“No one tells you how much to sip before you go burning women, so don’t worry over what he has to do to operate on his own fucking flesh and blood,” she sang, instantly causing a veil to fall over Messiah’s expression.
I groaned, and the rag and attention were quickly placed back where it belonged.
“There’s more to the job than burning.” He sniffed. “And more to mercy than looking the other way.”
“What do you know about mercy?” she scoffed.
“I know enough about this world to know that mercy is circumstantial. Some would say mercy is taking a young woman in. Offering her a home and resources.” His voice trailed off, but his gaze remained fixed on Chalice. “Then there are those like us, love. The ones who know that mercy often comes with an ulterior motive.”
She stilled for a moment and swallowed his words. “Everything and everyone has an ulterior motive.”
“Don’t ever forget it,” Messiah and I chorused.
In no time at all, she had made a sulfur poultice, and all that was left was the wait. He would heal, or infection would set. It was up to the Fated Few now.
“What happened to him? Did he show mercy to the wrong House?” Chalice asked, sweeping the hair off my brother’s forehead. Me and Messiah stared at her, unblinking. Had she really missed half of the conversation?
“This is…” Messiah started, but his hand dipped beneath the long-twisted strands of his hair and he silently started to massage his neck.
“This is what?” Chalice asked, raising her brows and folding her arms defensively. No one had leveled any fault toward her, but it was like she knew.
“Atticus had plans for you. The scene at the Sip Room was quite public.” I attempted to fill her in but found myself filling the silence with short clipped details. “He had to sit up here and listen to the updates without being able to fix it. Doing so would have drawn more attention to the matter.”
“This was what, revenge?” she asked, disbelief dripping from her tone. Her face convulsed, and she turned away from us for a few moments, shifting the vials around just to look busy.
“It isn’t your fault,” Messiah patiently announced. “It isn’t anyone’s fault. It is a facade meant to assign blame. Atticus doesn’t agree to unions unless he can control them. He might have aspired to have control over a Princess, but he can’t. Not with that house.”
I nodded to the wisdom of his words. He always seemed to see things from a broader perspective. Sometimes the things he said gave me chills. I’d wonder how he could imagine something so sensational or horrific, only to later marvel when things went exactly as he anticipated.
Messiah knew people. He studied their behavior until he could read even the smallest expression and discern the deepest of lies and webs. It was a game to him, to see if he could predict their intentions and actions. It was safe to say, he knew some people better than they would ever understand themselves.
“While we are discussing Atticus, I persuaded him not to leave you like this. He asserted that you had no value… now that you are known to frequent peasant scandal houses.” He hadn’t said all that, but I didn’t bother to correct Messiah when he told it. “I know you’ve been tailing me. What you do is petty. A child’s art. You are to study the true art of shadow walking.”
“I’m not petty,” she snapped, whirling back around. “And I don’t need you to teach me anything.”
“You do actually. You need me to show you the most basic of all things, Chalice. You need me to show you how to fucking stay alive. You can let us… or you can try your chances with that crazy son of a bitch.” He hefted his shoulders in an aggressive shrug and cocked his head to stare down at her, having closed the distance between them during his lecture.
She had to know. I knew she did, the way her eyes darted around the floor like Uncle Icarus, and her beautiful deep golden skin paled a few shades. She swatted at his dreads and brushed past him. Without a word, she snatched up a clean cloth on her way past and moved to clean up a bit of blood on my brother’s chest.
I reached out without thinking and grabbed her wrist. Without warning, the cloth in her hand swatted and hurled against my face repeatedly. I danced with her, away from the operating table. She refused to stop slapping at me, and I refused to let loose of her, so we tangled about for a bit until Messiah started to stomp toward us.
“I don’t even know if I want to be here anymore. I don’t. I don’t want to be here anymore!” Chalice yelled.
“None of us do. But here we are,” I retorted, matching her loudness.
