Requiem of the Soul: A Sovereign Sons Novel

by Zavarelli, A.

  Just as I'm about to mention it, there's a knock on the bedroom door. It's late, and my staff knows better than to interrupt me in here unless it's something important.

  Ivy sits up, glancing at the door as I rise from the bed and move to answer the door. I open it enough to see Antonia standing there in her pajamas, an apologetic expression on her face.

  "I'm sorry to disturb, sir," she says tiredly. "But one of your men is waiting for you in your study. He says it's urgent."

  I nod and dismiss her before glancing back at my wife. Our conversation will have to wait for another time.

  "Go to sleep, Ivy."

  She drags the sheet up to cover herself and meets my gaze for one lingering second before breaking it.

  "Okay."

  29

  Ivy

  I sit up as I watch Santiago walk out of my room. The door closes with a soft click. I wait to hear the lock turn, but it doesn’t.

  I wonder who’s here to see him so late at night. Wonder what could be so urgent.

  Throwing the blankets off, I pull on a robe, very aware that I’m still damp between my legs. I’m trying not to think about what he just did or remember the feel of his mouth on me, his tongue inside me.

  He’s a monster. That’s all I need to remember about my husband.

  My one consolation is what my brother told me.

  I walk to the door and lean my ear against it. He’s quiet, though, and rarely makes a sound, so I wait, giving him time to go before I open it and peer out.

  The corridor is dark and empty.

  Taking a few steps, I glance over the banister down to the first floor. I can’t see more than the large hall that connects the different corridors, but I don’t hear anyone, and the rooms are dark, not even the usual candles lit now.

  If he has a guest, then he’d have taken him into his study, especially if he wants privacy.

  I take a defiant step toward the staircase. If he or anyone sees me, I’ll say I’m hungry. Or lost if I’m caught near his office. After what he did to me, I need to be smarter about things. Not so passive. Not allowing things to happen to me. I need to be more proactive about saving myself. Because I’m on my own, and I know it.

  I think back to the days before the wedding. It feels like years ago. I feel like I was a different person then. To think that for a brief span of time, I’d thought I could ask Santiago to help me. I’d thought I could go to my husband for help in keeping my sister safe against my own brother. I’m an idiot, though, because I can’t even keep myself safe, and the man I thought I might turn to is the devil himself.

  The last step creaks, and I stop, holding my breath as I wait to see if anyone else heard. But there’s no one. The servants must be asleep, and Mercedes is probably out prowling the night for fresh blood.

  She never did come to take me shopping or whatever it was she was going to do to ready me for the gala. Just sent word with Antonia that something had come up, and I was free for the day.

  When my heart rate settles, I take the final step down, my bare feet silent on the cold marble floors. I hurry through the hall to duck into the corridor where Santiago’s office is. It’s dark here, too, but the sconces that line these walls are lit and I can see light under his closed door at the far end.

  I’ll need to be quick. If he catches me here, I’ll have hell to pay, so I move as quickly as I can and quietly open the library door. I’m not stupid enough to listen at his door. I slip inside the dark room and close the door behind me, giving my eyes a minute to adjust. Once they have, I make my way through the aisles of bookshelves to the false wall. He never did ask me how I got into his office. He doesn’t know I know about this, and the thought makes me feel like I’ve got one win. One to his dozen.

  Now that I know the cutout door exists, I can almost see a thin line of light coming from inside his office. I’m quiet as I approach, holding my breath because I’m too afraid to breathe. I press my ear to the wall.

  “Why didn’t they see this before?” Santiago asks, voice raised, sounding angry.

  The other man’s voice is muffled. Quieter. I hear mumblings and only a few words, but those words give me chills: “…Toxicology…Metabolized too quickly…Coma.”

  Santiago speaks again, but it’s only the low timbre of his voice, not the actual words that I make out.

  I think about what happened last night when he brought out the vial. How my thoughts had gone to those old stories of poisoning within The Society. How Santiago had sipped the contents to confirm it wasn’t poison as if guessing my thoughts. As if that were a real thing. A possibility.

