Текст книги "The poison daughter"

Автор книги: Sheila Masterson

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Текущая страница: 35 (всего у книги 48 страниц)

47HENRY

When I step out of my parents’ study, my mind is still spinning. It’s only made worse when I see Carter waiting for me at the end of the sunlit hallway. His arms are folded, and he leans back against the wall, but the relaxed pose doesn’t fool me. Something is wrong.

“What now?” I ask as I walk toward him.

He falls into step beside me, casting a glance over his shoulder. “The bodyguard was poking around, trying to get into the recovery room.”

“Of course he was,” I grumble. “It’s fine. I’ve been given permission to take care of it.”

“I thought you had suspicions that he might be leading the rebellion,” Carter whispers.

I rub the back of my neck as we walk up the stairs to the second floor. “He might be involved, but according to my father, he’s not one of our contacts. The problem is that he’s trying to sway Harlow and I’m at too critical a point for that.” I pause at the top of the stairs. “I’ve just been given permission to remove him from play. Can you get the holding cells ready?”

Carter’s eyebrows shoot up. “You sure this is a good time? It might set her back.”

I shake my head. “We’ll make it look like an accident.”

“Henry, think about it,” Carter urges, his voice tinged with annoyance. “She’s smart and she knows you don’t like him.”

“She doesn’t like him,” I counter. “He doesn’t even know she can poison with her hands. He’s never even protected her from people in her own life.”

Carter shakes his head. “Are you blind? She may love to antagonize him, but she definitely cares about him. As your friend, I would be remiss not to warn you that this could be a huge setback.”

“I have no choice,” I say. “I overheard the tail end of a conversation they were having the other day. He’s too observant and too suspicious.”

Carter sighs and nods. “So be it. Divine help us with the fallout. What’s the plan?”

“I’m going to try to get any last information out of him in the holding cells. There’s no one who knows Carrenwell House’s layout better. I’ll kill him out with some sort of fast-bleeding wound and I’ll make it look like a message from Stefan.”

“She’ll kill him,” Carter says.

“She’ll want to, but she won’t,” I counter. “She hasn’t killed the man beating her sister yet, and she’s been watching that happen for a while. She can have restraint when she wants to.” Even as I say the words, I’m not certain they’re true. Holding back on Rafe might be the very thing that makes her more prone to go after Stefan. In her mind, he could be a score she could settle immediately, and that might be just the thing to release the pressure valve on her rage. But I have to trust that she sees how perilous things are here the same way she sees how perilous her family’s position is in Lunameade.”

Carter scrubs a hand down his face. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“My job? Getting the revenge we’ve worked ten years for?”

He smiles sadly and squeezes my shoulder. “I think you have to ask yourself, is it really revenge if you’re still losing something?” He pats my back as he walks down the stairs.

As I walk toward Harlow’s room, his words burrow beneath my skin and make me itch. I’m not losing anything.

Harlow is not what I thought she would be, but she’s remarkably resilient and not one to get emotionally attached. She’ll be upset about Gaven and angry at the end of this, but ultimately, she’ll be better off without her terrible parents anyway.

Gaven isn’t waiting in the hall outside her room. Either she’s out, or she sent him away to snoop.

When I step into Harlow’s bedroom, she’s not reading in a chair by the window where I left her. My heart pounds as I check her closet. She’s not in there or the connecting bathroom. I walk through my closet and into my bedroom. Kyrin perks up from where he’s lying on the floor in front of the fireplace. I finally spot Harlow.

Wearing a dark lace bustier and matching underwear, she props a foot on the windowsill as she fastens the stays on her garter belt to the top of her stockings.

My relief mixes with lust.

“You seem to be back to yourself,” I say, my voice hoarse.

“It’s dark green,” she says without looking up.

“Hmm?” I’m incapable of forming intelligent words.

“You like to know what color I’m wearing. This lace is dark green, like the forest at dusk.”

I stare at her, dumbfounded, as she turns to face me. “It’s very nice.”

“Nice?” She scoffs. “Careful. You’re looking at me like you’re forgetting to hate me.”

“I don’t hate you.”

She laughs and turns back to the mirror to adjust the cups of the bustier. “Whatever you say.”

When I don’t offer a clever comeback, her gaze snaps to mine, something like apprehension on her face.

I don’t know how to meet this version of her. Not with what I now know. For so long, revenge has been the driving force in my life—but the concept of payback was abstract at a distance. It’s different to look someone in the eye while you take something from them.

