Moira exhaled through her nose and thought she might have seen just a touch of steam. “Fan-fuckin’-tastic. Kidnapped. Chained to Conquest’s bed. Busted upside the head with a lamp by Satan, and now I’m stuck in a room with Aunt Just-give-me-a-minute-to-kill-these-babies.”
She waited for a sharp-tongued rejoinder of the kind Justine had just flung at Dru, but nothing came. Justine remained silent.
“You know what really chaps my ass?” Moira continued. “I tried to be a good person, you know? Didn’t steal. Didn’t lie. Never killed nobody. Didn’t hardly cuss.” Moira’s reflection in the mirror above her head confronted her with a shrewd expression. “Okay, maybe that last one was a lie. But of all I ever done, I can’t quite figure out what I did to deserve being locked up in a room with you.”
Deafening silence filled every corner of Nick’s cavernous quarters.
When Justine finally spoke, the sound was so low, so quiet, that at first, Moira wasn’t sure she’d heard right. “Come again?”
“I don’t,” Aunt Justine whispered. Only then did Moira see the fat tears sliding from her aunt’s red-rimmed eyes, landing like salty polka dots on the fabric of her dress.
“You don’t what? Make any sense? I’ll vouch for that right here and now.”
“Hate you,” Justine said. “Never have.”
She spoke the words so tentatively, so carefully that Moira felt each one must have clawed their way up her throat.
“So the killin’ and all, that just a hobby for you, then?” Moira asked. “Back where I come from, women of a certain age take up knitting or canning preserves. Hell, even bingo, if it’ll keep you from turning the chicken-carving knife on your family.”
Justine shifted in her chair, the iron shackles binding her wrists and feet making the movement more difficult. Her eyes grayed as they took in the newspapers and magazines surrounding Moira on the bed. Then she was staring past them, looking at nothing at all, fresh tears turning her eyes to glass, spilling crystals down her cheeks.
“I never wanted this.” This phrase wasn’t so much spoken as torn from Aunt Justine’s throat on a harsh cry that gave Moira pause.
Her reply was gentler than it might have been even five minutes earlier. “You think I did?”
“I loved my sister.” Aunt Justine had begun to sway forward. Slowly, gently, in time with her sobs. “I loved Mirelle more than anything.” Her throat closed over, and the tears came faster then, streaming hot down Justine’s chin and neck.
All at once, Moira could feel the deep well of pain they sprang from. Justine had loved her sister. She meant it. She felt it as deeply as anyone can feel anything.
“We knew of the prophecy,” Justine continued. “We thought—I thought—we could keep you safe. Keep you hidden, until you were strong enough to show the world you were good. You were…good.” Justine’s face contorted into a mask of such grief that Moira’s own vision began to blur with tears.
“But when you were born, and she was dying…” Justine shook her head violently, casting salty drops off her cheeks. “He promised. Promised that if I gave him the babes, he would save your mother’s life.”
“He?” Moira asked, interrupting. “Who’s he?”
Justine ignored the question entirely, sobbing openly, hiccupping air like a child. “I would have done anything for my sister. Anything. Do you understand?”
Moira looked into her aunt’s watery eyes and saw there something she had never seen before. Something she thought Justine incapable of entirely.
Love.
Love of the kind Moira felt for Tierra. And Claire. And all right, tell the truth and shame the Devil because Moira hated that bitch anyhow, for Aerin, too.
“Is there anything you wouldn’t do to save your sisters?” Justine asked, desperate now, searching Moira’s face for salvation, for forgiveness.
The woman who had tried to kill her, now turning to her for absolution.
Butter-thick irony clogged Moira’s chest. No matter what animosity she held for the old bat, Moira knew Justine’s question had only one answer. She had known it the second she’d stood awkwardly on their front porch for the first time, ambushed by Tierra’s embrace.
Until that moment, she had never, in her life, been hugged by a woman. Granted acceptance. Been fussed over and cared for by a nurturing female presence. And each new arrival had wrapped her in another layer of warmth that only a sister could give. Her blood. Her family.
