“You think you can just walk out that front gate and live freely?” he countered as his eyes turned black. “You murdered hundreds of innocent lives by giving out the information to the locations of the hives I had personally taken you to visit. You have been hunted since the moment I rose from my sleep, until the moment rumors spread of your location. Right now there are hundreds of hives gearing up to come here, to kill the Cheveron witch who betrayed her vampire lover.”
I blinked before a frown creased my brow. “I did nothing of the sort, Conner. I left that hive, which I freely admit to slaughtering, but I never helped anyone to find the other vampires. It took twenty years to fucking heal and allow the magic Laura cast on me to work. I didn’t betray them; I couldn’t have, considering everything I lost. Isn’t that right, Addison?” I asked, and she bent over, throwing up blood onto the floor. “You shouldn’t ever fuck with magic that you don’t comprehend. You can’t handle what I lived through, princess. Tell me, do you still love your sweet, gentle daddy now?” I laughed coldly, watching while she threw up again until she hiccupped and shook her head violently. “Me either, girl,” I chuckled. “He was one twisted, sick puppy, wasn’t he?”
I watched as she slid down the wall and pulled her knees up to her chest and began rocking to ease the memories from her mind. I almost felt bad for her, almost. I dropped to my knees and Conner looked between us, noting the shade of green his sister turned as she stared at me with wide, horrified eyes with tears of blood sliding down her face.
“It’s true, isn’t it?” he whispered hoarsely, staring at his sister, who in turn, stared at me with horrified revulsion as she saw me as I’d been in the memories. Conner looked at me with unease and pity.
“I don’t want your pity, nor do I want you. What happened, and what you inadvertently allowed to happen to me took everything from me. I didn’t just lose my family. I lost myself in that place, Conner. I lived because you took death away from me. At night, I’d pray for you to come into that room, but not to save me; to end it, to end me. To take away the immortality that you cursed me with. What I allowed Addison to see and feel was only the beginning of what I endured beneath your father’s protection.”
“I didn’t know what happened, because I was too busy trying to save your life. I killed the prince of the Spanish Vampires because he thought to take you from us. I slaughtered witches who hunted you because of the slight they thought you’d done by fucking a vampire. I murdered any vampire who thought to look upon you with lust or hatred. I fucking sheltered you from it all, and never let you know how much danger you were in because I didn’t want you to live looking over your shoulder, wondering when they’d finally get to you.”
“I would have been safer with them,” I stated as I stood up, moving my hand as the clasp of the cell door exploded and tumbled to the floor, echoing through the room. “I am the granddaughter of Hecate, she who guards me from those who wish to harm me. I am the daughter of Ilsa Cheveron, who carried her mother’s mark upon her flesh.” I stopped in front of him and then winced as Addison wrapped her arms around me.
“I’m so sorry; I didn’t know. We didn’t know, Avery,” she whispered as she looked up at me with bloody tears covering her face.
“Addison, I’m trying to be a badass here, and you’re so ruining it,” I hissed.
“You have to know that he had no idea, none of us did!” she hiccupped.
“Mayhem did, but him, I understood. I felt other magic that filled him, but also his need to protect me as best as he could, considering everything happening around us. He protected Conner, and I knew why he did it. The only reason he lives is because when he took his turn with me, it was to whisper into my ear that I was strong enough to survive it, and not to fuck me as everyone else did, but to survive until Conner could reach me and that when the time came, he’d tell Conner everything. Yet he couldn’t, could he? I don’t blame him, I mean, how do you tell your brother that you watched his mate being fucked by the hive repeatedly, and fed from until she died, only to be denied death because as long as he lived, she couldn’t die. Or better yet, that she was chained in his father’s room and used as his personal whore until he grew bored of her?”
“He doesn’t deserve death,” she pleaded.
“I have no intention of murdering Conner. I will stand trial by my peers, and if they are just, I will abide by their ruling. I will not, however, be caged anymore by any of your family,” I said, pushing her away as I materialized in front of Conner, cupping his cheek. “Call your elder in, love. I’m not getting any younger, and I will leave within the hour one way or another.”
“And if I say no?” he asked.
“You won’t, because right now you’re trying to imagine how much I endured, and you know the depravity of the hive when they took their enemy’s bride to that deep, dark hole. I wish I had been someone’s bride because it makes what I had to endure look fucking fun. You will let me go because of it, and because I know what you will ask of me, and when you do, you will never be able to forget it.”
“You’re my mate, Avery,” he whispered as his hand cupped my cheek.
“No, I wasn’t just your mate. I was your soulmate. Soulmates are tricky things, Conner. I couldn’t tell you what you should have felt or known from the beginning. That’s why your blood ignites me, drugging my soul until the only thing I know or want is you. I learned that lesson without you, and now I know why sane people avoid that bond at all cost. It destroys you; it rips you apart when they abandon you. Torture I could have endured, being shared with the hive and used any way they wished to use me, fine, being used as a feeder for your brothers and father, whatever. Losing you, well, that broke me more than any of them could have ever broken me. I learned to live without you while still feeling this bond, and you can do it too.”