The thought of vengeance on the Carrenwells has been the anchor holding me fast through all the chaos of the last ten years. This is the first time I feel apprehension about seeing it through.

“I made you something. It’s on your bed,” she says.

I cross the room to the large bed and notice her gift immediately. A new white throw pillow stands out against the black sheets. The thread stitching on it reads, “Disembowelment?”

“Well?” When I spin to face her, she’s grinning broadly. “The thread is red. I know that’s your favorite. It took me quite a long time, so I’m hoping I finally got it right.”

My wife stitched her next guess at a way to murder me into a throw pillow. I laugh, a real laugh from the sheer shock and absurdity of her relentless commitment to offing me.

She bites her lip. “Does that mean I’m right?”

I shake my head. “I’m sorry, lovely. I don’t have a definitive on that one. You would have to ensure that was the thing to actually kill me because you’d be risking blood loss first.”

She frowns and blows out a labored sigh. “It sounds exceptionally messy, so it’s probably for the best.”

I clear my throat, trying to ignore the fact that she’s nearly naked. “I know you didn’t listen last time I told you this, but tonight is hunt night.”

“How often do you have them?” she asks.

“Hunt nights? Every fifteen days, but when the weather is bad like last night, we move them back to the next clear night for safety. Please stay in our room until I come back to get you.”

She pushes her lower lip into a pout. “Are we not participating, my wolf? It seems the sort of thing that newlyweds would be into.”

The thought of chasing her through the woods and fucking her into submission is very appealing, especially when she’s standing there in nothing but some strategically placed lace.

“No, we’re not participating. Unless you’d like to have an audience for the second time I fuck you.”

She smiles wickedly.

“Harlow, I’m serious. Given the rumors that you started about yourself, I don’t know how people will react, and Stefan could very well be participating. I have a quick errand to run right now. I should be back just after dinner. Poke around as much as you want, but don’t leave the house.”

She continues with her exaggerated pout as she steps into the closet and emerges a moment later in a white off-the-shoulder dress, a hint of dark lace peeking out the top of the sweetheart neckline.

I don’t need to be told it’s white. That’s a color I know on sight. It has to be something she brought with her because I never would have had a white dress made for her. My reaction to seeing my wife in that color is primal and instant. The cut of it is so Divine-damned sexy that a cold sweat breaks out on my skin.

She’s fucking with me—pushing my buttons in the maddening way she enjoys so much. She knows it’s hunt night, so she wore a white dress like prey.

“Harlow.”

“Yes, my wolf?” she says, ignoring the lethal edge to my voice as she closes the distance between us.

“Don’t test me today.”

She walks her fingers up my chest. “Then don’t make the testing so fun.”

I grab her wrist and nip at her finger, and she laughs. “Go to the library or the gallery. Just say you’ll stay inside.”

She rolls her eyes and sighs. “I’ll stay in the house until dinner is over, but I make no promises about after.”

It’s the best I can hope for, given her love of antagonizing me. I pray she learned her lesson after her last adventure ended in her almost dying or worse at the hands of a Breeder.

She grabs a book from her nightstand and settles into the chair by the fire to read.

Gaven isn’t waiting in the hall at his usual post when I leave the bedroom, but that’s not entirely unusual. I know that Harlow sends him to snoop around the house when she knows I’m distracted.

Fortunately, I don’t have to search very long. I find him standing on the back patio, looking down the hill at a couple of guards sparring.

“Do you miss it?” I ask. “I haven’t seen you train since you’ve been here.”

He doesn’t turn to look at me. “I get by fine on my own.”

“If you change your mind, I’d be happy to go a round or two with you, old man.”

He turns to scowl at me, and I hold up my hands in surrender.

“I’m serious,” I say. “The offer stands. We’re going to be spending a lot of time together. I know you’re determined not to like me, but as a matter of practicality, you’re helping to protect my wife⁠—”

“You’re helping to protect my charge,” he counters.

I sigh. “What I mean is we have a similar goal, and it’s in her best interest if we both stay sharp.”

He crosses his arms. “Fine.”

“In the meantime, I have a wedding gift for Harlow I was hoping you could help me with.”

Gaven’s eyebrows shoot up. “Astonishing that you have interacted with her this much and still think you’re going to be able to buy her a gift she likes.”

“Oh, I know she will. It’s a custom set of blades. Can I show you?”

Gaven glances up at the house.

“She’s just reading,” I reassure him. “She won’t try to sneak out until dark. This will only take a few minutes.”

