by the clapback, since his threats had always shut me down before.
“I would like to see you speak like that to your father. Or to your husband—”
“He’s not my husband!” I snarled with such a visceral reaction that it made me tremble as my magic tried to riot and was subdued by the powder.
I will not allow them to do that to you.
Cathal’s promise, his sacrifice, echoed in my mind in a dizzying mantra that was nearly drowned out by frenzied screams from a bloodthirsty crowd.
I saw his face again, one of my most precious and painful memories of the last time I had seen him whole and unbroken.
When a slave scaled the walls of the arena to stand between me and the cruel male intent on marking me before the entire Tiarnaí.
When he ran across sand stained with my maidenhood to challenge one of the most powerful males in our realm.
Knowing how it would end for him. When he put himself between where Laisren stood and where I lay destroyed with bruised skin, broken bones, and a shattered heart.
The memories and the unbearable anguish of that day might have paralyzed me as they always had in the past. But my nervous system seemed to have a new response to being overwhelmed. I could almost smell that comforting scent of white oak and autumn spice.
Sage.
I closed my eyes and breathed deep, easing my pulse and the threat of a panic attack. I could almost feel the gentle patience and adoration in his touch and hear that deep tenor of my mate’s grounding voice.
Arren chuckled as he grabbed a fistful of my hair and twirled me around.
His left hand pulled my pelvis against his hip to brace me while he yanked on my hair again to bend me backward enough to meet his eyes.
Pain lanced up through my torso from the awkward angle I was forced to lean at.
It radiated through my neck and stung my scalp as he used my hair to support my weight.
I laid eyes on my cousin for the first time in centuries.
He was bare-chested, and his lower body was covered by foliage and animal fur that he had grown from his skin.
We both looked uncomfortably like my father with vivid green eyes and auburn hair.
Although mine was loose and wild while his was oiled and finely braided.
Our skin was a similar fawn-brown tone, marked by faint white spots and stripes that were displayed across Arren’s corded arms and chest. His wooden antlers were full and covered in vibrant Summer foliage while mine had just three small tines that were barren after my time in Autumn Court.
“I look forward to seeing Laisren remind you of who you belong to. Do you not remember when he proved it in the arena in front of all our people?” my cousin taunted.
His disgustingly casual reference to an assault that had utterly wrecked me made my stomach knot in revulsion.
I will not allow them to do that to you.
“Oh, I remember,” I assured him, swallowing the bile and dread and striving for confidence. “I also remember splitting his face open and leaving without his mark.”
Arren tsked as if I were nothing but an errant child.
“A mark can still be placed. I meant this,” he advised, shifting the hand that was bracing my hip around to the front of my pelvis. Over where my womb had once been. “He proved that this belongs to him.”
“Then it should please him to know that I ripped it out of me the day I escaped him,” I hissed through my teeth, losing every ounce of my composure.
I hated him. I hated them all with the kind of violence that felt like it could set me on fire. I could combust from the ferocity of it roaring in my heart and my blood.
A cold and uncannily familiar expression slipped over Arren’s face that chilled me down to my bones.
I had told Sage that I could not remember the faces of my family, which was true at the time.
But seeing Arren had opened the floodgates of my memories, and when he looked at me like he wanted to choke the life out of me…
All I saw was my father.
I expected the hit, but the force of it still startled me when he backhanded me hard enough that I tasted blood in my mouth before I even hit the ground on my stomach. With my limbs still bound, I could not put my hands out to catch myself, and the air was knocked out of me.
“You disgusting wench! You will regret—”
I heard him take a step toward me and tried to regain my senses enough to roll away before the kicking to my stomach began. But thankfully, I did not need to.
Fire burst up between us and blazed around Arren to keep him corralled away from me. I recoiled in fear that we were being attacked, but then a sob of relief instantly burst from me when Ciaran stepped out of his shadows.
Who could have ever predicted I could be so fucking glad to see Ciaran of all people?
He was wearing his armour made from thorn and bone with his skull-faced helmet hung on his belt.
There was a wicked smile on his face, which I knew right away should make Arren nervous.
Especially when Ciaran swung his right arm forward and dragged another fey out of those shadows to kneel beside him.
Finn Lann a’Chridhe. Arren’s younger brother.
It took me a moment to recognize him, not because it had been some time since I saw him, but because his face was a burned and bloody mess.
“Release my brother, you elfin scum!” Arren snarled at the grinning rider furiously.
“This brother?” asked Ciaran in feigned innocence as he pulled Finn’s shoulder back to lift the male who gave a groan of pain. “No, I think I want to hang onto the both of you for a while longer. Besides, I have some friends that would be very interested in meeting you.”
“How did you even catch him?” I asked, jerking my chin at Finn who had sagged forward again with his head hanging between his shoulders. “I did not sense them.”
“Your kind might be able to hide yourselves from ears and eyes and noses, but my shadows will always know when something is hiding in them,” Ciaran said smugly.
He was so proud of himself for capturing my enemies that I could not help snorting a laugh.
“I knew that they would show themselves if you were left here alone,” he added, which immediately soured any gratitude I had felt.
“You used me as bait?!” I seethed.
“Calm down, it was a brilliant plan, which you would appreciate if you thought about it for a moment.”
“He could have taken me away through the Tithriall to Sumarra and then what?” I demanded, scowling at him.
Ciaran merely rolled his eyes as if I were dramatic and extended a hand toward me. A flicker of fire magic seared through the vines binding me so I could get to my feet.
“I must have more faith in your abilities than you do. And besides, even had he taken you, do you really think we would have let it stand? Rian would have gladly used the opportunity to come get you and made good on all his promises to Aodhan. So it was a gamble I was willing to take to flush them out so we could deal with them.”
He spoke with such an unapologetic finality as if he thought we were finished talking about it.
We were definitely not finished talking about it.
“You cannot harm us! The King of the Rowan Wood will come for you!” Arren warned before I could answer. My cousin was deeply affronted by being taken captive.
In Sumarra, speaking my father’s name was akin to brandishing an insurmountable weapon, but I had learned that it held little meaning outside the Summer Court.
Ciaran gave Arren another of those wicked smiles that made me think he was going to enjoy these prisoners. Considering the sad state of Finn’s face already, I guessed it was going to be a very bloody imprisonment for them. But I could not find it within me to feel bad about that.
“We do not fear your cowardly king, but he should fear us. Anyone in the Rowan Wood who helped hurt my friend should be very afraid,” Ciaran swore coldly.
I raised my brows, confused for a moment until he saw my expression and rolled his eyes at me again.
“Her too,” he added reluctantly, and I realized he had meant Aodhan. He wanted revenge for my brother.
“Fuck you too,” I muttered, even though the revelation actually warmed my heart just a little.
Ciaran dropped Finn carelessly into the undergrowth and then stalked over to Arren.
The ring of fire prevented my cousin from fleeing and burned away Arren’s every attempt to erect a defense barrier.
Ciaran stepped through the wall of his flames easily and seized Arren to roughly wrestle him down onto his knees.
“Are you going to help?” Ciaran asked me impatiently. “Perhaps you could conjure vines around his wrists?”
“I would. But he made me inhale chuka.”
“Yeah? And what is that?” he asked distractedly.
“It’s a powder that inhibits your magic.
It’s temporary but uncomfortable,” I explained.
I did my best to feign nonchalance in order to cover how unsettled I was that he had been so comfortable risking my safety.
That he felt risking me being taken by those who had done the most unspeakable things to me was an acceptable gamble.