The Marked and the Broken

by Ivy Asher

  I grab for my collar and methodically inspect it, looking for any indication of how it’s held together around my neck. The metal is cold against my heated skin, but no matter how slowly I search, I can’t find a seam or anything else that indicates any kind of release. The metal collar is smooth against my neck and somewhat rough and porous on the other side. I sit up slowly and press a palm against my right side.

  My ribs are tender as fuck, and they’re either bruised to hell or they’re broken. I debate ripping my sweater up and trying to bind my injured side, but the idea of only being in a bra the next time Adriel pulls me out to play feels like a bad fucking idea.

  I look around the barely lit cell I’ve been abandoned in for the moment to see if there might be something else in here I could use. I’m not sure what I’m expecting to find. I’m pretty sure they didn’t throw a first aid kit in here with me, but my eyes roam around, delusionally hopeful all the same. I freeze when I spot a pair of thin legs sticking out from the furthest dark corner. I’m shocked to realize that I’m not in here alone, and I instantly debate whether I’m in here with someone who could possibly help me or hurt me even more.

  I haven’t been this bad off since I left Beth’s house, and as curious as I am about whoever is in the corner, I should maybe give myself as much time as I can to recover before I face the owner of the emaciated legs. I’ve no sooner decided that when the door to the cell slams open again. A canteen is thrown into the room, and it bounces against the wall, making a deafening racket. The cell door quickly closes again, but the skinny legs have been pulled into the darkness of the corner, and it’s clear whoever is over there is now awake.

  Neither of us move to retrieve the canteen, even though I’m dying of thirst. We both sit in our unlit corners, waiting and watching.

  “Pretty sure that’s for you,” a dry and obviously unused voice rumbles out from the darkness.

  “How do you know?” I question after a couple minutes of awkward silence. I wince as I speak the words, the cut in my lip painfully protesting the movement.

  “They’ve never thrown shit like that in here for me,” the disembodied voice offers, and I stare at the canteen like somehow the mystery of its appearance will reveal itself if I can just not blink long enough.

  “Well, you probably need whatever’s in there more than I do,” I tell him, and the cell grows silent again.

  I get itchy from the feel of this person’s eyes on the dark corner I’m shrouded by. I’m pretty sure I’m as hidden from him as he is from me, but this back and forth is weird. He’s obviously in this cell for a reason, and I think it’s safe to say it’s not because he’s a friend of Adriel or his nest. What’s that saying…the enemy of my enemy is my friend? I crawl out of my dark corner and over to the metal canteen. I pick it up and slowly shuffle toward the stranger.

  “No harm in sharing,” I announce when I get within reaching distance of him, and I stretch my arm out, offering the canteen, and push my hair out of my face.

  The stranger gasps and leans forward, and the dim beams of light illuminate the planes of a gaunt face that’s simultaneously foreign and yet familiar. I lean back in shock, trying to process what I’m seeing.

  “Is it you?” the familiar stranger asks me, and I’m too stunned to form coherent words. “How?” he asks again, and this time his Sahara-kissed voice cracks with emotion.

  I run my eyes all over his face, looking for some kind of proof. “Dad?” I ask quietly, the question spilling out of me like water, surprise and hope saturating every drop.

  He shudders, and his face fills with pain. I watch him physically fight off the blow that apparently my question is to him, and understanding and horror slam into me like a tidal wave. I drop the canteen on the ground and slam a hand over my mouth, forcing the horrified gasp back down my throat.

  “Holy fucking shit, Lachlan,” I whimper, “what the hell did they do to you?”

  I run my stunned gaze all over him, trying to comprehend how this could happen to a person in just over a month. He looks like he’s been starving for years. His cheeks are hollow, and his eyes are sunken and swimming with pain. His golden, light-tan skin is sallow, and he’s so emaciated and fragile looking, I’m terrified he’s going to break if he even tries to move. Lachlan sags against the wall of the cell, proving that just when I think he can’t look worse, he does.

  I snatch the canteen from the ground, ignoring my protesting injuries, and hastily screw the top off. I offer him the canteen and then press it closer to his mouth when he makes no effort to take it.