He waves a hand and palms the dagger at his hip, an anxious habit of his. “Lead the way.”

I start down the gravel path toward the armory at an easy pace with his steady footsteps close behind me. If I rush too much, it will set him off.

Instead of going into the armory, I veer off behind it.

Gaven hesitates a step. “They’re not in the armory?”

“This isn’t the kind of gift I want people to know she has.” I take a step closer and lower my voice. “There are ceremonial things I will give her for everyone else. But these blades are for her to defend herself from people who might not be expecting her to be able to. I know you’ve taught her a lot. I want to be sure I’ve picked something she can work with.”

I don’t wait to see if that satisfies him. I just keep walking around the building until finally we reach the holding cells. He doesn’t say anything, but I can read his discomfort as we approach the building.

“No Drained in here this time. No one has been in here since that night, so I figure it was a good place to hide them for now and probably the one place in the whole fort where I’m certain she won’t go looking for something.”

Gaven huffs a laugh. “Pray to the Divine she’s learned her lesson about poking around this building.”

I unlock the heavy metal door, and it groans open. Bryce and Carter aren’t here yet, but they will be soon.

The air inside the building is stale and musty. Afternoon light pours in through the windows on the second floor, highlighting swirling dust motes. He steps past me into the room, his focus entirely on the spot where he killed the Drained the other night.

I don’t know how he knows. Maybe it’s some old fighter’s instinct or just the finely tuned intuition of a man who has been vigilant for so long, but the second I close the door behind Gaven, he spins on me. He draws his dagger, and I feel the prickle of him summoning his magic.

His face morphs from confusion to frustration as he meets my eye.

“Your magic won’t work on me,” I say. “I’m not a danger to Harlow. I’m only a danger to you.”

This is not how I wanted to do this. I know better than to stand between a bodyguard and their charge. I wanted to incapacitate him with the poison blades I had made for Harlow, so we could question him, but that plan is out the window. Now he’s not just fighting for his life. He thinks he’s fighting for hers, too.

Gaven comes at me hard, and he’s better than I expected. I’ve never seen a man his age move with such lethal precision. A sharp sting in my bicep focuses my attention. I didn’t even realize he had two blades until he cut me with that one. Divine know what else he has on him.

If I were anyone else, even a Breeder, his skill and efficiency would be enough. But I have met death many times before and won’t meet it again, at least not from anything in this fight. Not when use of his holy fire requires a threat to Harlow.

I’m younger, faster, and my senses are more attuned than Gaven’s, but it’s the best fight I’ve had in a long time. It takes almost twenty minutes for me to catch him with a blade between his ribs. He stumbles back a step, blood pouring from the wound. He takes a step, but his leg buckles and he goes down on one knee.

I’m going to have to heal him enough to get information, but this will at least slow him down.

“Had enough for now?” I ask.

“That’s a death blow,” he says, panting.

There’s both shock and resignation in his eyes. His salt-and-pepper hair is plastered to his forehead and his usually perfectly pressed shirt, soaked with sweat and blood, sticks to his skin.

“Not for a healer.”

I step forward and rip the blades from his stunned hands, tossing them aside. Then I press my hand to his side and summon my healing magic. It prickles at the edge of my blood-slicked palm, but when I try to weave it into the wound like I have for so many people before, nothing happens. It hovers just over his skin, never quite settling in.

“It won’t work,” he laughs, spitting blood onto the dirt.

“What won’t?”

“Your magic.”

Dread spreads through my blood. “Why?”

“It’s the reason I was hired,” Gaven says. “Surely you looked at me and wondered why Harrick would let me protect her when my only blessing is borrowed.”

My mouth goes dry, my stomach bottoming out at the realization of how badly I’ve miscalculated.

“If you were planning to torture me for information, boy, you’ll be disappointed,” Gaven says. “You won’t be able to magically patch me up and break me down again. I’m impervious to Divine blessings.”

This is why Gaven Pomeroy protects the youngest Carrenwell daughter. He has no Divine gifts, only the borrowed use of holy fire to protect his charge. What he does have is the extremely rare talent of being impervious to Divine magic. I didn’t even know it was possible until now. I want to deny it, but it makes so much sense.

I curse and run to the cabinets on the far side of the room in search of something to stop the bleeding. The last cabinet on the right has some old linen sheets, and I race back to Gaven with them. He’s already on the floor. One hand pressed to his side, his mouth moving in silent prayer.

Pressing the linen to his side, I meet his grave face.

“Why were you poking around the recovery room?” I ask.

