First Debt

by Pepper Winters

  Needle&Thread: Where are we while you hit me? Bedroom? Forest? Countryside? Across your motorcycle?

  His response was instant.

  Kite007: How the fuck do you know I have a motorcycle?

  I threw my phone away as if it had electrocuted me.

  I couldn’t breathe.

  Oh, God. It had to be. The strange connection. The glint and secretive smirk on Kestrel’s face. Even the two words were similar. They’re both birds of prey.

  I’m so stupid!

  All this time, I thought Kite stood for the winged paper craft decorated with bows and string, when in reality it was another bird of prey.

  Don’t believe it until you can prove it!

  My internal dialogue went unheard.

  I couldn’t shake the overwhelming knowing.

  My world ended again, and the one person who I trusted to be impartial and grant me strength to get through this was the vilest liar of them all.

  Kite was Kestrel.

  Kestrel was Kite.

  He’s a Hawk.

  I DIDN’T GO to Nila for two days.

  Two long fucking days.

  She’d successfully done what I’d sworn never to let happen again. She’d made me lose control. Bad things happened when I lost my ice. People got hurt. Possessions got broken.

  Things did not go to plan when I stepped from the comfort of my arctic shell.

  There was a reason people called me distinguished and shrewd—a carefully groomed perception. To be cruel but firm was the ultimate calmness—the persona that smoothed out my violent life.

  I’d lived in the cold for so long, it’d become a part of who I was, yet all it’d taken was a silly little girl to burn cracks in my carefully designed control.

  Those two days were a reprieve. Not for me, but for her. For my family. For every goddamn soul who had to live with me.

  She thought I was a monster? Ice wasn’t a monster—it was unyielding and inviolable—a perfect cage for something like me.

  She thought she understood me?

  I laughed.

  She would never understand. I would never permit her to.

  I made sure food was sent to her morning, noon, and night. I spied on her with the bedroom cameras to make sure she didn’t do anything idiotic like break through a window or try to slit her wrists with a piece of crockery.

  Two days I left her in the room of death, only to see the girl I’d taken evolve into a sexual creature who glowed like a beacon.

  She spent most of the day on her phone—texting, reading, surfing God knows what. Sometimes, her face would fall. Sometimes, her lips would tilt into a smile. Sometimes, she’d pant, her small chest rising and falling. The flush of sex on her skin drove me fucking insane with jealousy.

  Jealousy.

  An emotion not permitted in my snowy world.

  The second day I abandoned her, I went for a hunt. I let loose the hounds and thundered after a herd of deer. I stalked the poor creatures, and shot a quivering arrow through some feeble herbivore’s heart. Some things still functioned correctly in my world, even if most of it had been bulldozed into ruins.

  The bloodlust was sated. Calmed.

  The cracks that’d formed froze over.

  Rationality and tranquillity returned.

  That night, my father and brothers had a family dinner—just the four of us. The deer I’d shot graced a stew, roulade, and roast.

  Dinner talk was sparse, but an undercurrent of anger hummed between us. Daniel smirked with his insane arrogance. Kes smiled occasionally for no good goddamn reason, and my father...

  Shit, my father.

  I was a fucking twenty-nine-year old man. I had blood beneath my nails and ice around my heart, but still I wasn’t good enough. Still, I lacked. I had something inside me that he’d tried to kill, but despite his best efforts, it survived.

  I’d learned how to hide it.

  But Nila…fuck.

  She had the power to expose it.

  I wanted to rage. To step into the truth and show my father who I truly was.

  But I wouldn’t. Not yet. That would be weak.

  And I wasn’t fucking weak.

  I was one year away from inheriting it all. I had my own Weaver to play with. The power shift had begun—all the brothers of the Black Diamond knew it. My relatives knew it. The world fucking knew it, but my father…he wasn’t happy with the change.

  His gaze ensnared me; I glowered back.

  The animosity between us was rife tonight, unable to be buried beneath the rotting veneer of respect and mutual alliance to never challenge each other again.