“There is no leaving,” Aella mumbled from the doorway. Chalice froze in place, watching on as our sister sauntered into the room. Her skirt was nothing more than a piece of satin wrapped around her and tied at the hip. Above it, a slave chain was fashioned around her belly. A delicate piece of jewelry that no respectable woman would wear.
Her hair had been drawn up and secured under a brilliant blond wig that made her almost unrecognizable until she drew close. Chalice’s eyes bugged momentarily, but before she could question the costume, Messiah smacked Aella in the back of the head and pointed to the back of the surgery. “Find a damn smock already.”
“I’m not wearing an examination smock, you put one on,” she shot back scornfully.
“It will cover more,” Messiah scoffed before swatting her suggestion away. “I’m not the one a breeze away from baring it all.”
Aella slid past us and made her way through the underground passage rather than staying to argue.
“Why is she dressed like a…” Chalice asked.
“Never mind all of that. She has her tasks, and you have yours.” Messiah redirected, before stepping toward the table. “May I borrow your workspace a moment?”
It was a warning more than a question—he was already waving Chalice closer.
“You must know the canvas before you attempt to paint,” He lectured, pulling back the sheet that covered my brother’s torso. He pointed out the arterial accesses, most of which she seemed to already know.
“Did you really just refer to torture as paint? Something I’m to beautify my subject with?” Chalice asked with more than a little disdain.
“If they end up in his hot seat, chances are they were too ugly to save to begin with.” I thought aloud.
She looked over her shoulder and studied me like I was something on the bottom of her shoe.
Chapter Eighteen
Tangled Web
Chalice
I wasn’t interested in being Atticus’ extractor, and I didn’t give a single fuck about dancing through the shadows for him. I wanted to run, as far as my legs could take me, but what then? I’d be in the wilderness for a while and then left to the mercy of new strangers, in a new town.
“Have you ever tried to leave?” I asked Messiah while I swept out the jail. It had been three days since I’d seen him at the surgery, and from the looks of it, he still hadn’t slept.
“No,” he flatly answered.
“They say you have men everywhere. A grapevine of—”
“They say. People say a lot of things. And more than a few have died for words that should have never been spoken.”
My thoughts were swept away with his warning. I had so many things I wanted to ask him. I needed to hear it again. I needed to know that I had understood correctly. Atticus had done that to Demetri. He tried to kill him all because of the Sip Room incident. All because of my dumb decision to defy him.
“You’re not going anywhere. You are Krypt now. You are his,” Messiah whispered.
“Fuck you! And fuck him!” I cried, letting the broom fall to the floor.
“Be as angry as you want. I didn’t force you to crawl back to the Villa after he tossed you. It is a choice each of us made on our own. In one way or another,” Messiah quietly reflected. He poured a bit of Cognac into a cup and scooted it across the table in my general direction. The bottle he kept for himself, sipping the expensive brew while his gaze op
enly challenged me to a debate on the matter.
“You said it was a test, to see if I’d get back up… you said…” I seethed.
“Indeed. It was a test to see if you’d get back up and walk away or follow him home like another of his lost pets.”
Anger boiled hot within me, compounded by the stickiness of the afternoon and my labors. It wasn’t his fault Reverie had coaxed me. The universe itself had conspired against me. Dealing one hand after the other of shit I should have folded instead of playing out.
“Speaking of pets, how’s the Kantor boy?” Messiah smiled. “I have to admit, I miss the way your eyes light up when he’s around.”
I glared at him and pretended not to have much interest in Keif, or him for that matter. Instead, I picked up the broom and started for the corner where it belonged. Messiah met me halfway and claimed it with a tug. It clattered to the floor near the corner, and he took me by the shoulders.
“He knows I will protect you, Chalice. He will test you soon, and when he does, I need you to leave no doubt that you indeed have something to offer House Krypt.” His eyes implored me, and his jaw set ever so subtly.
“If he found a way to trade off Reverie, he will find a union for me, if that is how he chooses to discard of his…daughters.” I sighed.