  “You said they don’t ever give you anything like this, and you clearly need to get hydrated way worse than I do,” I encourage.

  Lachlan’s emerald-green gaze settles on mine, and he watches me for a minute before leaning in. I press the mouth of the canteen to his chapped lips and tilt it up slowly. Lachlan swallows a gulp down and then coughs and chokes on his second attempted mouthful. I lean forward and cradle his head as his lungs fight against the liquid he just aspirated. And I’m worried his brittle ribs are going to snap with each violent cough that wracks his body.

  “What the hell is that?” he croaks, and then he stares at the canteen like it just betrayed him somehow.

  I bring the canteen up to my nose and sniff, prepared to inhale something disgusting, judging by the grossed out look on Lachlan’s face. There’s definitely a hint of something deep and masculine, which rules out water, but I have no idea how to place the distinct scent that sends tendrils of recognition through me. I take a sip of the canteen’s contents, and a rich, somewhat sweet flavor explodes on my tongue, immediately cluing me in to what this is.

  “It’s blood,” I tell Lachlan, offering him more, and his face goes from disgusted to horrified.

  “Why the hell would you offer that to me? Better yet, how the hell do you know what blood tastes like?” his question whips out like the accusation it is, and I flinch back.

  Well, it looks like they didn’t starve the judgmental asshole out of him. Yay for me.

  “I was given some blood after they brought me here. It helped me heal, and from the looks of things, you could go for a shit ton of that right now,” I observe, not admitting that I didn’t willingly take the blood I was first offered either.

  The corner of Lachlan’s mouth turns up in an unmistakable sneer, and I huff out a tired sigh. “Whether you like it or not, you need all the help you can get. I don’t know what they did to you, but you look like death.”

  Lachlan turns away from me, and his eyes fix on a spot on the wall. It’s clear he’s back to shutting me out, and I fight back the flash of anger it evokes in me. I debate for a second about pinning Lachlan’s head down and forcing him to drink like Siah did to me. He’s definitely weak enough. I could probably get away with it, but a piece of me feels like there’s no point fighting for someone who won’t fight for themselves. I shake my head at him.

  “This could very well save your life. Are you seriously telling me that you choose your fucked up stubborn pride over living?” I ask, exasperated. He doesn’t answer, just continues to stare blankly at the wall.

  I scoot away from him until my bruised back is flush with my corner of the cell. I raise the canteen to him and toast. “Here’s to the stubborn-to-the-point-of-stupidity gene dying with you.” I bring the canteen to my lips and drain every last drop of blood. My body sings as it hits my system, and I immediately feel better. I take a deep breath testing my hurt ribs, and I’m relieved when the pain is duller than it was before. I pat at my bloody nose and lip, and my hand comes away blood free, my face not nearly as tender as it was. The fact that I’m not revolted, but actually enjoy the taste of what’s in the canteen, is probably proving to Lachlan that I’m some kind of baby demon. The kind of baby demon that’s solely responsible for the death of his brother, but I just don’t give a fuck anymore.

  That thought triggers something in me, and my head snaps to Lachlan. “Have you seen Vaughn? Do you know for
sure what happened to him?” I ask, and for some reason, my eyes bounce around the barely lit cell like maybe Vaughn is hidden in a different dark corner I just haven’t noticed yet. “Where’s Keegan?” I fire off as well, adding to the pile of unanswered questions when my frantic searching clues me in that he’s missing from this room too.

  Lachlan inhales a pained gasp and clutches at his chest. The sound is so full of torment that I’m instantly alarmed. I move toward him and then stop myself. This is Lachlan, he’s not going to want to be comforted by me. I sit there awkwardly, not sure what to do or how I feel about second guessing my initial instinct to offer support. In the end, I sit back down and watch him cautiously. Lachlan shakes his head, and his green eyes grow haunted.

  “Vaughn’s gone. He’s been gone for a…” Lachlan pauses and his breath stutters. “He’s been gone for a while. I…I should have known, but I just kept hoping.”