“You will stand trial against your peers, Avery.” His hand dropped from me as he watched me through pain-filled eyes. “You will be judged at their hand, and then you can walk away if you so choose. If they choose death, you will never know it. I hold that card in my hand, and I won’t live in a world where you don’t exist, even if I cannot hold you or touch you. I will send for you when they’re ready to convene your sentence.”
Chapter 13
I could hear them outside the antechamber as they argued and fought about what the charges would be. Technically, I’d never broken any law or any covenant that could be proven. My secrets were hidden within me, and only one person knew them, and she would die before she ever spoke a word of it, by choice on a freely given oath. Our coven laws forbid her from betraying a secret told in the shadows, under the sanctuary of sisterhood, and I’d been sure that an oath had been given.
To Conner, I’d promised love, but I’d never broken any laws since he’d never asked me to betray the covenant or my vow to my coven. Even though they’d perished long ago, I’d honored the one I made to them still. Laura was pissed, her oath to me was being questioned, and our time teaching the students at the academy, everything we’d ever done to help benefit the coven was now compromised because my past was clashing with the present.
The door cracked open, and I spun around slowly, assuming it would be either Laura or Clara, but instead, Conner stood there. His tall frame blocked out the light, shadowing his features as I dropped my eyes from his and crinkled my brow.
“What do you want?” I asked hesitantly when all he continued to do was look at me expectantly. I fidgeted with my hands, sensing his need to speak, and yet he didn’t.
“I’ll be the one to bring you before the witches and my elder in residence. I came to tell you of other factors that will be out of my hands during this time. The Anderson King and his son have reached us and will sit in judgment of you, but have declined to speak of it or hold you into account for your actions. There are more coming to the Inland Northwest to capture you for your crimes on their hives. I can’t stop it this time, Avery.
I need you to ask me for sanctuary, and I will give it. Do you understand me?”
“I don’t need you to save me, Conner. I can save myself now. The Anderson King is weak and has an infliction of the blood. He will die within the year, and his son, Heron will take his crown. I know Heron, and I have helped him take the crown through any means necessary to stop his father’s murderous reign. Someone had to do it, and none of you seemed to be bothered that he slaughtered hundreds of innocent babes in his incurable hunger. Do you think I have not planted pieces into play? You taught me always to stack the board before I ever started to play the game. The other hives, well, they can either get on my side or stand in my way. I don’t think they will like the latter option or the consequences. You think of me as a child, and I assure you, I am not. I have learned the ways of the world, thanks to you. I have learned many things at the hands of my enemies, and I assure you, sweet princeling, you and your kind are my fucking enemy. You and I may have been written in the stars, but even stars burn out.”
“There you are, my fiery Queen of the Witches,” he chuckled as he nodded, even though his eyes filled with sadness while I watched him. “I told you that one day, you could rule them all and you laughed and told me that without a King, a Queen is nothing. I argued it against you, knowing that one day, you’d become a Queen regardless of who stood beside you. Did you never wonder why I never asked you to betray your people, a people you would one day rule?”
I shook my head, wondering where this was coming from now, of all times. “No, I was a misguided girl who thought you loved her. I thought you hung the moon and then placed the stars into the darkness to keep me from being scared of the monsters, when the entire time, I was standing in their midst just waiting for them to consume me.”
He flinched from my words, and I smiled sadly, knowing the barb had hit home. When he spoke again, his tone was sure, confident. “I knew I was standing beside the Queen of the Witches, and should she ever choose to rise, I wanted her on my side. Avery, I have loved you since before you were ready to be loved. I never stopped loving you or looking for you in a crowded room. You chose to make me King, knowing that it would force me to ascend to my throne. I thought you wanted me to be King, to argue the laws of our people. That was my first thought when I raced home and found everyone dead. I waited in that burned-out shell of my family’s home for you, but you never came back to me, and I went to a very dark place because my soul was fractured. I blamed you because you weren’t there, and I needed you, and I could taste the darkness of your magic, and it hurt to know you murdered my family because there was no denying the truth that they had died by your hand. You just disappeared, as if you’d never even existed. There was nothing of yours left in your rooms or in mine. The items that I’d hidden to remember you by, they were gone from the tombs where I’d kept them. The only thing that lingered after you vanished was your scent, the tang of your magic, and the whisper of peonies in spring,” he said as his hand lifted, cupping my cheek as he slowly placed his forehead against mine before he gently kissed it. “I left you there to save you, to keep you from ever knowing true pain. I failed you, and for that, I don’t expect you ever to forgive me.”
“Good,” I uttered hoarsely as I pulled away from his touch. “Because I don’t, nor do I care to linger within a hive. Take me to my trial, Conner. I’m sure they’re wondering what is keeping us.”
He pulled back, dropping his hand as he stared down at me. “As you wish, imp.”
I followed him down a long, winding hallway before we entered the grand hall. It was larger than the throne room where he’d taken me before. This one had a raised dais, with one throne carved with the moon, and the other engraved with a sun and moon, the sign of witchcraft that he used to whittle for me out of wood proudly sitting on the front of them. My steps faltered and stalled my progression, studying the initials that sat in the moon and sun. My eyes moved to his back, watching as he waited, knowing just what had stalled my steps.
