Avery (Random Romance)

by Charlotte McConaghy

  It quickly became less important to watch them, however, because the Queen was staggering towards me. Blood trickled consistently from her shoulder, but she was clutching a knife with as much ferocity as ever.

  Searching desperately, I spotted my husband’s axe on the ground between us. I didn’t think – I simply lurched towards it. She reached out and kicked me in the face, but my hand clutched the handle of the axe and didn’t let go, even though blood spurted from my nose and I felt dizzy. I stumbled backwards, brandishing the weapon. It was so heavy I could barely lift it. Sweat breaking out on my forehead, I heaved it up, using its own weight and momentum to swing it towards Thorne’s evil ma.

  ‘No!’

  I heard a shout from behind me and then something slammed into me, throwing me to the ground. The axe slipped, slicing into my hand. I screamed in pain, unable to comprehend what had happened. Was that Thorne who had done this? Had he shoved me to the ground to stop me killing the Queen? Confusion swept through me – I didn’t understand.

  Tears of pain seeped from my eyes as I clutched my bleeding hand. Something very bad had happened. I didn’t want to look, but I could feel that something was amiss. Amidst all the blood, there was something missing – more than one thing. Swallowing the bile that rose into my mouth, I looked up.

  Thorne was standing over me. My eyelids fluttered shut and back open again in time to see him turn towards the Queen. I didn’t see what happened after that, because my eyes found the space where the two missing fingers on my right hand should have been. Nausea overtook, and then the dark.

  Ambrose

  There was a storm building inside me. Years ago on a winter solstice it had let fall its first drops, and now, eleven years later, there was thunder and lightning ravaging its way through my body.

  All I had cared about was the why – the missing pieces of the puzzle. They’d kept me up nights, stalking the fortress and pacing the forest, hunting for a reason that could end this terrible guilt in my chest. And now here she was, the reason, the missing piece, the why of it all. I should have known.

  There was my brother, about to end it all, so I lowered my head and hammered him to the ground. The blood vessels in his eyes had burst, and I knew he had set his beast free.

  Fighting him was like signing my own suicide note, but fight him I would, if I had to. A mighty fist found my chest and I flew back, stunned by the force of it, of him. A snarl left him as he rose to his feet, seven feet of strength.

  ‘Thorne,’ I said, searching out his red eyes and spreading my hands. Even though I knew he couldn’t hear me, knew he was a long way away from me right now, I tried to reach him anyway. ‘Brother.’

  And as it turned out, all he had needed was that word, and the love he felt for his wife. He charged, but instead of crashing into me, Thorne flashed straight past, running for his wife as she faced the Queen on her own. I watched as if from underwater as he knocked her hand from the axe – watched as the blade slipped and sliced through flesh and bone, as the two fingers dropped silently onto the wooden stage.

  Loathing built inside me and I drew my dagger.

  Thorne took hold of our ma from behind, and then looked over at me. ‘Take it, if you want it,’ he said. ‘This won’t be something you’ll ever be able to forget though, Ambrose.’

  I nodded, stepping forward and meeting my ma’s cold eyes. ‘I know that.’

  We stared at each other. My heart was beating like a wild thing.

  ‘How did you get like this?’ I asked her, so softly she barely heard it. I wanted to understand.

  ‘I loved too much,’ she said, voice empty and flat.

  I shook my head, knowing the answer to this better than I knew anything. ‘You did not love enough. We would have saved you, Thorne and I, but you weren’t brave enough to let us.’

  Her face crumpled and she began to cry, as though at long last she was too weary to hold on and a great crack had ruptured her. I felt her tears in my own soul as I stepped forward and held her close, cradling her head in my hands. It was my brother I looked at as I sheathed my knife into our ma’s heart and felt the life go from her.

  ‘A prince of wolves,’ Thorne said softly.

  I swallowed, stepping back. And heard, like a final ending to it all, the high, mournful howl of Ma’s wolf, standing atop the balcony, head raised to the moonless night.

