Page 57 of The Spark that Ignites (Shattered Soul #1)

“I’m not judging. You know I’ve taken lives before.

You were there when I turned that guard’s throat to confetti.

” His arms tightened. “But I hope you know you can tell me. I’ll keep your secrets safe.

And it might help to talk about it. Telling you about Izzy helped me.

” He shrugged but thick emotion tainted his voice.

Emmery released a tense breath. She hadn’t reciprocated after he shared about his family, but he also hadn’t pressed.

Maybe she owed him. Or perhaps it was finally time to offload this from her heart.

But one thing held her back. “I don’t want you to look at me differently.

And if I tell you—there’s no way you won’t. ”

“Bloody Hollow, Emmery, don’t you know by now you can’t drive me away? You’re stuck with me.”

She sighed a deep heavy breath. “I don’t know where to start.”

“Take your time.” He settled into the mattress. “We have all night.”

Emmery sifted through the memories she had stifled all these years, deciding to start with a raw truth.

“My sister was my entire world. And even before my mother passed, I promised I would give her everything despite the cost.” Emmery paused, taking a shaky breath, the vulnerability of her story spilling from her soul.

“There was this ... man. Nathaniel.” She swallowed her rising bile as she spoke his name for the first time in nearly a century.

“He offered me steady work, and I did all sorts of odd jobs to make ends meet. He was charming, kind, and slipped into my thoughts frequently. I wasn’t very old when he propositioned me.

He was a grown man, and I hadn’t even reached my twentieth year.

” This was after she’d wandered the woods for months and lost her memories of it.

She had thought it was the lowest point of her life, but she didn’t know the heartache awaiting her.

Vesper stiffened. “Did you love him?”

“I thought I did. But ... I was young. Naive. And I didn’t know what love was.

He was powerful and promised to take care of us if I gave myself to him.

” She drew in a ragged breath that only burned her seizing lungs.

“I showed him my scars, Vesper. Revealed my magic even though I knew it was dangerous. But I chose to trust him, and he used me. Even that first night he was ... rough, possessive. He had hit me before but—not like that. He ... took from me. I changed my mind. I said no but ... he wouldn’t stop, and it was too late—” Her voice broke, her heart shattering all over again.

She had never said it aloud. Never voiced her shame. That wound never healed. Never would. Hot tears spilled down her cheek. “It was my fault.”

“It was not your fault. Not at all. Don’t ever say that.” Vesper held her gently, mumbling into her hair. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry—” As if he could take back the question. But it was essential to the story, and she went on.

“He had me at the throat. He wanted to own me. And I was so desperate for love ... I sold my soul for the promise of it.”

Vesper quieted as he listened though rage radiated off him. But his gentle embrace curbed her pain, and he softly squeezed her hand, lending his strength.

“Since magic was forbidden, he used it as leverage and threatened that if I left, he would send a message to the King and ensure my death. That Maela would suffer too. And I couldn’t do that to her.

I couldn’t abandon her if something happened to me.

So, I became his plaything—he touched me when he pleased, beat me on bad days, shared me with his men—”

She choked as all those vile images battered her again.

The rough hands, bruises, degradation, and the men taking pleasure in her torment.

Leaving her body was the only way to make it through—imagining she was anywhere else as they claimed those pieces of her.

All those dark nights, lying on the floor, her cheek pressed to the cold floorboards and not even tears brought release.

How she wished she could burn away her skin so no part of her touched by him remained—touched by any of them.

To burn the memories from her flesh.

Since then, she had promised no one would ever own her again. She would rather be alone than ever risk that sort of torment.

“It was years. And I just ... gave up hope.” She squeezed her eyes shut as Vesper rubbed a comforting hand down her arm.

“I still don’t know why he wanted me. Maybe it was the fact I had this power, and he could take it from me.

I think he hated Kenna and doing this to me was .

.. some sick twisted way to seek revenge.

His mother was killed by Kenna when he was a boy.

It must have fucked him up.” Emmery shook her head into the pillow.

“But then he started paying special attention to Maela and ... I wouldn’t risk him getting his filthy hands on her. She was just a child , Ves.”

Her stomach flip flopped as the memories resurfaced, dusty but brimming with old pain.