Was there anything she wouldn’t do to save her sisters?
Moira returned Justine’s soul-rending stare and spoke the only answer that was true.
“No.”
“Then you must understand.” Justine slid out of her chair and clanked to the floor, kneeling as if in prayer. “I would give anything to take it back. To take away the hurt I’ve caused, the damage I’ve done. No one should have to choose between saving the ones they love or saving the world.” Her face fell forward, muffling her continued sobs.
Moira almost wished she had a free hand so she could pat her aunt on the shoulder or get her a hanky before her dress turned into one giant snot rag.
Instead, she decided she ought to try for some answers while the layer of ice between them had been melted away by tears. “If family means so much to you, then how come you tried to kill me?”
Justine lifted her face to meet Moira’s questioning gaze. “Because I knew once you four found each other, they would be coming for you.” She cast a meaningful glance at the door Dru had kicked in. “And what they would do to you could be far, far worse than any quick and merciful rite the coven could perform.”
“Well you didn’t have to treat me like a sack of vomit-dipped dog shit from the moment I set foot in the house,” Moira insisted. “If you were planning on offin’ me anyway, the least you could have done is be civil before you turned me into a human pin cushion.”
Aunt Justine’s gaze fell to the floor. “No,” she said. “I couldn’t.”
“Why not?” Moira challenged.
“Because if I let myself love you, there’s no way I could have…could have…”
“Stuck a dagger in my guts to save the world?” Moira finished for her.
Justine nodded. “Don’t you see? When Mirelle died, Tierra was the only one of you left. The only one I could save. I fought for her. Bled for her. I couldn’t bear the thought of losing her too. But now…”
“Now we’re right smack in the middle of a cluster fuck of Apocalyptic proportions.”
“I would have given my life if it could have saved Mirelle. And if I could trade places with any of you, I would. If my death would suffice to end this, I’d march to the gallows this very second.”
Moira had to look her in the eye again, to anchor herself in the truth she found there.
“But I can’t.” The grief overtook Justine then, little rivulets working down the furrows a lifetime of self-flagellation had dug into her cheeks. “I can’t take back what I’ve done. I can’t bring Mirelle back. And I can’t stop what’s begun.”
“No,” Moira agreed. “You can’t.”
But I can.
She sank into these three words like a warm bath. Her whole body melted against the bed, slack-limbed and relaxed. For the first time in her whole life, she felt…peace.
Oblivion had sought her all her days, and now she knew why. She was the one meant to die. And in her death, Tierra and her child, Aerin, Claire, and the world would be made safe again.
Healed, the way she’d always done.
And at last, at long last, she could finally heal herself. End her own pain. Bring to a close the decades-long debate in her head of why she’d been made at all.
The colors in the richly-appointed room suddenly radiated vibrant hues. The sun’s warmth from the parted curtains made its way into her very soul until she was nothing but light. Complete. Whole. Perfect in her purpose.
“It will be all right, Aunt Justine,” Moira said, surprising herself with the serene qualit
y of her voice. “You just hush a while and rest. Everything’s gonna be just fine.”
Justine shook her head miserably. “How can you say that? How can you know?”
“Because I’m Moira Joule Malveaux de Moray,” she answered, treating Aunt Justine to the widest grin she could muster. “And I know shit.”
Her aunt’s somber pallor cracked for a split second, and for a brief moment, Moira saw a much younger woman. A woman not borne down by a lifetime of guilt and self-loathing, of crushing blame and dread. A woman Moira might have resembled had Mirelle de Moray survived.
“Now don’t think this excuses that whole attempted murder thing,” Moira chided. “Might take me a bit to get over that still. I tend to get a little sensitive about people trying to kill me.”
“I understand,” Justine agreed. “And for what it’s worth at this late hour, I’m sorry.” Her voice broke on the word. “I’m so, so sorry, Moira.”
“You keep bawlin’ like that, you might could float us both out of here, bed and all.”
Justine stifled a burp of sudden laughter through her tears just as the door to Nick’s room swung open again.
