“I’m not leaving without you. We just found each other again.” Vesper shaped the words with his fingers, sinking into that familiarity between them. “I know Emmery and I failed, but I won’t this time. I won’t fail you again.”
Her eyes flared into a wild violet haze as if her calm had been chipped away by this place. “I want to go home,” she said softly.
Guilt punched right through his chest.
It was almost worse than the remorse from his betrayal of Emmery. What their home had come to was underhiscare. And this was all his bloody fault. If he hadn’t let vengeance and his own stupidity cloud his judgement, maybe he wouldn’t be here. Maybe things could have been different.
“Iz, the Council.” He swallowed his shame. “They’re taking Ellynne from us. I received a letter. I think they want to erase Father’s rule completely. All the things he did. And I—I don’t know what to do.”
Her expression hardened and her violet gaze lit up with rage. For a second, life seemed to surge back into her. “They can’t.”
“They are.” Vesper clenched his jaw. “I even sent an appeal with Quill. I practically cut my veins open and bled onto the page but it came right back, maybe an hour after Quill delivered it. And the heartless pricks only sent back a date for our departure.”
“Do they truly think they can take our home? That we’ll lay down and hand it over?” Her withered voice filled him with strength. “Father gave everything. He put his vision, his pride, and gave his entire life to that place. Don’t for even a second, consider letting it go. You fight, Ves. Fight for it.”
“I know.” Vesper nodded. “I will. But I just—I don’t know how much fight I have left.”
Izzy’s stare bore into him. “You’re a Merikh, Vesper. We are not sheep.”
He blinked at her.
“We’re wolves. And wolves do not cower, nor do they hide.” Her words were exactly what he needed to hear and sparked hope in his chest. She smiled then, a trickle of her familiar tenacity within it. “They draw blood.”
CHAPTER NINE
VESPER
As the Council meeting loomed nearer each day, Vesper needed to prepare. He had a month; a single month before his life inevitably changed forever. It was the thought that incessantly surfaced and the one he spent the most time burying, because if he thought about it too long, he would rip himself to pieces.
So he kicked his ass into gear. Ellynne was all he had left.
He’d spent countless hours scouring his father’s paperwork for something, reallyanything, to help him keep his home—a deed, some signature, a receipt, even a bloody scrap of paper with meaning behind it. He’d come up empty.
Before he knew it, he was crouched in his bedroom, his fingers knotted in his hair. He tried to smooth his reedy breaths, but the walls started to close in.
To distract himself, he sank into the memory of a moment with Briar the previous day, when she’d traded her grumblings about his behaviour for a soft embrace, her arms wrapped around his middle in a familiar hug.
“I’m proud of you,” she’d said into his chest. “Really, Ves. I am.”
He hadn’t known what to say as he hugged her back and pressed a quick kiss to the top of her head. He’d been good. Really good. He hadn’t been to the Scarlet Palace in three days or touched a drop of booze in two.
But the insurmountable problems buried him.
So he’d hadonedrink, just to calm his nerves.
But one turned into two. And two turned into five.
And when that didn’t work, he mounted Balthasar and rode to Malheim.
Guilt wracked him as Briar's words ran through his head on repeat. She’d sounded so sincere. So convinced. Thank the gods she had left for the day.
At Castle Dusk, he lay in his bed, Nefeli tucked under his arm, her face snuggled into the crook of his neck. Against his other side lay another woman from the Scarlet Palace, her black hair draped over her shoulder and dark skin dewy with sweat. He didn’t know her name, though she’d been moaning his only moments ago.
With Briar away and Nef’s request for an escape, Vesper had retrieved the two women for the day. His heart warmed as Nef marvelled at the castle’s magnitude, though now that the Council threatened to steal his home away, he too yearned for it.
Before today, he’d never brought Nef to his bed, let alone a stranger. Only Emmery had been allowed in it before she wassent back across the gate, though they were never truly intimate. Sure, he’d kissed her, but they’d drawn the line there.
His chest tightened as he thought of how disappointed she would be if she saw him right now.