  The last time we did, one of us walked away broken and the other almost didn’t walk away at all.

  Dessert was brought in, some raspberry soufflé affair. The matriarch of our family finally decided to show her face from her private wing at Hawksridge.

  Bonnie Hawk might’ve looked bonny in her day, but she was well past her prime. At ninety-one, she moved painfully and with difficulty—the stubborn cow refusing to use a wheelchair or even a cane to get around.

  “Hello, my son.” She nodded at Bryan Hawk then looked to Kes, Dan, and me. “Hello, my grandbabies.”

  Daniel rolled his eyes, Kes shot up to help her into a chair, and I smiled the signature ‘warm-but-not-too-warm’ smile I’d perfected since I was ten. “Hello, Grandmamma,” the three well-trained Hawk boys said in unison.

  Bonnie sat, snapping her fingers for the unobtrusive staff to ladle her plate with the raspberry sweet. She placed an over-piled spoon into her mouth.

  Her brown eyes landed on mine. “Tell me, Jet. How are things going with the latest Weaver?”

  My back straightened as my cock twitched unbidden. That damn fucking witch had ruined me. I only had to hear the word Weaver and I became fucking hard.

  That’s why you’re avoiding her.

  Another reason, I admitted.

  I scowled.

  Swallowing my one and only mouthful of soufflé, I smiled tightly. “She’s a work in progress, Grandmamma.”

  My father jumped in. “The little brat had the audacity to speak back after her welcome luncheon. The cheek of her. If she was mine to discipline, she would be missing a body part by now.”

  He spoke the truth. I’d seen what he’d done to Nila’s mother, and I fucking hated him for it.

  The venison in my stomach rolled as a wash of ferocious rage exploded through my blood. I stabbed my butter knife into the table. “Thank fuck she’s not yours to torment, then. It so happens I like my women whole.”

  The moment the words were out of my mouth, I froze.

  The table froze.

  The fucking candles flickering on the sideboards froze.

  Shit.

  Bryan Hawk steepled his fingers, his eyes narrowed and dark. “That was a rather uncalled for outburst. Do you want to rephrase that, perhaps?” He never looked away.

  My palms grew slick with sweat. I hadn’t meant to show what I’d kept hidden successfully for years. My true nature was not tolerated in the Hawk family—even by my fucking grandmother, who by all rights should encourage us to be gentle and forgiving—not keeping alive a ridiculous debt over a family that made a few mistakes hundreds of years ago.

  Fuck, I need time alone.

  I needed to get myself under control, before I dug a grave worse than the one I just did.

  When my jaw refused to unlock, my father muttered, “Maybe I’ve put too much responsibility on you, Jet. Are you taxed already? Maybe I overestimated you, and Kes or Daniel should share your workload?”

  Something slithered across my soul.

  Daniel snickered. “Give her to me, Pop. I’ll make sure I don’t let you down.” His eyes danced with evil. “Unlike some.”

  We glowered at each other; he tried to intimidate me but didn’t succeed. He never succeeded. Fucking twat.

  Tension crackled around the table. Kestrel stopped shovelling food into his mouth long enough to say, “
You know Jet is the best man for the job. I’ve never seen him fail you yet, Pop. Give the bloke a chance.” Giving me a conspiring look, he added, “She’s highly strung and goddamn beautiful. Can’t blame a man for wanting to enjoy the chance to break such a filly.”

  Goddammit, what the hell does that mean?

  My temper raged beneath my thin exterior of ice. Lately, I was a fraud. A hypocrite, just like Nila said. The coldness inside was mysteriously missing. The blissful uncaring, the emotional detachment I’d been forced to live with since my father taught me how to behave was gone—almost as if someone had flicked a switch.

  Before, I felt nothing. I permitted my senses to neither care, nor feel hate, nor feel happiness. I was blank, blessedly blank and strong. Now, I felt everything. I overthought everything. I wanted to murder every man I lived with purely because I wasn’t what they’d groomed me to be.

  I fucking hated it.