“Drustan!” Nick roared. “What the fuck is your ward doing in my quarters?”
The sound of boots shuffling in the hall preceded War, roughly brushing past Nick into the room. “Because any longer and that bitch was in infinite danger of defenestration,” Dru mumbled.
“You been reading Julian’s big word books again, brother?” Nick asked.
“Really? You’re going to give me shit now?” A vicious smirk slashed across Dru’s face as he stepped back and looked Nick over head to foot.
And then Moira did the same.
Nicholas Kingswood was wearing an apron.
Nicholas Kingswood was wearing an apron and carrying a tray.
Nicholas Kingswood, Conquest, bender of wills and destroyer of civilizations was wearing and apron and carrying a tray laden with plates, a steaming mug of coffee, a rose in a slim vase, and a napkin shaped like a swan.
“Shut up and get her the fuck out of here,” Nick ordered.
Drustin grudgingly crossed to Aunt Justine and pulled her up by the chain binding her arms behind her back, grabbing the chain between her feet for good measure. By the time he lifted her, she looked like someone had put her in one of those kinky sex swings…which, now she was thinking about it, Moira was almost sure Nick had hidden away somewhere in one of the many closets this room seemed to boast, if the mirror overhead was any indication.
Justine cast Moira one last meaningful glance. Worried. Guilty. Gutted.
Moira shook her head and smiled just as her Aunt was carried out the door. “That’s all over now, Aunt Justine,” she called after her. “Water under the fishing dock.”
Nick kicked the door closed after him and still managed to walk through his own room like it was lined with the backs of peasants, apron or no.
“Don’t think I’m gonna believe you’ve gone all domesticated on account of that apron. You and I both know you’re only wearing it because you’re too vain to get butter on that expensive tie you got there.” Moira nodded toward the tie in question. Gray silk, more carefully tailored than Moira’s hand-sewn prom dress, which was her only basis for comparison. Uncle Red’s wife had her standing on a beer keg for the better part of a week while she measured and cut, sewed, and cursed. And also drank a fair amount of hooch, which probably accounted for one sleeve being a good six inches longer than the other. All the better to keep Lester Beliveau’s sweaty palm from clutching her shoulder.
At least on one side.
“Here I am, bringing you three-cheese grits, coffee, homemade biscuits and sawmill gravy, and you’re trying to provoke me?” Nick set the warm tray across Moira’s legs.
She had to swallow against the rush of saliva that flash-flooded her mouth as the inviting scents of eggs and sausage tickled her nose.
Nick made quick work of clearing the newspapers and magazines from the coverlet, dumping them into a pile in the armchair. When he came to the side of the bed where the remnants of the broken lamp littered the floor, his eyes flicked to Moira, tightening with laser-like focus on the spot near her hairline where her skin felt stiff with dried blood.
The affected expression of congeniality fled Nick’s face like a child’s chalk drawing washed away by a downpour, his emotions all running together like the smudged pastel colors. Courtesy and rage. Pride and bloodlust.
“What the fuck happened here?” Nick did not blink as he waited for Moira’s answer.
“I think I might have called your friend something like Loose-Britches the Slutty Soul Sucker. She wasn’t especially appreciative of my creativity.”
Nick knitted together curses in several languages while stalking off to his bathroom. Moira heard the tap running, but refrained from any spontaneous practice of water tricks, still hoping to gain access to the breakfast waiting on her thighs.
Nick returned and seated himself next to her on the bed, first applying a hot washrag to loosen the blood on her wound, then a cold compress to relieve the pain.
That Nick would know of battle wounds and how best to care for them made perfect sense to Moira. Why he would take the time to tend to her when her death was his ultimate goal did not.
The contradiction left her searching for familiar territory, which the tray helpfully provided.
“You fold that napkin yourself, did you?” Moira asked, looking at the perky linen swan investigating the bowl of cheese grits.
“I certainly did,” Nick said proudly, tossing the washrags on the floor among the glass shards.
“How many YouTube videos did you have to watch before you got it right?”
