Page 92 of Possess Me at Midnight

Then again, if I harm her brother, she’ll hate me forever.

Rion stampedes in, rampage on his face. “If you ever steal my sister away again to put your filthy hands on her, I’ll fucking end you.”

“Bram!” Sabelle looks horrified.

“All right,” he grumbles, looking moments from violence. “I’ll rephrase. Don’t ever touch her without my permission again.”

“Why don’t you fuck off?”

Sabelle glares Bram’s way. “I’m no longer ten, and I hardly need you to conduct my personal affairs. Ice and I sought privacy to discuss our future.”

“If you think you have any sort of future with this manipulative piece of shit, then you definitely need me.”

The way he’s talking to my princess sends my temper soaring.

“Asking a supposed friend for a favor? That’s a huge manipulation, all right.” I don’t even try to hide my snark. “I’d rather be accused of crossing the line than stabbing someone in the back. Stupid of me to think you cared that my innocent sister had been tortured and murdered by a madman.”

“Oh, spare me. Did you forget the part where I helped you bury her, then held you when you sobbed.”

Sabelle’s sharp intake of breath cuts through my rage. She’s seeing another piece of my history—one that makes her brother’s current cruelty even more incomprehensible.

“I even stuck my neck out to start an inquisition into her death,” Bram goes on. “But I couldn’t let sentiment cloud my judgment, and I didn’t have the goddamn power to grant you a Council seat.”

“I merely asked you for a nomination,” I growl. “I would have explained my rationale, my qualifications?—”

“Everyone knew you were too young. Twenty, untransitioned, and from the wrong side of magickind. Even if I could have gotten you nominated, you would have been a laughingstock. And I would have lost all credibility.”

“Your precious reputation was worth more to you than my friendship. You made that quite clear.”

“What good is a Councilman no one will heed? I’d been there for barely a decade. I was the most junior member. The others treated me more like a snot-nosed kid than an equal. For you to insist on a nomination when you were not only a child, but Deprived… You asked for the impossible.”

“The Council was contemplating a change to the Social Order and balancing the Council with a Deprived. We talked more than once about the fact I’d be a bloody good candidate, since my grandfather sat on the Council before the laws changed.”

Bram laughed bitterly. “You really believed that would come to pass? That the Council would be the purveyors of change? Grow the fuck up.”

He’s doing everything possible to get under my skin. “Now I know better, but at the same time?—”

“You were a stupid, idealistic fool—totally ill-equipped to sit on the Council.”

“Bram!” Sabelle looks horrified by her brother’s outburst. “Stop belittling him—and everyone. What’s gotten into you?”

“I don’t know! I’m so goddamn angry. I feel like a bomb with a fucking lit fuse,” he snarls. “I want to scream. And I’m itching to kill him.” He gestures to Ice. “This…agitation. It’s un-fucking-acceptable. It’s all I feel. I goddamn hate it.”

I stare at Bram, pieces clicking into place. The dark healer pulled him back from the brink of death, but she didn’t fully heal him. Was she unable to banish the “insidious shadow” he claimed lurks inside him? Whatever Mathias planted in him is still there, festering, turning Sabelle’s usually diplomatic brother into a volatile stranger. No wonder he’s been so vicious—he’s fighting a war inside his own soul.

But he’s still destroying Sabelle. Spell or no spell, I won’t let him break her without a fight.

“Why didn’t you just tell me you thought I wasn’t ready to govern? In hindsight, you were probably right. But you simply refused me, then turned your back. You were my last fucking friend. My only—” I choke, clenching my fists.

God, we haven’t discussed this in two centuries, and the first thing I do? Open my mouth and vomit out my feelings. During the dark days after Bram abandoned me, I felt so fucking alone. More than once, I wondered what I had to live for. And now, what must Sabelle be thinking?

“You issued me an ultimatum,” Bram snarls. “Nominate you or stop being my friend. What was I to do? I couldn’t give you what you sought. You would have tried to direct all Council business into settling your vendetta against Mathias. He needed to be dealt with, yes. But magickind had other problems you didn’t give two shits about. Nominating you would have been impossible and irresponsible.”

Perhaps Bram is right. Likely, even. But he never asked if the rest of the Council would accept my nomination. He simply said no.

“It’s done. None of this matters now. Leave my dwelling. I’ll return your sister as soon as we’ve finished talking. Joining the Doomsday Brethren was a mistake. Consider my involvement at an end.”

“Damn it!” Bram looks ready to hit me. “Don’t quit again because you’re not getting your way.”