  Lachlan’s voice breaks, and he covers his gaunt face in an effort to hide the emotion that’s pouring out of him.

  My chest feels heavy, and surprisingly, my eyes start to sting. I press my thumb and my forefinger against my closed lids and breathe through the sadness that’s crashing into me. I told myself that Vaughn was probably gone. The likelihood that he would still be alive after all this time wasn’t high, and yet hearing Lachlan profess it, fucking hurts. I’m stunned by exactly how much it hurts.

  From the minute I found out that Grier and Vaughn were my real parents, I’ve tried not to think about them too much. I didn’t see the point in breaking down over people I will never meet, or focusing too much on what my life could have been if I had been raised by them instead of Beth. It would be easy to romanticize how much they would have loved me and how beautiful everything would have been, but there’s no way of knowing what might have been different. Things are the way they are, and that’s that. Or so I thought.

  A sob sits at the back of my throat, and in this moment, I realize just how much I was still hoping that my family situation could be different. Grier is gone, Laiken is gone, Talon is gone, and apparently a piece of me I was refusing to look at was desperately hoping that, against the odds, Vaughn was still alive. That somehow he was out there in the world, wanting and hoping for…me.

  I watch Lachlan cry into his skeletal hands, and I realize just how badly I wanted a dad. Tears stream silently down my face, and I breathe through the loss I feel about the unknown. The possibility and hope are gone now, and I ache from the brutal finality of it all.

  “They took Keegan over a week ago. I don’t know if he’s in another cell or if he’s…” Lachlan trails off, and he leans back into the darkness of the corner, hiding his grief from me.

  “I was told Keegan was still alive,” I reassure Lachlan. Siah could have been completely full of shit, but I hope against hope that he was telling me the truth. I debate for a second about addressing my next thought but decide what have I got to lose?

  “I read that when you’re Bound to another caster, you feel it when they pass?” I tell Lachlan quietly. “You would know if something happened to him.”

  Shadows hide Lachlan’s features, and I have no idea if my attempt at reassurance garners any reaction from him. Silence fills the stone and dirt room, and I get lost in thought.

  “How did you know that he and I…” Lachlan finally inquires, and I wonder how much it’s killing him to have to ask me.

  “I suspected in the library after you choked me. The way Keegan was comforting you was more intimate than it was with the others. He was always defending you, following your lead, and neither of you ever talked about females,” I explain. “At first I thought maybe you two were hiding it from the whole coven, but then I realized that you just didn’t trust me to know.”

  Stifling quiet envelops the last of my words, and I wait to see if Lachlan will say anything. I don’t know why a flash of frustration sparks through me when he stays silent. I should fucking know better than to think he’s going to open up to me.

  “Whatever it is that you think about me, you’re fucking wrong,” I angrily declare to Lachlan. “I didn’t even exist when Vaughn was taken from you. I’m not the one who put him with my mother, and I was born after they tried to escape. I am not responsible for what happened.”

  He doesn’t say anything.

  “I didn’t ask for any of this,” I remind him once again, and I’m surprised when he mumbles something. “What?” I snap.

  “I don’t blame you for what happened. Well, not anymore anyway,” he confesses, and I’m rendered speechless by the fact that he even said anything, let alone that. “I work hard. I’m single-minded in my focus to be the best,” he admits. “Keegan teases that I’m overcompensating, and as much as I hate to admit it, he’s right. Keegan and I are private about our relationship, not because we necessarily have to be, it’s just the way we are. The community doesn’t look down on us, but I’ve always felt the drive to prove my worth regardless. I do that by being the best paladin I can possibly be and serving the community that way.”

  Lachlan grows quiet, and I’m not sure what to say. I’m floored by this peek into who he is, but I’m not sure why he’s giving it to me.

  “When Vaughn went missing, a part of me went missing too. We all looked. We did everything we could possibly do to find him, but I failed. I failed him. I failed the other families that lost loved ones. I failed the community because I was the best and yet I couldn’t piece together what happened. And every birthday and Bonding Anniversary, every good day I had without my brother made me break more and more.”

