Page 60 of Midnight Salvation

“He kept our wedding secret to save me from some sort of initiation.” Ash had never told me what it was, just that he would protect me with his life.

She stared at the wall. “The Blackwood men view a new bride as communal property. She is taken to their billiard room and each male member of the family visits her until they’ve all welcomed her.”

I couldn’t hide the shudder that rippled down my spine.

“Ash has never taken part, even when his cousin married a few months ago. He has made his feelings on the practice abundantly clear.” The fact that she refused to look at me and her dead tone suggested she had been initiated into the family.

Who would do that to their wife?

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

Marigold shook her head. “It was a long time ago and if we allow the past to follow us, it tends to try and break us.” When she finally looked at me, there was agony in her eyes. “The summer he went to stay with you, he beat his father in the fight ring in the basement for the first time. I knew that if I didn’t get him out that Matteus would kill him. I made him promise me that he would only ever marry for love. At the time, I didn’t realise I was sending him away to his future wife.”

“When the others were full of bravado, Ash was the quiet one,” I said, taking over her story. “He took the time to listen to me, and then one summer I realised that how I felt for him wasn’t the same as the others. He made butterflies erupt in my tummy and my heart beat faster. It took him a few years to catch up.” I laughed and ended up coughing.

Marigold was beside me in an instant. “He’ll fix this,” she promised. “My son is not the type of man to find the love of his life and lose her.”

The past few hours lying here, I had spent a lot of time considering my life. Mama had died early and now I was beginning to think that I was about to follow her fate. Some loves were so powerful that they survived death. Papa proved that every single day.

The latest round of shivering a few hours later I couldn’t hide from Marigold and she pressed the button at the side of the bed. “I think the doctor should take another look at you.”

Sweat beaded on my forehead and my shoulder burned. Her hand felt like ice against my head.

“I was worried something like this would happen,” the doctor said, and I wondered when he had arrived. “Her body is fighting it, but there were a few days that none of us knew what she’d been exposed to.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out. My lips were dry and my eyes were beginning to boil in my head. “Ash,” I finally managed to croak.

“I’ve messaged him and he’s on his way,” Marigold said.

My stomach cramped and I tried to curl myself into a ball.

“I need you to swallow more medication, Lucrezia. Can you do that?” The doctor helped me to sit up.

He pressed two tablets to my lips, the water that followed them almost scorched my mouth with its iciness. The world slowly started to move in and out of focus.

“Angel?” His voice seared into me and I turned into the touch of his hand on my face. “She’s burning up.”

“It could be a good or a bad sign. We don’t know at the moment. None of us have ever dealt with thallium poisoning before.”

The bed dipped and his arms wrapped around me. “I’m right here. Stay with me.”

I wanted to stay, it was the only place I’d ever felt like I belonged, but a more powerful force kept pulling me deeper into the darkness. Memories mixed with strange creatures and I found myself sitting next to Mama beside a lake.

“Am I dead?” I asked.

She didn’t look any different to the photographs of her in the house. I pretended to have memories of her, but I’d been very young when she left us.

“No, little one. But you need to make a decision.” She smiled and reminded me of the photograph of her in Papa’s library. “You can stay here with me or you can return.”

“Return?” Nothing made sense anymore.

“There was no choice for me. Your grandmama was waiting for me when it was my time. You have a crossroad in front of you. One road leads to me and your grandmama, the other returns you to those you love.”

Those you love. Ash.

“He needs me,” I replied. The part of me that never got to know Mama wanted to stay here in this shadow world. It craved to know her without it being through other people’s memories.

Her smile filled me with sadness. “I know, little one. Lucas and my girls needed me too, but some battles we cannot win.” Her hand on my cheek burned with an intensity that made me want to cry out. “I have always been beside you every single day. Remember that.”

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