  Chapter 23

  Thorne

  Would she ever understand? Would she live long enough to have the chance to? There was one thing I’d learnt in this lifetime – blood can be washed from skin, but it stains the soul.

  Even as my wife tossed and turned, feverish with blood loss and pain, I knew I’d done the right thing. I’d stopped her from committing the gravest mistake we can ever make as humans. From taking a life. She might never understand, but I would know, for the rest of my life, that I’d saved Roselyn’s soul from the fate I’d created for myself, and that mattered more than anything else. More than two missing fingers.

  Ava

  I found him standing in the dungeon, hands gripping the bars. Deep within the shadows of the cell sat Vincent, cross-legged and staring straight back at Ambrose. Both men had a strange, eerie look to them. Neither moved or even blinked.

  ‘Ambrose! What in Gods’ names are you doing here?’ I hastened to his side, chilled to the bone by such a weird sight. ‘He can manipulate you if you go too near.’

  He didn’t bother replying, just kept his pale eyes trained on the black gaze of the snake in the cage.

  ‘How did you do it?’ he asked softly. It sounded like a voice that belonged to a ghost.

  Vincent’s lips curled into a smile. ‘So you know, then. At long last.’

  Ambrose’s knuckles were white from clenching so hard, but nothing else betrayed the disquiet that must have been raging inside him.

  ‘I used his fear,’ Vincent murmured. He had a strange accent, one I couldn’t immediately place, and a slight lisp. ‘Only one type of fear is strong enough to allow me to manipulate someone for such an extended period of time.’ He licked his lips, and I realised belatedly that the tension in the space was making my heart thump out of my chest. ‘Love.’

  Ambrose started. ‘What?’

  ‘Fear comes when love comes – that’s a binding, unchangeable fact. Rourke of Araan loved his son as much as someone can possibly love his child. I touched the very edge of it, of that fear for you – for your life, the fear of losing you – and he was mine. It was the simplest thing.’

  I watched as Ambrose closed his eyes, and realised he was barely keeping it together. A sick feeling made its way into my stomach.

  ‘So you used my father’s love for me to make him want to kill me?’ Ambrose asked, his voice hitching into a black, humourless laugh. ‘How clever of you.’

  I sucked in a breath, and in that moment, Vincent’s eyes snapped to me, straight to me, and he saw the truth. I felt fear, an ocean of it – fear for Ambrose, the man I loved. For his life, his happiness, every tiny thing about his existence.

  I backed away, but the snake did nothing, simply smiled. ‘Human after all.’

  Ambrose wasn’t listening. He strode past us and out of the dungeon.

  I waited a moment, against all my better judgement. ‘What did you do to him?’

  Vincent licked his lips again. ‘I made him a prince of wolves. He just doesn’t know it.’

  I didn’t know where to go. The fortress was massive, and it was strange beyond words to be walking freely through it. Thorne’s first announcement, after the horror of the tournament, was that I was not to be harmed by anyone in Pirenti while I stayed. I had been walking the walls of this haunted place for two days, and I was still mildly surprised to be alive. Wherever I looked, I was met with an angry face, or one filled with loathing.

  My stomach ached every step of the way, but my healing power was a miracle I’d not soon take for granted. Up my feet led me, without my knowing why. I only realised that it was his tug tha
t guided me to the slaughter room after spotting him there. Ambrose was silhouetted against the huge back window. It was strange in such a cold country to have a window without any glass, or even any curtains.

  ‘That was where I killed him, just down there,’ I heard his soft murmur.

  I crossed silently to his side and looked out of that window. In the distance was the sea, glistening under starlight. Directly below was a large field of long, yellow grass. It was a long drop. I remembered falling it myself – remembered being caught by Migliori and swept home to Kaya, thinking that I’d left my beating, bloody heart lying on the floor of this room.

  With that memory in mind, I turned and looked at the spot on the floor where he’d been stabbed to death. I walked slowly over to it and stood there, wondering if I’d be able to feel some kind of residue – the remains of his energy, of his life. Hoping that maybe I’d meet his ghost, here in the spot where he’d died. There was nothing here. Nothing but cold marble, and as I turned back to Ambrose, I realised something very, very important.