  Lachlan leans forward out of the shadows of his corner, and the hollowness I see in his gaze is haunting. He takes a few breaths before he continues, and he looks so shattered as he does. I realize as I watch him that there is no gluing his pieces back together, and it makes me so fucking sad for him.

  “You have his eyes,” he whispers at me, and he spends a moment blinking away the emotion that confession calls out in him. “One minute you were just there, fighting like you were born for it, blinking up at me with his eyes, and I just didn’t know how to deal with it, with you. I don’t know how to be happy that you exist when I’m just so sad that he doesn’t anymore.” Lachlan starts crying, and I wipe away at my own tears as I watch my uncle show me his broken.

  “I’m glad you have the boys and their coven. They’re good males, and they will be there for you. They will take care of you. And I know it’s wrong, I know it’s not fair, but that will have to be enough. Because you will never find what you’re looking for here,” he tells me, and he slams a fragile, shaky fist against his chest. “I just don’t have it in me to give you what you deserve. You need to know that I’m just too fractured, and that’s on me, not on you.”

  Lachlan’s emerald eyes turn hard, and I witness as he sluffs off the vulnerability he was just showing. He leans back, letting the darkness of the corner wrap him in its embrace, and I stare after him, once again at a loss for words. I want to tell him that maybe if he would just try, he’d realize that he’s not as broken as he thinks. That I’ve seen moments in his countenance that point to hope. That I’m worth the risk, worth the effort. But I’m once again reminded not to fight for something when the other person isn’t willing to fight for it too.

  I rest my head back so I can hide in my own shadows. He’s right. It’s not fair, and it is wrong, but ultimately, it’s just sad. He’s given up, and there’s not a fucking thing I can do about it. There’s not enough magic in the world to make someone see, not when they refuse to open their eyes or even believe that they can.

  21

  A gray haze encases me, and I try to blink it away from my eyes. It feels wet or maybe the coolness of the mist just gives that illusion. I ache, like my body is fighting off a fever, and a painful shiver runs up my spine.

  “Squeaks?”

  Ryker’s voice moves through me, and I try to grab for it, but it buzzes around my head, illusive and just out of reach.

&nb
sp; “Squeaks, can you hear me?” he tries again, and I whimper at the longing that coats his smooth tone. “Focus, Vinna,” he instructs me. I try to answer him, but this dream hurts so fucking bad.

  “What hurts, Vinna?” he asks, like he just plucked the thought from my foggy brain.

  “Everything,” I confess.

  “Thank fuck! There you are,” he announces, and it’s as if I can snatch the relief in his words out of the air and wrap it warmly around me. “Are you okay? We’ve been trying to reach you.”

  “My dad is dead. Siah betrayed us, and I’ve been collared,” I tell him on a slur.

  “What does that mean, Squeaks?” Ryker presses, his words frantic.

  A stinging sensation starts in my limbs, and I try to shake them out. “I killed a girl, Ryker. She wanted to die. I couldn’t fight for her. I killed her. I’m so fucking mad I went for the wrong threat; I chased Siah when I should have been killing Adriel. Stupid. So fucking stupid!”

  “Hey now, no one talks about my girl that way. Just slow down, you’re not making any sense. Why can’t you fight?” he asks, his tone gentle and reassuring, but I feel the bite of panic in his question.

  “He put a collar on me like a fucking dog. I can’t use magic. It makes it hurt,” I explain, and as I do, some of the gray haze around me lifts. “I don’t think I’m dreaming,” I announce, and as more of the fog recedes, I become less and less anesthetized. My bones feel like they’re on fire, and my heart starts to race as I begin to pant through the pain.

  “Fuck, Squeaks. We know where you are, and we’re coming, just hold on, okay?”

  “Not yet,” I tell him, and he growls with frustration. “I have to find Keegan first.”

  With that, a loud bang has me jolting all the way awake, and I’m instantly aware of the bone-deep ache radiating throughout my body. My head has only me in it again, and I feel the loss of Ryker worse than the physical pain I’m currently experiencing. Lachlan is being carried out by two goonish looking lamia. Alarmed, I stand up and move to intercept them, but I’m yanked out of the way from behind.