Vesper fisted the quilt.

“What I hadn’t realized was Nathaniel had no intention of turning me in to the King. He knew hurting Maela would be worse and he didn’t want to lose me. So, he ensured I would never leave him after one of his spies discovered our plan.”

Vesper’s breath bloated with rage. “What did he do?”

“He—he ... burned Maela. Seared the scars into her with a hot knife. Branded her ... so if I ran, he would report us both. And he made me ... watch.”

With her arms pinned by two of Nathaniel’s men, Emmery had been helpless.

She had watched numbly as they held Maela down, begging and bartering in a horse cry for them to let her sister go.

Any way to make them stop. That she would do anything .

But they had merely laughed, and Emmery would never be able to unsee that scorching metal sizzling Maela’s skin.

And she couldn’t tear her eyes away as her sister screamed and screamed and screamed .

.. until her tiny voice gave out and she fainted.

Hours later, Emmery had no words as Maela collapsed on the bathing-room floor, shaking, crying, and her bloody, bubbling chest heaving.

All she could do was clean the deep, permanent burns.

The ones that meant she would never live a normal life.

Only after Maela finally slept did Emmery let herself feel again.

And she’d spent the whole night with her arms clinging to the toilet bowl and her stomach emptied as her sister’s shrieks echoed in her head.

They still did in her nightmares to this day.

Vesper hissed, “That sick fuck branded your sister as ... punishment ?”

Tears burned in her throat, but she managed, “He did. And stupidly, I didn’t listen. In fact, I was even more determined for us to get out. I planned to burn away her scars, to erase what he had done, so we could start a new life. Somewhere safe from him.”

“Why didn’t you seek help, Emmery?” Vesper asked. “Gods, I’m sure there was someone who could have—”

“I couldn’t. If they found out why I wanted to leave ... we couldn’t take that risk. And he was so powerful and rich, people respected and feared him. And it wasn’t only my life but Maela’s too and I—I wouldn’t risk hers.

“It was the night my sister was off to a friend's house for dinner that everything happened. I didn’t know he had intercepted her. And ... I didn’t make it in time.”

Emmery had sprinted through the streets that night, her heart pounding her ribcage, and icy fear gripping her limbs as she stumbled over herself.

Her sister’s terrified face flashed through her mind, and her desperate high-pitched screams, a sound that remained chiselled into her mind and carved into her heart echoed endlessly. Maela had pleaded for them to understand she wasn’t a demon. That the scars were burns.

The guards didn’t care. An order was an order.

“And it was all to make me pay. Nathaniel ... broke me. He hurt me more than I thought I ever could hurt. He—he—” Fresh tears spilled down Emmery’s cheeks full of sorrow and anger and pain she had kept contained for so long. It was her fault.

Fool , coward , monster . Her mind sang the words in a taunting tune.

“I had every intention to push through the crowd and take her place, but my brave, selfless sister, caught my gaze and shook her head.” Maela had mouthed a few words, only for Emmery: I love you more than all the stars in the sky .

It had destroyed her. Tore Emmery down the middle and shredded her soul.

“The guards had tied bags of stones to her limbs. And then ... they pushed her off the bridge ... and she—she sank under the water.”

Emmery’s body shook with a sob, a deep ache that had festered inside her all this time as Vesper’s had with his sister’s loss.

“I watched my baby sister drown. Because I was such a ... coward . Such a fool for trusting Nathaniel. Such a monster for letting my sister die for me. For allowing her to endure a punishment she didn’t deserve and was never meant for her.

That should have been me . I could have saved her, and I let her . .. die.

“And I—I can’t take it back. Any of it. My choices, my ignorance, my fear. It all led to her being taken from me. And I can’t fix it, Vesper. After all this time, I can’t fix it, and it eats away at me every day and I can’t—”

Emmery swiped angrily at her tears streaming down her face and pooling on her pillow. “It fucking haunts me.”

Vesper didn’t speak but his hold tightened.

“I ran to the end of the stream, out of sight from the crowd, and jumped into the water to save her. But I never learned to swim. I thrashed in the water, trying to find her but the tide pulled me under and—”

Vesper pulled her closer. “I’m so sorry.”