Page 2 of Reap the Night
A look of pure devastation passes across my brother’s face. “Orina.” He blurs toward her and catches her before she can fall. “What are you doing? You should be resting.”
She frowns up at him. “Why? So you can murder more innocent people?” Her eyes well, and she blinks to quell her tears. “I thought…I thought you were changing. I thought you understood…” Her eyes flutter closed.
He curses, scooping her up into his arms.
“Your Majesty?” Matthew is still holding on to the woman, waiting for a possible change in instruction, and the conflict racing over my brother’s face tells me that he’s wise to do so.
“Put her in the guest dungeons,” Ezekiel growls before striding from the room with Orina cradled against his chest like the most precious prize.
Matthew releases the woman. She sinks to the ground with a sob, wrapping her arms around herself as if to hold her fracturing frame together. “I don’t understand. I don’t…”
“It’s all right.” Hemlock crosses the room to pick her up off the floor. “You’re going to be all right.” He smiles, but it barely reaches his eyes.
Because we’ve done this before. So many times before. And we thought we’d done it with Orina, and now…Now we have to start again.
But this time there’s one huge complication.
Our brother is already attached to another.
Ingrid placesa pot of tea on the table along with a plate of biscuits just as Hemlock enters the kitchen.
“How is she?” she asks him.
“Calmer now,” Hemlock says. “The guest dungeons are comfortable. She’ll be fine until we can figure out what to do.”
I kick out a chair for him. “How could we get it so wrong?”
He sits heavily. “I don’t know. Orina is…She has a presence, and the way she attacked Ezekiel that night…”
“I suppose we can be forgiven for our mistake, but…I thought I felt it.”
“Me too. But our true hope is here now. Her name this time is Ariella.”
“Are you sure it’s her?” Ingrid asks.
“If you see her, then you’ll know.” I pour tea into my cup and add milk. “We shouldn’t have disregarded how different Orina looked from our previous saviors.”
“I thought…” Ingrid shakes her head. “I felt connected to her.”
“So did I. But now I wonder whether we made ourselves feel that way because of who we thought she was.”
“Are you saying you had no connection to her before?” Ingrid asks me.
“I can’t say that. And my beast wants her too. It’s never wanted a past savior before.”
“But have you ever gotten close to a past savior? You’ve never been her watcher, never spent such time with her. It’s always been Ezekiel.”
“What are you saying?” Hemlock asks.
“I’m saying…let’s not be hasty. Maybe…maybe this Ariella woman isn’t the one…” But she doesn’t sound too convinced.
“There’s only one way to know for sure,” Hemlock says. “We need to allow her time with Ezekielwithouthim being distracted.”
Distracted by Orina. “You want to remove Orina from the equation, don’t you?”
“Yes. She needs to leave the castle.”
“She’s his watcher,” Ingrid reminds us. “She’s vowed to protect him.”