  He had grief in his life, grief big like an ocean – and suddenly it mattered more to me than my own loss. I missed two dead men now – my mate, and Ambrose’s father.

  I opened my mouth to tell him, to say, I love you – I choose you, but he spoke first.

  ‘I’ve had Migliori tended to. Now that you’re fully healed you’ll be wanting to leave in the morning, I imagine.’

  His voice was dead – empty. It froze every word in my mouth.

  Frightened, I crossed to the window and peered up at his face. ‘Tell me what happened,’ I bid him gently.

  His throat moved as he swallowed. Distantly, coldly he started to speak. ‘He challenged me. It was so strange. He’d never wanted the throne, never wanted anything except to live in peace, away from Ma. But still I thought it was real. I didn’t know. I didn’t … I should have known he couldn’t have … I thought the worst of him and so I killed him, and then I thought the worst of him for eleven years after. Until two days ago.’

  Guilt, like a tide pulling him out.

  ‘Vincent is a kind of warder,’ I said, and then didn’t have a clue why. Ambrose didn’t need any more hatred for Kayan people. I kept speaking, like a fool. He needed all the truth I had, even if it meant pain. ‘Your mother was Kayan. I don’t know where Vincent came from, but he must have once had the potential to be a high level warder. The Queen used him to craft for her the life she wanted. She … was a half-walker, as I am.’

  Ambrose turned to me then, and I almost recoiled at the detachment in his eyes. ‘Ava,’ he said. ‘You must leave. I can’t think of you in the same space as my ma. You were right about half-walkers – they hurt people.’

  I froze, feeling my heart crack in half. Gods, how could it be possible for me to still be heartbroken? Hadn’t I had enough of that? Shouldn’t my poor, bruised heart be able to protect itself by now?

  I felt like a child, suddenly unmoored by the loss of everything it knows. I felt ruined for love of him, for Ambrose.

  But I nodded. ‘As you wish.’

  He turned and started to leave, saying over his shoulder, ‘I should check on Rose.’

  I said, ‘Wait.’

  I said wait, and if I hadn’t spoken, the world would be a different place. If I hadn’t said a word, he would have walked down the stairs to Roselyn’s room, and he would have been in time to change the fate of everyone in this country, but I said wait, and so he waited.

  ‘You’re a very good man, Ambrose, regardless of whatever title people bestow upon you,’ I said softly, ‘and no one has made you that but yourself.’

  He studied my face, managed to find some depth of kindness inside him to give me a crooked smile. ‘I’ll miss you when you’re gone, pretty boy.’

  I swallowed, nodded. I couldn’t begin to describe the way I would miss him. It made no sense to me, the idea of leaving. I would live here forever, in this waking nightmare, with hatred and resentment and not a single hint of warmth, if it meant I could be near this man, but I had been slow and stupid, and I had chosen a ghost over a flesh-and-blood human who loved me to oblivion and back. Now I had lost him, because in his heart was the way his father had died at the hands of a Kayan half-walker.

  I was too late.

  ‘Can I come with you to check on Rose?’ I asked.

  Ambrose nodded so we walked together down the steps. We walked so slowly – unforgivably slowly. We came to the door of her room and stopped beside each other – I supposed it was a kind of goodbye – and still we didn’t go into the room. If we had … if only we had gone straight inside …

  But fate had something else in store for us, and for those on the other side of that door.

  Thorne

  By the time Rose woke, two days had passed, and I was standing by the window in our bedroom, staring out into the courtyard. All the bodies had been burnt and the blood had been cleaned from the plinth, but none of it was so easily scoured from our memories. My own wounds had begun to heal slowly – I’d been hit by four arrows, but I’d survived. I carried far too much berserker blood to let small wounds like those kill me.

  ‘Thorne,’ my wife murmured and I whirled to see her gazing groggily at me.

  ‘Rose. How are you feeling?’

  Her eyes were haunted as she stared up at me. I hesitated, then sank onto the bed beside her. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘What happened?’ she asked. ‘What’s wrong with me?’