  Poison.

  Who uses poison? What year is this?

  No, that can’t be what they’re talking about.

  But I keep going back to that last word. Coma. I think about my father lying in a coma in that hospital bed. He’d gone into cardiac arrest. It made sense, given his lifestyle.

  I shake my head. This is stupid. They’re not talking about poison.

  “Does anyone else know?” Santiago asks.

  “No.”

  “Good. If you find any more information,” he starts, but that’s my cue. I’m sure he’ll come check on me before he goes to bed, and I need to be back in my room if he does.

  Without waiting to hear anything else, I hurry out of the library but knock my hip on a shelf in the dark. I don’t have time to wait to see if anyone heard the sound. I keep going, pausing only briefly to listen at the library door to make sure the hall is clear before hurrying back to the main part of the house, then up the stairs, slipping into my bedroom and closing the door, my heart in my throat as I throw off my robe and hurry into my bed.

  * * *

  The next morning, I wake up to cramps low in my belly.

  I open my eyes to watch the soft orange glow of the rising sun coming through the sheer curtains. I left the heavier drapes open.

  I push the blanket back and get up, seeing the smudge of red on the white sheets. Different than the blood on our wedding night. Abel came through. Santiago will be disappointed, though.

  Good.

  Walking into the bathroom, I open the cabinet beneath the sink to look for tampons. I hadn’t thought to look before, but a slow panic comes over me when I don’t find any. In fact, there’s nothing here I can use at all.

  I go into the closet to look through the drawers there. Did he really miss this detail? He doesn’t seem like he’d miss any detail. I was joking about his potency, but did he really think I’d be pregnant instantly and not have the need?

  Unbelievable.

  I walk back into the bathroom and wad up toilet paper to absorb the flow, then wash my hands and put on my robe to find Antonia. I’m not asking Santiago for tampons. And I’m definitely not asking Mercedes.

  The house is still quiet when I walk out into the hallway, but I hear voices when I get closer to the kitchen, and I see candles are being lit in the downstairs rooms. I’m about to push the door to the kitchen open when Antonia comes through, wiping her hands on a dish towel and giving someone instructions over her shoulder.

  “Ivy. You’re up early,” she says, obviously surprised to see me there.

  “I…” I quiet as a maid slips past Antonia into the kitchen. “This is embarrassing, but I got my period, and…um, there isn’t…” I clear my throat and tell myself to grow up. It’s a fucking period. “I need tampons.”

  After the briefest of moments, Antonia nods, but I swear I see something on her face in that split second of time that gives me pause.

  “Of course. Come with me, dear.”

  I follow her as she walks past the kitchen and down several corridors to a door farther away from the center of the house. That door, which she uses a key to unlock, which I knew was locked because I’d tried it on one of my explorations of the house, leads to a corridor different from any in the house. For one thing, it’s lit with electrical lights, and for another, it’s nowhere near as ornately or beautifully decorated as the
main part.

  “What’s here?” I ask, appreciating the brightness.

  “Staff rooms. Three maids live on property plus security and myself, of course. These are our rooms.”

  “Oh,” I say, remembering Santiago’s rule that I not enter the servant’s quarters. I roll my eyes at the memory.

  “Here we are,” she says, unlocking a door. When she opens it, a light automatically blinks on, and I see it’s a laundry room. I smell detergent and watch one of the washing machines already spinning its load.

  “This is like a hotel,” I comment.

  She smiles and heads to a shelf where I see several boxes of tampons. “The house is old and requires a lot of upkeep. I’m just glad your husband does it, although he has closed off some rooms since he became head of the household. With only him and Mercedes, it made sense, but now...” She trails off.

  “How big is it?” I ask, watching her count out five tampons.

  She holds them out, and I hear her talking, but I stop listening because I realize something.

  This wasn’t an oversight.