There it was. The reddening of his skin just where his thick, brick-brown hair met his forehead. His whisky eyes darkening. That wicked mouth taking on a cast of cruelty Moira found far more arousing than she should. Lord, but he looked fine when he was angry.
“I was taught how to fold napkins by an exceptionally accommodating chambermaid at an all-night soirée given by Louis XIV, if you must know.”
Moira craned forward toward the tray and regarded the mound of green stems piled atop her omelet. “How come there’s weeds on my eggs?”
Nick’s color darkened from red to a charming mauve, and Moira had to bite back a smile.
“Those are motherfucking radish microgreens, and they are a motherfucking garnish.”
“Ohhh,” Moira said, feigning ignorance. She’d known that of course, as men far wealthier than Uncle Sal had found their way to her in Stump Bayou. Men smelling of leather and aftershave who had taken her as far as New Orleans to wine, dine, and ’69 her. She’d healed them from impending heart attacks mostly, these men. And from the occasional spunk sack or ass cancer, and that GonnaherpacephalAIDS they picked up from hookers sometimes. “Fancy. I might even like to eat it. Trouble is, some asshole chained me to this bed.”
“Oh, but I’ve thought about that already,” Nick said felicitously, picking up the spoon and scooping up a bite of the grits. Cheese stretched in tantalizing strings from bowl to spoon. “Open wide for me.”
The grits were hot. The request was hotter. It brought to mind the exact length and girth she’d first snuck a peek at on their unintended flight together and let slide beneath her rain-slick palm when they had near-devoured each other on the dock. Moira was no stranger to men, but she would have to open wide to accommodate Nick Kingswood.
Very, very wide.
“You have got to be out of your mind.” Her throat had gone dryer than a nun’s twat. She eyed the dew-beaded glass of orange juice with growing lust.
“Come on, Moira. How bad do you want it?” Nick hovered the grits close enough for the steam to warm her mouth then dragged the spoon slowly, suggestively across her lower lip, at which point she snapped her jaws over it like a starving jackal.
“Thif doen’t meam I wike you,” she informed him, her mouth closed around the spoon. Moira’
s eyes rolled back in her head as the buttery, cheesy, creamy grits melted on her tongue.
First came the memories.
Then came the tears.
Her ten-year-old self, grasshopper-skinny legs pulled up under her T-shirt to keep them warm. Sitting at the simple wooden table in their tiny shack’s galley kitchen over a bowl of cheese grits Uncle Sal had made just for her. The fragrant steam curling into her face. Her uncle seated across from her, drinking muddy black coffee and poking a thumb hole in one of last night’s biscuits to squeeze a golden pendant of cane syrup inside. He’d have preferred the grits, but there hadn’t been enough for both of them. There never was, it seemed.
Nick paused with the spoon halfway to her mouth. “What is it?”
“It’s kind of fitting,” she said, head sunken into the pillow, feeling the twin streams slide down to dampen the hair at her temples. “That this should be my last meal.”
“Last meal?” Nick asked. “What the fuck are you talking about, woman? You haven’t surrendered. And until you surrender—”
“I surrender,” Moira said, lifting her head to look Nick square in the eye. His volcanic amber and hers roiling ocean. “I need you to kill me. Tonight.”
Chapter Seven
Many had begged Nicholas Kingswood for death—a state he had gloried in delivering to them at the time of his choosing and by methods varied and cherished. The many weapons in his cabinets of curiosities bore silent witness to this.
Why then, did Moira’s request fill him with sudden, unbearable rage?
‘Why?’ was a question he had asked himself more in Moira de Moray’s presence than in any other circumstance he could resurrect in all his long years.
Why had he gone and purchased grits, microgreens, and lard for fuck’s sake, when he could have simply made a minion of some simpleton in range and had it done for him?
Why had he commandeered the kitchen and spent the better part of an hour in front of a cast iron skillet whisking and sautéing? Cutting biscuits and gentling eggs into perfect custard creaminess for an omelet when he could have just picked up cheese grits at least five different places in town?
Which Witch is Wicked? (The Witches of Port Townsend Book 2) Page 31