  ‘You fell on your axe and chopped two fingers from your hand.’ I paused, then amended, ‘I pushed you onto your axe. It was my fault.’

  ‘You – you saved her!’ she remembered. ‘Why, Thorne?’

  ‘I didn’t save her – I stopped you from killing her.’

  ‘But … why?’ Her skin was pale and clammy, and there were deep bags under her brown eyes.

  How could I explain this? I wasn’t sure it was something you could understand unless you’d done the unthinkable and taken someone’s life. ‘You’re pure, Rose. Your soul is completely untarnished. It seems to me like a worthy trade – two fingers for salvation.’ I shook my head. ‘We all have a beast inside us. I won’t let yours rule you like mine does me.’

  She sighed heavily and slumped back on the pillow. I called for the healer to bring her pain medicine, and then we sat. I wanted to reach out and touch her, but I wasn’t sure if she would like that.

  ‘Do you hate me?’ I asked.

  ‘Why would I hate you?’

  ‘For your fingers. For … everything.’

  ‘This was an accident,’ she told me, holding her heavily bandaged hand aloft. ‘And I don’t hate you for anything else. But …’ and here she swallowed, ‘if you ever hurt me again, I’ll leave you. I’m not your possession. I can give myself to you, but you cannot claim me for your own. Is that … do you understand?’

  I felt shame and relief – oceans of both. I didn’t know how I would ever find my way out of the darkness, but if I had any hope at all, then it lay within this woman. Clearing my dry, rasping throat, I said, ‘Never – never – again.’

  Roselyn met my eyes. She gave a small nod. ‘What’s happened? The Queen – is she dead?’

  ‘She’s dead.’

  ‘Then you are King?’

  ‘Yes.’ But I would never have been able to handle the last two days of chaos without Ambrose. ‘I’ve named my brother King as well.’

  ‘Two Kings? Is that allowed?’

  I shrugged. ‘If I say it is, then it is. I can ban things too. Like violence.’

  She smiled. ‘I’m proud of you.’

  The healer entered and set a tray down on the bedside table. His movements were strangely stiff and jerky – enough to catch my eye.

  ‘Drink all of that, my lady,’ he mumbled, his voice strange.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked.

  ‘It will help her pain.’ He didn’t meet my gaze, simply hurried from the room.

  I shrugged it off, assuming he was as
nervous as most servants were around me. ‘Rose, Ambrose and I changed the rules to name you Queen.’

  She stared at me. ‘I can’t be Queen.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know how.’

  ‘I have no idea how to be a king. We can figure it out together, can’t we?’

  She frowned, looking into her lap.

  A sudden panic struck me. ‘Please, Rose? I need you. I can’t do this without you.’

  Roselyn looked up at me, and then she smiled, the prettiest, gentlest smile I’d ever seen. It made me weak at the knees, that smile and the innocence of it. She was like the sun, and I her moon.

  ‘Of course,’ she murmured. ‘I’ll try.’

  I breathed deeply in relief, and as I did so I caught the unmistakable scent of people approaching along the corridor. Their scents weren’t yet close enough for me to identify, but I knew Rose and I didn’t have much time alone. I wanted to tell her something, wanted to somehow say thank you for her courage, but before I had the chance, she reached for the goblet on the tray and took the covering off. ‘I’m not exactly the type of person they’re going to listen to though, Thorne.’

  ‘I’ll make them listen,’ I promised – and then I smelt it. It was the warm, citrusy smell of prylene. Deadliest poison in the world. Hundreds of years ago when prylene had been discovered, the use of it had been out of control. It was deadly because it had a singular, unavoidable trait – once you smelt prylene, once the distinctive scent of it reached your nostrils, you were dead. There was something about the poison that clutched onto your mind, rendering you powerless to escape the addictive, seductive pull of it. Until the poison had been ingested by someone or something, you would do anything to drink that draught. You’d kill a thousand men to get to it. The banishment had been put in place hundreds of years ago – the poison was too dangerous to even exist. All the crops of its plant had been burned and a death penalty put in place for anyone found in possession of it.