Page 42 of Merciless Is My Crown

There was nothing fucking wrong with me.

Really? said the shadow in my head. Because she thinks you are fucked up. She can’t even stand to look at you. Can’t stand being around you for another minute.

When we emerged on the other side, Adele and Tristan were waiting, Tristan looking close to collapse. Anaria gripped the reins, looking anywhere…except at me.

“You’ve made your point, Tavion. Now let’s get through this next day without killing each other and we’ll call it a win.”

At midday we rode up to Nightcairn Castle’s front doors, a sorry looking, beaten down bunch, and I strode straight past a shocked looking Dane straight to my father’s office where I took his very best bottle of liquor out of his desk and locked myself in with his worthless books and papers.

I drank that bottle dry.

Found a second one and started all over, until my rage had a dulled edge, until my jealousy was little more than a bunch of pathetic regrets twisted together. Fuck, I was a proud, stubborn bastard.

I always had been, but lately…lately I’d made mucking things up between Anaria and me an art form. And lately…my thoughts had been…unnatural.

Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, the sky was the color of pitch. How long had we been here? My head spun when I climbed to my feet then stumbled toward the kitchen to find food, only to be stopped by whispers carrying down the hall.

Anaria’s and my sire’s.

Quiet. Secretive.

I crept closer, my bare feet padding silently over the thick carpets, only the faint glow of candles coming from the otherwise deserted kitchen.

“It’s started, then.” Lucius’s voice held a grim hollowness I’d only heard once before in my life. When he spoke of my mother, at the very end, when the healers and mages and seers had gone home and all hope had vanished.

“I think so,” Anaria murmured. “I’m starting to see the signs; they’ve been going on for a few days now. I don’t know what to do for him, Lucius. I don’t know how to help him.” She sounded like she was fucking crying.

Over me.

Well, all of Anaria’s tears would be for naught, because there was nothing wrong.

“You brought my son back to me, home to Nightcairn. That’s enough. At least…at least I can spend some time with him, try to make things right between us.”

Make things right. I wanted to laugh. Since when had my old man ever given two shites about me? When had Lucius ever cared about anything but my brother or himself?

And these two…were talking about me like I’d been brought back here to…die.

I slumped against the wall and took a deep pull from the bottle.

“I’m so sorry, Lucius. If I had the right kind of magic…but I don’t.”

“The healers will arrive in a few hours to look after Tristan. I’ll keep them here for Tavion. But if my son has the same affliction as my Celia did, they will not…”

Whatever else my father had to say disappeared into the roaring inside my head as I slid down the wall and landed on my arse, half-full bottle still clutched in my hand.

I had the same illness my mother died from. And Anaria knew.

Liar. Vicious little liar.

She’d known the truth this whole time, since the last time we were here weeks and weeks ago, and hadn’t said a word. Not a fucking word.

Because she and my father were conspiring against me. Keeping secrets, like Lucius was so good at. I didn’t know how long I stayed on the ground, but I finally climbed to my feet and headed upstairs. But not to my room. No, I headed for Anaria’s room.

She and I would finish this tonight.

She wanted to lie to me? Spy on me for my father?

She wanted to call me weak to my face then sneak around behind my back? I chose a chair half hidden in the shadows, propped my feet on the footstool, and yanked the cork out from the bottle.

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