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Chapter thirty-two

Gavin Smyth - Present Day

M any years had passed since anyone had tried to cross me.

Molochai himself didn’t try without his magic.

Admittedly, Felix’s betrayal stung a bit more than I would’ve liked, considering I’d known him since the day he was born and was his sole provider of income and resources. Yet here he was, betraying me.

Needless to say, I didn’t fucking like it.

Especially not where my wife was concerned.

The Morton family had done their best to help me find where she’d been kept over the years, but every generation had grown a little more feeble and flighty than the last. I’d all but given up on their efforts after the untimely death of Felix’s father, Nigel.

The family had been paid well by me for so long that Felix had taken over the search without hesitation, even though his father had been killed during my employment.

But then, I’d found my Ella. I could have called Felix off the search immediately. I should have, and I didn’t.

I had been a bit… distracted .

Now, as I stood glaring at the shivering, gutless shirk of a man before me, I regretted that.

I wouldn’t regret killing him, though.

Deep into the forest, where I’d dragged him, no one would hear his cries for mercy. Most importantly, she wouldn’t hear. I had upset her enough tonight.

“Molochai has my wife, does he?” I questioned coolly, circling him slowly.

Felix kept his eyes trained on the ground and nodded.

“Have you seen her?”

Felix nodded again, but I saw his lip tremble before he sputtered out, “Just bring him the girl, and you’ll get your wife back.”

My fists clenched, knuckles cracked, and I stared at him blankly. Made it look like I was contemplating it. Let him stew.

“Simeon’s daughter…” Felix swallowed nervously and nodded back toward the inn. “I see the appeal.”

I lifted an eyebrow, encouraging him to go on. To give me more reasons to enjoy killing him.

“She’s… she’s something.”

I chuckled and nodded. As if I didn’t know.

As if I didn’t spend every moment in her presence refraining from ripping her clothes off, laying her down in the middle of the fucking forest, and taking her for myself.

Spreading open those soft, warm thighs and feasting on her sweetness until she screamed my name.

Until she felt no pain, no fear, no sadness, no burdens. Only me.

Some things—like the way she turned me into a fucking animal—never changed.

“What does she look like?” I asked him coolly. “You said you’ve seen her, my wife. ”

“She’s… beautiful.”

“What color is her hair?” I pressed. “Her eyes? Is she short? Tall? Thin? Young? Old? If she’s so beautiful, I’m sure you took your time admiring like you did with,” my mouth curled into a sneer, “Simeon’s daughter.”

That fucking lie .

“I only saw her for a second,” Felix rushed out.

White-hot rage seared through me and escaped in a frustrated, guttural growl. A culmination of the feral flames of lust and love and pain trapped within me that—begging for liberation—became fury.

He howled when I fastened my hands on his jacket and thrust him against the trunk of a thick oak. “What did he promise you, Felix?”

“What—what do you mean?” His useless fingers pried at my grip.

My hand twitched—yearning for the feeling of his thin neck crushing beneath it. Playing dumb—I didn’t like that either.

“I said ,” my other hand clamped down on his shoulder, “what did Molochai promise you for facilitating this little trade?”

“N-nothing!” Felix panicked. “He didn’t promise me anything, Smyth! I’m just trying to help you.”

“He doesn’t have my wife, Felix.”

“W-what do you mean?” He tried to shift out of my grip, but I tightened my hold. “He does. He has her.”

“I don’t think so, my friend.”

He screamed when the switchblade hidden in my sleeve made a spectacular squelch in the flesh of his side, between his ribs.

I loved that sound.

“How do you know?” he wailed as I slowly twisted the blade into the weak muscle of his abdomen.

The poor bastard whimpered and gasped for breath and wheezed. The warmth of his blood on my hand soothed me. But it was still ice cold compared to the warmth of her .

Snarling, I gripped his hair and jerked him backwards before thrusting my fist once into the center of his face. The bone in his nose crunched while unhinged whimpers left his throat.

“Because I have her , you fucking imbecile!” I roared, casting him down to the earth, hovering over him. “And no one will ever… ” I bent down to flatten his hand on the frigid ground and readied my fingers to break each of his.

“Take!”

Thumb.

“Her!”

Index.

“From!”

Middle.

“Me!”

Ring.

“Again!”

Pinky.

“Please!” he howled.

But I soaked in the sound of his agonized cries. Glorious retribution for even thinking of hurting my Ella.

“I’m sorry! Oh, gods!” He was on all fours, snot and blood dangling in strings from his broken nose. “Gods, please!”

“Oh, I assure you,” I shoved him onto his back with my boot, “I’m as far from your gods as you can get.

” I squatted beside him and ripped my blade from his side, then gripped him by the hair and exposed his neck.

“Time to go, Felix. Give your father my regards. For his sake, I am sorry.” I clicked my tongue on the roof of my mouth, feigning reconsideration, and then sighed, shaking my head. “Just not sorry enough.”

“It was money!” Such a mewling cry from a greedy, blithering idiot. He had sold out my Ella for money. Fury roiled through me. But he was so shockingly stupid that it became an effort not to laugh. “My family!” he gasped. “My wife and son, please don’t hurt them.”

“I’ll see to it myself that your family is taken care of.

They are safe,” I assured him calmly. That was true.