“I had it made long before I lost you,” he whispered, barely loud enough to make out through the crowd that was now murmuring in confusion about our sudden pause. I stared at him, unable to pull my gaze from where he waited for me to begin walking again.
I’d always believed that he’d known what had befallen me. I’d waited for him to come, to save me, and when he never did, I’d given up on us; on him and any future we may have had or planned. His words replayed through my mind, his slumbering to save me, as if we’d been some fucking fairytale and he’d been selfless, when nothing in our world was ever so fantastical. It was brutal, chaotic, horrifyingly real shit that ripped you apart and spat out something that barely resembled what you’d been. I knew because I’d lost who I had been in order to survive the horror of what had been done to me.
I took a step forward, watching as Conner lowered his head and began to move once more. I followed him pensively, lost in my thoughts as we moved to where chairs had been set behind a large oak table that spread across the room. It was a tribune, created of those who stood witness in judgment for major crimes against the covenant that was now in place. The only law I’d ever broken was to love my enemy in a time when it was forbidden, and I paid for it in blood. I stopped beside Laura, who nodded to me with reassurance.
“Avery Ilsa Cheveron, you stand accused of treason against your coven. You are to be judged by a tribunal of your peers. How do you plead?” Roger, Flora’s father, asked.
Conner swore as Mayhem moved to stop him from rising from his chair, where he sat beside the vampire elder who watched me through bright, ice-blue eyes. His hair was jet-black and shone beneath the bright lights that bathed his bronzed flesh in a radiant glow. Arthur MacDougall had been born before Ireland was ever invaded by the fairies and was one of the very few vampires old enough to withstand sunlight. Those eyes of his though, they looked through me, as if he could see the real me.
“Not guilty,” I said, turning as I narrowed my eyes on Roger, noting the sweat that dripped from his temples. He didn’t enjoy being here, in a room filled with creatures that would just as soon see him skinned alive. I noted the aura that coated his flesh and swallowed hard, remembering another time I’d seen it long ago.
I turned to check Laura, watching as her eyes left his to hold mine. She’d sensed it too; the oily taint of dark magic was coating his flesh and moving between him and the other witches. My heart began to hammer against my ribs, as if it would break free from the cage that held it. Laura’s hand touched my shoulder, giving me reassurance that I wasn’t alone.
“She isn’t guilty of treason against her coven. Her coven died to the plague, and she did what she had to do to survive,” Conner said, drawing my gaze to his. “You were brought here to protect her from our judgment, and yet you think to condemn her for treason, which is punishable by death?”
“It is none of your concern,” Roger argued vehemently.
“Isn’t it? You came here to request her release from us, when she is in our possession, Roger. Now, let us begin again,” Arthur said while his eyes studied me carefully. “Avery, you are charged with loving a vampire, one who sacrificed himself to protect you. His family then paid the price.”
“She swore she gave no vow or oath to them or her lover.” Roger looked troubled and his eyes continued to bug out as he spoke, like he was choking on something and couldn’t get it out.
“Still, we will hear her story and know what happened to his family as is his right as King. I must remind you, Roger, Conner helped write the covenant that we now follow. He also holds her in his possession and has agreed to this tribune to decide her fate even though he didn’t have to allow it by right of possession. Should you wish to charge her for treason, do it on your own time,” Arthur hissed, smirking at me before winking.
“She will stand trial here, before the lover she chose over her dying mother,” Selena growled, shocking me.
I eyed her wit
h a look of disbelief as her dull eyes stared through me. Her aura was black as well, turning darker than the shadows that filled her eyes. I swallowed hard, fighting against nausea that swirled through me. Again, Laura touched my shoulder, bringing me back to the present and away from the nightmares that clawed from the depths in which I’d banished them.
Luca approached me slowly, his hand lifted, offering a concoction that was held in an amazonite flask. He stretched his hand as he spoke low, clear, and confidently. “In this flask is a truth serum, from this point until the end of your trial, you will only be able to speak the truth, Avery.”
I stared at his outstretched hand, knowing that once I took it, Conner would know everything. He’d be able to ask me anything, and I’d be unable to lie to withhold the horrid details of what had happened to me. I swung my gaze to him, watching as his eyes captured mine and then lowered, unable to hold it.
“I understand,” I whispered thickly.
I knew once he learned of my past, he would never look at me in the same way. Once he saw the truth of what I’d endured, he’d never want me as he had before I’d been ruined. I took the flask and tipped it back, praying it wasn’t instant. Laura slipped her hand into mine, giving me her strength as the spell burned through me. My mind cleared as it settled, slipping through my mind to my tongue, and then wrapping around my heart. I looked away from Conner, and back to Luca, who frowned as lights burst behind my eyes.
“She’s ready to be questioned, my King,” he announced, and yet there was no resentment in his tone, only worry for what they would find in my story. Conner would lose what respect he’d known for his father and brothers, and worse, he’d hate me by the end of this tale, more than when he thought I murdered them out of spite.
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