“No. He won’t. You’re not Reverie. Chalice, right now, if he can’t have you, no one will. It’s a curiosity that has festered into a dark obsession, I can see it when he looks at you. Even Isabella sees it. She called him on it earlier this week.”
My stomach knotted, and my mouth suddenly filled with saliva. Atticus wanted to fuck me? Atticus Krypt… My hand flew to my mouth, and I fought against the rising bile.
“What will she do to me?” I asked, suddenly alarmed by the fact that Isabella was more aware of his attentions than I. What if she thought I somehow invited his attention or entertained him in some way? Each thought caused another bout of nausea.
He didn’t answer me right away, but I saw the flinch in the corner of his eye. It scared the fuck out of me. The only thing that had ever broken that cool reserve was the night I whispered brazenly into his ear of not choosing. The fear of me disappointing or somehow alerting Atticus’ attention to myself had left him with simple one-word responses. I’d rather have had them right now than the piercing silence between us.
“Does she think I covet her husband, Messiah?” I pointedly asked again.
“I don’t think so. I think, right now, she believes he has an unhealthy interest in you, but she doesn’t see any proof of returned affections from you. She would have acted by now if she did…”
“Acted…” I repeated, suddenly feeling as if I couldn’t breathe. “What do you mean acted?”
In my mind, I saw images of Demetri with his chest laid bare and Ender’s tools sticking out of him. Tears filled my eyes.
“I would never entertain her husband… I… She has to know that!” I babbled.
“She does know that,” A confident, regal voice called from the doorway. I didn’t need to look, I knew it was Isabella. “Messiah uses colorful language that is often misinterpreted.”
Her arms wrapped around my shoulders as gentle as a wing and she pulled me to her for a lengthy embrace.
“Never you mind that old fool. Tell me of yourself. How are your studies going?” She glanced from me to Messiah and back again.
“I know where to stick a man to make him bleed to death,” I offered, recalling our lesson on arteries. “I learned that the difference in a trickle and a spray means life or death for both me and the target.”
Isabella’s dark eyes jumped between us again. “That’s quite a skill to learn,” she said, clearing her throat that she was daintily pawing. “Messiah, what good does such information provide a girl who is learning to bait and tail?”
My face contorted with the label she had applied. It sounded so filthy when she put it like that. “I am learning to follow people without being noticed.”
“Indeed, you can tail them in the shadows. What of your baiting? Hmm, have you tested her?”
I suddenly found myself being talked around, which did nothing to help my quickly souring mood. She made me sound like a damn hound.
“I’ve focused on the basics of extractions with her… I expected she would take naturally to the luring, so I was getting the hard part out of the way first,” Messiah carefully countered.
“Be sure that your teaching her extraction lessons and not focusing too heavily on the deadlier arts, hmm?” Her expression flashed from stone to a pretentious smile, and she left as quietly as she had snuck up on us.
“She is afraid.” After a quiet thoughtful spell, he laughed. “She nearly fainted when she thought you were training to be an assassin.” His head tipped back, and the throaty bark of laughter escaped. A bawdy sound that was more fit for a tavern and far from anything I would have expected out of him.
“Indeed, perhaps I will.” He snorted, before leveling his attention toward me. “But first… we will work on luring, since she is so set on it.”
“I’m not good at selling things,” I mumbled, sweeping my hair behind my ear. I just wanted to go back to picking and preening herbs in the forest. Life was simpler then.
“Luring can be quiet empowering, but you must be careful. Too much, and your reputation is compromised. But lay your attempts on a man who can spot them, and you just may end up dead.” He brought my hand up to his lips and kissed it before sweeping his thumb over the spot his lips had blessed. “Come,” he said, preventing me from lingering over the conversation too much.
He escorted me back to the Villa and led the way to his own chambers. The doorway seemed like a line in the sand. It took me a minute to cross it and put the thoughts of him and Blazian from my mind.