  And I hated that Kestrel—my one ally who knew the truth about me—was pushing my damn buttons. “If you think a speech like that will get you near her, think again. Good try, brother, but I’m watching you.”

  Kes grinned. “We’ll see. After all, she’s ours. Not just yours. Our adoptive pet, if you will. Can’t help it if the pet prefers someone else than the original owner.”

  My hand clenched around the butter knife.

  “Enough,” my father snapped. It echoed around the room, bouncing off the images of our forefathers.

  “I expect you to do the First Debt before the week is out, Jet,” my grandmother said, her lips covered in clotted cream.

  I swallowed in disgust. “Yes, Grandmamma.”

  Cut, my father, muttered, “Do what you think you need to do, Jethro. But mark my words…I’m judging your every move.”

  Judge me, you bastard. Watch me behave just as you’ve taught. Watch me be the perfect Hawk.

  I would make sure to give him something to judge.

  Tonight, I would ‘fix’ myself. Tonight, I would smooth away the chaos that Nila fucking Weaver had caused and find that saviour of snow.

  Cut continued to watch me as he spooned dessert into his mouth. “Make me proud, son. You know what you need to show her and what needs to be done afterward.”

  Forcing my hand to uncurl around the knife, I placed it slowly on the table. Swallowing the overwhelming emotions that had no place in my world, I muttered, “I’ll make you proud, father.”

  Cut relaxed into his chair.

  Instantly, a wash of relief fell over me. It had always been the same. I lived with a family of devils. I was one year away from being emperor to them all, yet I still craved my elders’ respect.

  The kid inside never fully got over the need to impress—even though deep down he knew it was an impossibility.

  “We’ll be watching, Jethro. You don’t want to disappoint your family.”

  My eyes snapped to Bonnie Hawk as she licked residual cream from her fingertip. Tilting her head, she quirked her lips into a secretive smile.

  My muscles locked. Being the head of the family, she continued to hold the last say—the last piece of power over anything we did. She knew more about me than even my father. I might crave my father’s respect, but I would never get over knowing I would never earn Bonnie’s.

  She would die and never grant me absolution of being satisfied with what I’d done.

  I was the firstborn son.

  I’d bowed to conformity and rules all my fucking life.

  Yet, it was never enough.

  Nodding stiffly, I muttered, “I won’t let you down, Grandmamma. I won’t let anyone down.”

  I’ll make you see that your frailty only increases my power. I’ll make you see that fire is better than ice, and I’ll fucking show you how youth comes before wisdom.

  I’ll make you see.

  Just you watch.

  That night, I retreated to my wing at Hawksridge Hall.

  I turned off the lights.

  I sat in the dark and welcomed the shadows to claim me.

  Before me rested my arsenal to ‘fix’ the things wrong inside me.

  And just like my father had taught me—just like I’d done countless of times before—I found the frost deep inside and permitted it to chill me, calm me…

  …

  make me impenetrable.

  I KNEW IT was too good to be true.

  The last three nights and two days of being Jethro-free screeched to a bitter end when he came for me at daybreak.

  I wasn’t asleep but mid-text with Vaughn.

  The early morning sun had a horrible habit of highlighting the stuffed birds around the room, sparkling on death and reminding me that my future only held carnage—no matter how alive I felt. No matter how strong I’d become from taking power from Jethro, in the end, it would all finish the same way.

  With my head in a bloody basket.

  I should’ve been petrified—wallowing in misery at the thought of how a successful career and life in the limelight had suddenly become so limited with options. But…strangely…I wasn’t.

  If anything, I was more focused now than I’d ever been. More aware of consequences of choice and the brutality of the world that’d been hidden from me. I’d been raised to believe in fairy tales—my father deliberately kept me naïve. Why? I hadn’t figured that out yet, but now my eyes were open, and it was…refreshing to know the world wasn’t pristine and taintless.

  All my life, I’d pretended to be perfect. And all my life, I’d nursed the truth inside that I was far from it. The Hawks were crazy—there was no other explanation for their fixation on something so far in the past—but they were passionate about it.