  “I’ll just take the box. I’m sure I’ll need more than five,” I say, irritated not by her but hearing my tone, nonetheless. I know she’s just doing what he’s told her to do.

  Antonia’s gaze falters, and she takes a deep breath in. “I’ll give you what you need. Just ask me, Ivy, but...” She trails off.

  “He wants to know,” I say, feeling a little sick. Feeling my eyes fill up. Feeling powerless and hated and trapped all at once.

  “He’s just anxious to start a family. That’s all.”

  I snatch the tampons out of her hand. “Then when you tell him, make sure he knows how happy I am that he’ll be disappointed!” I spin around, wiping the back of my hand across my face to get rid of the idiotic tears that wet the skin around my eyes at this fresh humiliation. Because what did I expect? What did I think? That he felt bad about what he did that night he took me to the compound? The night he had me crawl naked on my hands and knees for everyone to see? I don’t even know who was there. Don’t know who saw me being led like a dog by my husband. Being fucked by my monster.

  God.

  I hate him. I hate my husband.

  And the worst part, the stupidest part is that I don’t want to. That I thought—

  Fuck!

  I find my way back to the main part of the house and have to pause at the bottom of the stairs when a dizzy spell overtakes me. It’s always worse around my period. I clutch the handrail and hold on until it passes, ignoring the girl asking me if I’m okay. I squeeze my eyes shut and beg for it to pass quickly. Not to come until I’m back upstairs in my room. In my bed. Until these vultures won’t see more weakness to exploit.

  “Ivy!” It’s Antonia.

  “I’m fine!” I force myself to move, sweat making my grip on the wide handrail slippery as I concentrate on getting away. Just getting away. Not letting myself stop until I’m back in my room and in the bathroom, the only door with a lock on the inside where I drop to sit on the cold tile floor, my back against the door head between my knees, stupid tampons scattered at my feet.

  30

  Ivy

  I lie in bed most of the day, staring at the rectangle of waning light coming into my room. I flushed some of the food Antonia brought down the toilet so she would think I ate and leave me alone. He’s managing that too. Probably getting daily reports. Hourly, maybe. He’s just controlling enough.

  I am a body to him. A body he can humiliate and fuck and ultimately use to make babies. Then what? What happens when I’m all used up?

  No. I don’t need to think about that. I know. He’s told me.

  I turn over as the door opens. No knock. Mercedes strolls into my room like she owns the place.

  “Well, aren’t you lazy,” she says, gaze condescending.

  I sit up. “What do you want, Mercedes? I’m not in the mood to deal with you.”

  Two women follow her in, one carrying a garment bag, the other rolling in a small suitcase.

  The gala.

  Shit.

  “I’m not going,” I tell her before she can get a word in. I get out of the bed to go to the bathroom. Although my period’s lighter than it would usually be, the birth control shot has done nothing for my cramps.

  “That’s not up to you,” she says, slipping the toe of her blood-red stilettos in the doorway so I can’t close it. “Or didn’t my brother mention that? You do as you’re told. Period.”

  I stop pushing at the door, let it go and step into her face. She’s taller than me with those shoes while I’m barefoot, so I have to look up at her. “You and your brother can both go fuck yourselves. I have cramps. Get the hell out.”

  “Cramps?”

  “What? You don’t get the report about my cycles too?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  The fight goes out of me. I’m more depressed than angry, and it’s not her I’m angry with. “Nothing. Just go. You can torture me tomorrow.”

  “I don’t think so. We only have an hour to get you ready, so do what you need to do in here,” she says, walking away to return a moment later with her purse and taking out a bottle of aspirin. She sets it on the counter. “Here. I’ll even give you aspirin. Not that you deserve pain relief.”

  That anger is back, and now it’s directed precisely on her.

  “What the fuck is wrong with the two of you? I barely even knew that you existed before I was forced to marry your brother. To live in this little corner of hell. What did I do to you that made you hate me so much?”