I immediately set my sights on that tall bay window that gave him the view of everything out front. It was an uncanny warm day for the season. Messiah had a low but steady fire going nearby. I suspected it to be more for the comfort of its sound than any chill he might have found when he awoke. On a nearby table a few scrolls lay open and piled with coins.
“You have much to learn,” Messiah announced. He was kneeling before a trunk and shuffling things about. After a few moments of this, he rose and shook out a folded white bundle. His fingers pinched a two-inch leather strap that fountained into l smooth pristine fabric that hung freely, billowing out the longer it reached.
“That… has to be the most beautiful dress I’ve ever seen, Messiah.” I gravitated toward it, hesitating just a moment before I allowed myself to touch it. The material was so thin and fair I feared I would stain it, or perhaps it was the seed that Atticus had planted echoing in the core of my being that I was too cheapened to be worthy of such a thing. Whatever it was, it passed the moment Messiah laid it over his sofa and turned back around to face me.
I knew from the way his fingers tickled the air that he was preparing to pluck the strings of my bodice. My shoulders twitched toward modesty but found his palms warm and heavy pressing them back. He massaged me from upper arm to neck until I was so relaxed his touch alone puppeted me. As they slid up my neck and took my jaw in hand, I was left staring into his crisp, hazel eyes.
“You’re the only woman on this mountain who possesses the beauty and birth to rival Isabella Krypt. Do not be shy or ‘shamed.” It could have been flattery. From any other man it might have been. But it wasn’t any other man, it was Messiah. He looked down at me with those heavily lidded hues in a way that resonated what he had said.
Without meaning to, I stood taller when he brushed the gown from my shoulders and ran his hands down my arms, chasing the material away, until my hands were locked with his. My body tingled with a demand I didn’t recognize.
I stepped toward him, and nearly tripped over my discarded gown. He caught me by the waist and our eyes met again.
“Mind your feet, I can’t promise what will happen if one of your spills carries us to the bed.” Jesting wasn’
t his strong point, but the words carried a mental image with them that made my thoughts betray me.
“You’ll think less of me.”
He laughed, and something sparked in his hazel eyes that I couldn’t quite place. “I’ve tried, love, believe me I’ve tried. The less I strive to think of you, the more obsessed I become. You’re more addictive than the fucking Nirvana Root. More tempting than the thickest of wines.” His words trickled until they were nothing but the vibration of his lips against mine.
For a moment, I surrendered to his affection. Too shocked to determine if it was another of my daydreams, or…
No that was definitely his mouth greedily conquering my own. His palm spanning my cheek.
“I couldn’t fucking think less of you if I tried, Chalice. And that’s the truth, love,” he sang in that sweet whiskey voice while pressing his forehead to mine.
I wrapped my hand behind his neck and tried to pull him back, but his fingers tangled in my hair and forced me to stay put. After a few moments of stroking my hair, he sighed and planted a kiss to my forehead. I was drawn into his arms where he stroked my back with his hand and held me tight for a moment.
What the fuck was that? Was that all this life would be? A stolen moment here or there?
I closed my eyes and pressed my forehead to the sanctuary of his chest.
“Put it on,” he whispered before grabbing a wine bottle and wrestling with the cork.
I did as he commanded and discovered that the leather strap amplified my bust, while the long flowing material elongated my already tall frame. Messiah twisted my hair up with a strand of pearls mixed into the coif. They were simple but stood out dramatically against my midnight hair. He painted my lips and smeared kohl around my eyes. I’d never had anyone pay so much attention to my every detail. I was afraid to move, afraid that I would somehow mess up his masterpiece.
I turned ever so slowly to face him and caught sight of a picture hanging near his bed. For a moment, I thought it was me. It was certainly the gown I was wearing. His eyes followed mine, and an awkwardness passed. He knew that I was staring at the picture, he knew that I knew that he knew I was staring at the picture, and yet… he said nothing.
Chasing the Night (The Krypt Series Book 1) Page 15