Gaven winces, flashing bloody teeth. “It’s the only room I haven’t even been able to get a glimpse into. People come and go, but the security is tighter there than anywhere else in the house.”

This was not how this was supposed to go. While I’m sure Harlow knows a lot about the layout of her family estate, there are surely things that only the family bodyguards would know about what happens during an attack and where family members might be hidden if someone were hunting them.

Gaven grips my wrist hard. “For some reason beyond my comprehension, Harlow likes you. She’ll try to convince you she doesn’t care or have any hope, but she does. She’s left white roses for her sister every week for years, even when she knew Rafe wouldn’t give them to her. I know your goals with her aren’t altruistic, but she deserves better.”

The guilt is a gut punch. I feel the anguish in his words. It’s hard to watch someone mourn their unrecognized potential and the people they love.

“Gaven, why is she here? Why did the Carrenwells agree to this?” I ask.

He’s started shaking, the cold from the blood loss setting in. “They’re afraid of your family and they wanted to find out what you wanted after all these years.”

I’m stunned he’s become so suddenly forthcoming after everything Harlow has told me about his loyalty to her father.

“Don’t look so shocked,” Gaven says. “My loyalty is to her. Not them. You might make your vows with your fingers crossed, but I don’t lie to the Divine. If I make a vow to Vardek to protect someone, I mean it. I have watched over her since the first moment her mother placed her in my arms when she was just a few days old. Liza rarely came to the nursery. She was so busy with her older children, but I was always there. I have watched her every day since, and I have kept my word to Vardek.”

“Yes, when it’s convenient—when it doesn’t put you at odds with your employer,” I snap. “As I understand it, you’ve only been true to that vow in the last few months.”

Gaven’s eyes widen in shock. “She told you.”

“She told me.” There are a lot of things I can forgive a man for. I’ve wandered down many dark roads myself, but being assigned to protect a child and letting someone else abuse her is unforgivable.

Gaven rubs a hand over his face, leaving a smear of blood behind. “When I was young, I didn’t know how to do my job when it was at odds with my employer. I have never forgiven myself for that failure. I see it every time she looks at me. When she was old enough to understand my role in her life, the first thing she learned about me was that I would always protect her—as long as the threat was from outside the family.”

His brutal honesty is jarring. Though it’s been ever-present in my life, I forgot that death is so intimate.

“Why are you telling me all of this now?” I ask.

He looks away and heaves a shuddering sigh. “Because there is no other time to and there’s much to tell.” He winces. “There have been other children blessed by Vardek—new blessings of holy fire. Harrick killed every one of them.”

I stare at him in disbelief. For years, we thought we understood the depths of Harrick Carrenwell’s cruelty, but yet again we have underestimated him. Even the nonbelievers of the fort and city wouldn’t dare to slay a Vardek-blessed child, but the leader of Lunameade has been doing it for years. All to keep his people dependent on him.

“Does Harlow know?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “I’m not supposed to know. He told me one night when he was ranting drunk. He must have forgotten about it or I wouldn’t be here.”

I can’t even begin to process this information, but Gaven slaps my arm.

“Whatever you’re doing with that magic—” He gasps. “You need to tell her.”

“I don’t⁠—”

He squeezes my arm. “Lie to yourself if you need to, but don’t waste your breath on a dead man. I know you’re more than you’ve let on. I may not see auras like she does, but I can sense it, and that feeling has the essence of a different Divine.”

“She knows,” I say.

He frowns. “If she knew, she wouldn’t get so close.”

I look down at the linen in my hand. It’s completely soaked in blood, as are the knees of my pants. Gaven has very little time.

He closes his eyes and swallows thickly. “Tell her I love her. I should have protected her much better than I did. I know she won’t forgive me for what happened six months ago, but I’m sorry anyway.”

“What happened six months ago?”

He presses his lips into a tight line but says nothing.

“Gaven, what’s the urgency?” I ask. “Why the urgency for the Carrenwells? Why did they agree to send her here so quickly?”

He blinks his eyes open. “Their well doesn’t work anymore.”

“Why?”

His head drops, and he loses consciousness for a moment. I slap him, and he startles awake.

“Why doesn’t their well work?” I ask.

Gaven shakes his head. “Don’t know.”

“How do you know it doesn’t work?”

Gaven rasps something that sounds like “Madness.” He shudders with a great, rasping sigh, and his body goes still.

I stare at him in disbelief. One swift swipe of the blade and ten years of meticulous planning have fallen apart.

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