The copper began to dent under my fingertips as the image of the auburn-haired bitch formed in my mind, no matter how much I wanted to forget what she looked like because that was her specialty.
Queen Ileana.
The Blood Queen.
She was living proof that beauty was nothing more than an outer façade because she was the worst of them all. Her touch was scraping, sharp nails that carved into my flesh and then turned to almost loving strokes, always seductive, always so very…effective.
That was what she enjoyed more than taking my blood: watching my body give in to her demands while I cursed her and struggled against the chains that bound me, throwing every insult I could think of at her. Even after she grew tired of being the one to inflict such damage, and others just like Ileana took her place, I still heard her laughter, soft and tinkling like the windchimes that once hung in the gardens of Evaemon—the ones I’d torn down in a blind rage upon returning home, frightening my mother and leaving my father silent for days.
Five decades of having pieces of who I was broken off, bit by bit. Five decades of surviving on the promise of revenge, of retribution, kept on the verge of bloodlust, always hungry, until the day my brother came for me. I barely recognized him. I barely recognized Shea.
And I no longer knew myself.
Lowering my gaze to my hands, I saw them. I saw what I’d done with them. The first act I’d committed after my wrists were no longer bound. A shudder went through me. I didn’t want to think about what Shea had done—the bargain she’d made with the Ascended.
I didn’t want to think about what I’d done to her.
Lifting my hands, I pressed my fingers against my temples instead of what I had done in the past too many times to count when I was alone and the memories wouldn’t go away. When the thoughts wouldn’t stop coming.
Pleasure wasn’t the only temporary escape.
There was also pain.
And if my skin scarred as easily as a mortal’s, my arms would be a coarse map that led the way to all the times I’d sought to feel something—anything—but what those memories dredged up.
Neither the pleasure nor the pain had worked. I knew that, even though the years after my rescue were a blur of doing everything I could to forget by any means necessary.
My fingers slipped from the sides of my head. I stared at them once more, thinking of the unending stretch of waking nightmares. The long nights of drinking. The even longer days of smoking the unripe poppy seeds until I was either drunk or high enough to forget who I was. And the countless nameless and faceless bodies I’d been with in those dark years afterward. Atlantian. Mortal. Women. Men. Those I fucked just to prove to myself that I decided who touched me. Who I touched. That I had control. That I could still find pleasure in the act. But hell, I’d been a mess. It didn’t matter how many times I proved it, how many times I looked at my hands as I did now, a near century later, and didn’t see chains cutting into my flesh.
I’d still be in that headspace if not for Kieran and others. If they hadn’t done everything they could to remind me who I was and who—what—I wasn’t. Kieran had done a whole lot of the heavy lifting. Damn if he still didn’t. But they’d woken me up. They’d pulled me out of the darkness and into a new life that held one purpose only.
To free my brother.
And that was who I’d become.
All I’d become.
Not exactly who I was before. I would never be him again, but this was the closest I would ever get.
Now, the nightmares only really found me in sleep, and there had been times since then when sex was about the pleasure of sharing myself with another and not about control or proving a godsdamn thing to anyone—not even myself. A few moments where it had been about something deeper. But the other times? There were still many where I couldn’t clearly recall anything about their features. Too many.
There was no feeling of pride accompanying that realization. No smug satisfaction or arrogance. Because, truth be told, I still hadn’t forgotten that darkness. It lingered. Haunted. Just as cold as all those releases.
Just as empty.
PRESENT III
I sat with my eyes closed, back against the headboard, holding Poppy to my chest. The top of her head was tucked against my shoulder, and her hips and legs were nestled between mine. Kieran had returned some time ago with a pale blue slip that Hisa had found for Poppy. It had taken so long because she had to search for something that wasn’t white. Hisa likely hadn’t understood why that mattered, but Kieran hadn’t wanted Poppy to wake in the color of the Maiden.
I focused on the weight of her against me. Could she feel my heart beating, even in this deep sleep? This stasis?
“I had…I had a lot of trouble processing everything. The foolish mistakes that led to my capture. What I went through. Shea. What I did afterward. Sometimes, it was like I felt too much—the rage and also relief because I was free. And that felt wrong. There was also guilt. And all of it was so all-consuming that I couldn’t feel anything else.”
I smoothed my hand over her hair. “Sometimes, the sex, drugs, and drinking didn’t silence those feelings. The memories. So, that’s when I…” It was like my throat sealed up. Words failed me.
No, the words hadn’t failed me. They were still there, pushing against my lips. What stopped them was the…the godsawful shame, even after all these years. Even though I knew that what they’d done to me and what I’d been forced to do to others wasn’t my fault. I knew that.
But the mind, man…it liked to ignore that.
Still, I wouldn’t forget that the shame wasn’t mine.
“It was by accident—the first time I realized that pain could stop it all, just like sex,” I forced myself to say. I needed her to know, even if she couldn’t hear me. I needed to hear myself say it aloud. “I was training, getting my muscles to relearn how to be quick with a sword and even quicker with my feet, but it was too soon. I was still stuck too deep in my head. I wasn’t that present, even though Naill, who was working with me, didn’t notice.”
A dry, hateful laugh left me. “I learned how to hide it well from those I could. So, I slipped up, and he cut my chest. It wasn’t deep, but that bright, sharp pain didn’t thrust me back into the cage like I thought it would. Instead, it just…it silenced everything. It stunned me enough that it got through all that shit in my head. It stopped the thoughts, and gods, just having a minute of not being back there, not thinking about Malik or what I did or didn’t do… Just a fucking minute of silence was like getting release. Not just a physical one, but a mental one. Because there was this sense of calm afterward. Clarity.”
A tremor went through me. “Sometimes, I used a blade. Other times, my fangs.” My jaw worked. “Relief came the moment I saw red. Clearness. And it took way less effort than the sex did.” Another hard laugh left me as I shook my head. “The thing, though, Poppy? It didn’t last. It was only another escape. Except I was now hurting myself instead of another hurting me. You’d think I would’ve realized that right off the bat, but it took getting it out. Talking. I know that sounds cliché as fuck, but it’s the truth. Because while that was painful in a different kind of way, the release of putting all that nasty shit into words actually lasted.”