  Passion had trickled from my world as if every dress and collection had been vampiric—sucking my will to keep striving for greatness in my designs.

  If you felt this strongly about it, maybe you should’ve gone on holiday. Had a break from being a Weaver.

  But that was the thing. I would never have admitted it to myself, because I would never have recognised it. My vertigo spells, my lacklustre acquiescence of my father’s wishes—I couldn’t see how lost I was from my true self. I’d never been given the time to figure out who I was—only what was expected of a daughter born into the Weaver empire.

  The beauty of distance meant I saw my life without being immersed in it. It all boiled down to the fact I’d never had anything of my own. I’d shared my life with a twin, who I positively adored, but who outshone me in every way. I’d been drowning with self-doubt and nervousness. I’d crippled my instincts and skills, terrified of letting others down.

  Oh, my God.

  I clutched the phone harder.

  I’m a better person away from the people who love me most.

  That meant I excelled while living with people who hated me.

  It was fucked up.

  It didn’t make sense.

  But how could I argue against something that was true?

  VtheMan: I know everything, Threads, and I’m coming for you. I’ll bring the army. I’ll kidnap the fucking Queen if it means I’ll get you free. Just stay alive, sister. I’m coming.

  My attention reverted back to the current issue.

  Vaughn.

  Father must’ve told him what happened. I didn’t know how much he shared—hell, I didn’t really know how much he even knew himself—but I feared for my brother. I feared for myself.

  Vaughn was volatile and likely to do anything to get me back. Every day since I was born, I let him baby me, protect me from life experiences I really should’ve faced rather than hide from. That protectiveness sometimes came across as too much, and before, I secretly loved it. I loved being so significant to someone—their entire reason for living.

  But everything had changed.

  I’m not the same person I was a few days ago.

  If I was bluntly honest, our relationship seemed a little much now. Blurring lines that had kept me firmly in my place as daughter and sister with no need to spread
my wings and hurl myself from the nest.

  “Get up.” Jethro paced to the huge windows, wrenching open a sash pane letting the pretty English morning into the stuffy room. I breathed deeply as sunshine bounced around, merrily painting corpses of winged creatures.

  Yesterday, I’d named some of the prettier ones. Snowdrop, Iceberg, and Glacier were all addressed in honour of their tormentor and mine.

  I needed to reply to Vaughn, but I tucked the phone beneath the quilt, eyeing up my nemesis. “Nice to see you, too.”

  His nostrils flared. “Don’t get uppity, Ms. Weaver. I don’t have time for nonsense.”

  I stretched, deliberately taunting him. “Nonsense? You can’t talk. All of this Weaver and Hawk charade is utter nonsense.”

  Jethro stomped over. Dressed in beige corduroys and black shirt, he looked as if he had a meeting with his local backgammon club. The requisite diamond pin glinted on his lapel. “Shut up and get out of bed. Now.”

  My heart thundered. His golden eyes were icy and steadfast.

  The intensity and raw visceral desire I’d seen in the forest was gone. Hope fizzled into dirty bubbles in my chest. I’d thought we’d climbed to a new dimension with what happened in the woods. I thought I’d showed him that he couldn’t undermine me without undermining himself.

  How wrong I’d been.

  Squinting in the sun, I whispered, “What did you do?”

  He reared back as if I’d slapped him. “Excuse me?”

  Shuffling in the covers, I eyed him closer, trying to figure out what had changed. Nothing outward looked different. He was the perfect resemblance of a country gentleman. But his tone was smooth as silk and just as unbreakable.

  “You’ve done something. A few nights ago you looked human…now…”

  “Now?”

  I scowled. “Now you just look like the cold-hearted robot who came for me at my runway show.”

  Before he could answer, another vital question popped into my head. “Why now?”

  “What?” His face twisted into a glower. “That doesn’t even make sense. Your questions are really starting to grate on my nerves, Ms. Weaver.” Running a hand through his hair, he said quietly, “If you rephrase that into a coherent sentence, I might answer, if it means you’ll kindly get out of bed.”