Page 10 of Dark & Darker Still (Vane and Roc: Origin)

Nine

Vane

“Wake up.”

Roc’s lying on his stomach, his arms tucked beneath the feather pillow. Alice is half draped over him. They’re both naked.

Late afternoon sunlight is pouring in through the windows behind me.

I heard them stumble in, drunk and laughing, sometime around eleven this morning.

Jade told me Alice ran off last night and that Roc ran after her.

When I asked her why, she said, “Maybe you should have told her before she had a chance to hear it from someone else.”

She didn’t elaborate, but she didn’t have to.

Did I feel guilty about it? Slightly. I probably should have told her.

Roc opens his eyes and squints up at me. “What time is it?”

“It’s nearly five. We’re going to be late.”

He inhales and groans into the pillow.

Jabberwockies don’t get drunk like mortals do, but that doesn’t mean we don’t suffer from hangovers. It all depends on the liquor, how much, and whether or not we mix it with blood. I don’t see teeth marks on Alice’s neck other than mine, so he must not have drank from her.

“Roc,” I say, more insistent this time.

“Fine. I’m up.” He hefts himself, rolls to his side and slips from the sheet. He stumbles past me for the bathroom.

When he’s gone, I find Al looking at me from beneath the messy tangle of her blond hair.

I know she’s pissed. I can practically smell it.

“I was going to tell you,” I say.

She hasn’t moved. Just keeps staring at me. I swear the air stirs.

“Say something, Al.”

She pulls back the sheet, revealing her naked body. There are bruises along her thighs and a few more peppering her hips. It’s hard to tell which ones are from me and which ones are from my brother.

She grabs one of Roc’s shirts from the chair across the room, shrugs into it and leaves the room.

She doesn’t say a fucking thing to me.

The frustration spins in my gut.

“Al,” I call and follow her.

Our apartment above the Joker’s Den consists of the main living space, the living room open to the kitchen.

Our rooms break off from there with Roc’s to the left of the front door, then the bathroom, then mine, then Alice’s.

I gave her the front room with the two giant windows overlooking Butcher’s Row because I know she likes a view.

I find her in her room yanking on pants.

“I was going to tell you,” I repeat because I need her to fucking say something.

“Yeah, well, you had plenty of time, didn’t you?

” She turns to me and pulls her hair out of Roc’s shirt.

“But you didn’t. You let me find out secondhand.

You made me look like a fucking idiot.” She tries to push past me for the door, but I hook her in the span of my arms and run her back. She hits the window casing.

“You think I want to get married? To Gen of all people?”

“Then why agree to it?”

On the surface, I know what it looks like.

It’s nothing more than a transactional relationship.

It would be easy to say it’s good for business, because it is.

We’re getting Caligo Port out of the deal.

We’ll control two out of the four ports on Darkland, and arguably the two that are the most important.

But Al will see through it.

She’ll see through me.

“I have to make amends for what my father did.”

Her gaze travels from my mouth to my eyes. A wrinkle of understanding appears between her brows.

“You don’t owe anyone anything.”

“They don’t trust us. Not after what he did.”

When it was discovered that my father was trying to overthrow the Lorne Court, he was immediately arrested.

I never got the chance to speak to him, to ask him why.

All I have are assumptions and I can only assume it was greed and his obsession with power.

But now Roc and I have to clean up his mess if we’re to make a life for Lainey.

We were stripped of everything. Titles, assets, properties. We had to start over with nothing and a little sister to take care of.

I won’t stop now.

“You think marrying one of their own will change their minds?” Al asks.

“It’s a start.”

“And what about us?”

Deep down, I know I didn’t tell her because of this question. Because I didn’t want it to be asked and I sure as hell didn’t want to answer it.

I lick my lips. Her gaze sinks to my mouth again.

When I’m not with Al, I feel rational. Logic prevails and I can see the way through. Marrying Gen, establishing ourselves among the nobility again, owning the import and export business, it all makes perfect sense. But it only makes sense if Al isn’t there.

We are all wrong for each other. We both know that.

And yet we always find ourselves here.

We are like the fable, Mersa and the Dark Waters, swimming down and down and down, lungs burning, the bottom always just out of our reach.

And yet we can’t stop swimming. We can’t help but go deeper. The burn is the punishment and the punishment is the pleasure.

“We can’t do this anymore.”

My voice is ragged. She practically flinches at my words even though they are spoken in a whisper.

She yanks her arm out of my grip, teeth clenched.

“Fine,” she says. “Now get out of my fucking room.”

I step back, aware that she’s trembling, and two seconds away from slapping me.

I give her a final nod and leave.