  Her eyes grow darker, mouth tighter, and I see her hands fist at her sides. She’s gritting her teeth, and I know she wants to say something, but she’s holding back. “You’re lucky my brother stands between me and you, Ivy Moreno, because I wouldn’t be so gentle with you.”

  “Gentle? You think he’s gentle?”

  She snorts.

  “Do you? Because you’re as deluded as he is if you do!”

  “Don’t forget your place.”

  “My place? Get out. Just get the fuck out of my room!”

  “You’re in my house. Mine. You don’t tell me to get out.”

  “It's Santiago's house. My husband’s house!” I don’t even know why I say it. Why I’m goading her.

  “Oh! Your husband. That's right.” She tilts her head to the side and grins. “Do you have any idea why he made you his wife? Why a man like my brother would even look at you twice?”

  “I wish I did. Get out, Mercedes. I mean it.”

  “He hates you.”

  Her words manage to hit something tender inside me. I don’t know why. I don’t care about her or what she thinks. And maybe it’s the day or the past few days. I don’t know. But before I can open my mouth to tell her to go away again, she continues.

  “Please tell me you knew that,” she says, that grin growing wide.

  “Just go. Please.”

  “Aw. You didn’t know?”

  I feel my face crumple at her feigned concern. I’m not even sure why. I knew all of this. It’s not news to me that he hates me.

  “He may enjoy fucking you, but he’s a man. You’re a toy to him. Like so many others.”

  She shows all her teeth as she sneers, victorious at that last dig.

  I force myself to stand up straighter and step closer to her. “What’s the matter, Mercedes? You feeling threatened by someone so inconsequential as me? Because from the look of you, I’d say you’re jealous.”

  Her face goes beet red, and she fists her hands. For a moment, I think she’s going to hit me, but then she spins on her heel. “Get Nathan in here!” she snaps to someone.

  I push the door closed but listen, my heart hammering. I hear a man’s voice a few minutes later. I recognize it, but I hadn’t known his name. Nathan is one of Mercedes’s bodyguards.

  “You make sure they get her dressed in the dress I brought. Make sure she sits her skinny little ass down and lets t
hem do their work exactly as I’ve instructed. And you call me before she’s allowed out of here. Do whatever you need to do to make sure she does as she’s told, am I clear?”

  “Your brother gave—”

  “I will deal with my brother! You just do as I tell you, or you’re finished here! Am I fucking clear?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  I back away from the door and turn on the tap to wash my face, seeing how my hands are trembling.

  I knew I was hated. I never doubted that. At least when it came to Mercedes. With him, there were moments—

  No. I can’t do that. I can’t ever think about those moments. He is a monster. He is the devil. They both are. And they have me in their sights, and I don’t even know why.

  I’m not strong enough to fight them.

  That’s the one thing I know without a doubt.

  I splash water on my face, then dry it. I pick up the bottle of aspirin and open it. It’s almost full. I swallow two, then set the bottle back down and prepare myself to face the women gathered in the next room, ready to do as I’m told, trusting that Nathan will do exactly as Mercedes instructed, even if it means hurting me.

  31

  Santiago

  "Here you are, brother." Mercedes appears behind me in the reflection of my mirror to assist in securing the strap of the mask around my head.

  It’s a silver headpiece. Half skull, half minotaur, crowned with roses. Dark and sinister undertones with a hint of the De La Rosa legacy. Once it is in place, I can conclude she has chosen well for me.

  "Perfect." She smiles wickedly over my shoulder. "You look positively devilish."

  I cast my eyes away from my reflection and clear my throat. "Yes, well, I suppose it will do."

  Mercedes follows me downstairs to the foyer, her red dress swishing as her heels tap against the old stone. She will be attending tonight's gala as well, and I suspect she hopes to capture the attention of Van der Smit and his new wife in a dress that looks as if she were sewn into it. If I wasn't so preoccupied, I would tell her to change, but the strange energy coursing through my veins won't allow my thoughts to settle on the propriety of my sister. Not when I have my wife to consider.