I had killed so many innocents in my long, miserable life and would be more than happy not to kill any more.

And it wasn’t his wife or child’s fault that he was a whimpering, conniving shill.

Felix exhaled a sigh of relief. His last breath.

“Unfortunately,” I sighed, “ you are not.”

And I slit his throat.

Typically, I enjoyed spilling the blood of my victims. When killing was my choice, I made sure they deserved it. I’d slit enough throats to anticipate how the blood would spatter and pour, so I easily ended Felix without staining any parts of my body aside from my hands and forearms.

Tonight, I didn’t want a mess to deal with.

Tonight, I was eager to get back to Aryella, even if just to savor the peaceful expression she wore when she dreamt and watch the steady rise and fall of her body, small but tough as nails.

I wouldn’t get to hold her in bed tonight.

I had gone and fucked that up with the truth.

But it had been inevitable, telling her the truth. Just like it was inevitable that I would need to tell her the rest of it.

In the morning, I decided. I would tell her everything in the morning.

With a weary sigh, I bent down and rinsed my hands and forearms in the nearby creek, immune to the cutting shards of freezing water that assaulted my calloused skin. My reflection made me scowl. A weathered, scarred version of the young man she once married.

I hated that I had to take her to those Caves.

To Simeon, the liar, the manipulator. To Elowen, that soul-sucking cow.

To Elias Winterton, the young, unscathed warrior prince intent on taking what was mine.

But he didn’t even know me. No, none of them saw my face when I butchered their loved ones.

I made sure of it. They knew me only by the mark Molochai compelled me to leave on each of my victim’s bodies. The Butcher’s mark.

As much as I wanted to further delay delivering my Ella to a prison of Simeon’s design, there was no more time to train her, teach her, or help her see her value beyond the crown and that fucking prophecy.

Weaseling Felix Morton into his scheme to make me give up “Simeon’s daughter” made it clear that Molochai somehow knew she was under my protection.

And now, thanks to Felix, Molochai knew I had a wife too.

He wanted to trick me into trading Ella for my wife. He didn’t know they were one and the same, but if he found out, if he knew her real, full name…

I swallowed down the vomit pooling in my throat and increased the pace of my long strides toward the inn. When I arrived minutes later, I noticed the empty rope dangling from the hitching post. Before I took Felix into the woods, there had been a horse there—a brown gelding.

Felix was dead, but his horse was gone.

And somehow, I could feel… she wasn’t near.

No.

“Ella!” I shouted, frantic, nearly stumbling over myself through the back door of the inn. I covered the length of the hall in four long strides and burst into our room. “Aryella!”

An empty bed and empty room.

No.

Not again .

“ Aryella! ” I shouted, heart pounding in my ears, tears biting at my eyes.

I wanted to weep. Scream. Rip out my hair, gouge out my eyes, anything more bearable than what I felt at the thought of losing her again. I wanted to shrivel up and fucking die .

But then, I wondered if I should be relieved she’d gotten away.

At least for a little while, hiding would keep her safe from me if Molochai made the order I couldn’t refuse.

If I acted fast, I could swallow that poison around my neck, end my own miserable existence before I was sent on an involuntary quest to destroy the only thing I ever loved.

That’s what I would do. Drink the poison, and if that didn’t work—carve out my heart and pay someone else to cut it up and burn the pieces.

My heart belonged to her anyway. Without her, I didn’t want it.

She was smart. She was fast. She’d proven she could ride a horse like she used to. Her body remembered even if her mind didn’t. And now, after nearly a month of nourishment and training, she was much, much stronger. She could get to those Caves on her own.

But…

“No,” I breathed upon glancing at the mess of paper on the floor. “ No .” My bag had been ransacked. The letters from countless generations of Morton men were strewn across the floor. A note in her undeniable handwriting rested on the bedside table. “No, no, no, no…”

Consumed by terrible dread, vomit churning in my stomach. I picked up that note, reminded far too vividly of the last time she left me with one.

Gavin,

I know Molochai has your wife, and I’m going to make a trade. I’m going to get her back for you. He can have me and my power if he lets her go and frees my people.

I will make him promise to take me and leave this land.

You said you want me to be free, but I want that for you too. I would never be as strong as I am now had I not met you, and I’ll never be able to express how grateful you’ve made me. You’ve helped me become someone I’m proud of. And for that alone, I believe you deserve all the good in this world.

I know I can do this.

Please don’t follow me .

Be happy.

- Ella

I choked out a dry sob, then tears. I broke all at once, stumbling toward the door, crumpling the note in my hand. “No, Ella, no!” I stormed outside, into the forest, and found the trail of hooves heading south. “ Aryella! ”

The fault was mine. All mine. I had opened my desperate fucking mouth once. I’d said I had a wife in a plea for her to remember she was mine . And I knew she was incapable of believing that just she could be enough. She’d struggled to believe it then, and she struggled to believe it now.

This was no one’s fault but my own.

She was on horse. She would get to that camp in an hour. If I ran and didn’t stop, I could get there in two. Finding a horse of my own could be faster, but I hadn’t seen any, and by the time I found one…

So I ran, seeing nothing, hearing nothing else but her. As I ran, I roared her name into the woods again and again in the hopes that she could hear me. That she would know, even if she would never remember.

In every life, I would find her.