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Saint
There’s a pounding in my head that won’t let up. Thud. Thud. Thud. My eyes are fixed on a single spine from a book on the shelf. It beams at me like headlights guiding a stray car on a stormy night.
Tears pour down my cheeks as my heart cracks in my chest. No matter how hard I try, I know I’ll never stop the tears, so I let them run rampant. Run wild and free. My mouth slams closed and the silence that interferes is almost deafening, considering how loud my screams were.
“Hey!” Bishop pushes my hair back off my face and I turn to see him. Brantley must move closer, too, because his fingers wrap around my hand.
“Hi,” I whisper, but my throat throbs and my eyes sting. “What happened?” My mind is blank. I try to think over the last thing I remember but come up short. It’s not until I look down at what I’m wearing that I remember.
The wake.
The pool.
The castle.
The feeling of death.
People surround me, but I can’t see them clearly yet, not until I crawl onto Brantley’s lap. He stiffens before his heavy, long arms wrap around my body, pulling me into his chest. He spreads his legs out to cradle me comfortably. “What happened, Dea?”
I close my eyes. If it wasn’t for the fact my t-shirt was drenched, I wouldn’t have known I was still crying. “I—” It all comes back at once.
I whimper, moving into Brantley’s chest. “It doesn’t matter. It’s over.”
“No, it does matter.”
“Saint,” Hector says, leaning forward while resting his elbows on his knees. Scarlet is quiet beside him. “Please. It will be good to know you are not going to be haunted every time you close your eyes.”
“I won’t be,” I say, swallowing past the emotion that’s sticky in my throat.
“How so?” Bishop asks carefully, his thumb circling my arm.
I turn to face Tillie. My beautiful sister who is filled with so much strength and resilience that it bled down to her daughter. “Because my niece made sure of it.”
There are gasps.
I roll off both of the men who hold me and fall down in front of Tillie, whose eyes are filled with a pain I have not seen before. Either she conceals it well or I’ve unleashed something I maybe shouldn’t have.
I bring my hands to hers and watch as the first few tears fall down her cheeks. “She has your eyes now.”
Tillie chokes on her tears, her hand coming to her mouth.
I continue, because everything I experienced, she and Nate need to know. To understand. To just know. “She has Nate’s mouth and face shape, but she has your eyes. She has a strength I didn’t know existed.”
“Is she? Is she—” Tillie shakes her head, unable to get the words out. Madison’s hand finds hers.
“She came to me as a young girl, not a baby. I’m not sure if that was intentional, but it’s what she chose. She has blonde hair and eyes the color of teal. She didn’t speak. She guided me through a pitch-black tu
I slowly hand her the book. “I don’t know what this means, but I think it’s of significance to her.”
Tillie bursts into tears and Nate crushes her face into his neck, holding her tightly.
“It was quick. I’m sorry. Veronica wasn’t going to let me go. But Micaela—” I turn to Madison, “And Daemon, and—” I suck in a breath, knowing this next part is going to push them all over, “—Lucan.”
“I’m never letting you go, Saint.” Veronica’s words were harsh as she finally clicked her fingers and light came spilling in. We were at the cemetery now, and it wasn’t until she began twisting and turning, her eyes flying around the place that I realized she didn’t mean to take us here.
“Watching you continue to be a spiteful bitch was entertaining, Veronica.” Lucan. I paled, and everything deep inside my gut told me to run. That fight-or-flight instinct kicking in. I didn’t want to fight him. Not ever. He would win every time.
“No!” Veronica turned over her shoulder, and I finally looked up to see Lucan sauntering closer to where we sat. He leaned against the unmarked headstone, tapping his fingers on it. “Since I died, Saint, I’ve been trying to keep this bitch away from you.”
“Shut up!” Veronica spat, glaring at him.
Lucan ignored her, moving forward. “I appeared as Brantley for one reason, and one reason only: to gain your trust. I thought if I came as him, you might trust the words I was going to tell you. Only that fell to shit because one, you knew it wasn’t him, and two, well…” he shrugged, “…because of who I am. I’m no saint—” He snickers. “And I’m everything bad they say I am, but if there’s one thing that I will always fight for, that’s for my heritage. Brantley had every intention of stopping the King Vitiosis lineage, and I simply could not let that happen.” He turned to Veronica. “You’re so hell-bent on your hatred for me that you became desperate and obsessed with destroying our son.”
“Our son,” she seethed, “killed you and ordered the kill on me. Our son is nothing but evil.”
“Maybe,” Lucan answered. “But look at his parents. You thought I thought you were dead all this time, but I knew you weren’t. I knew of your hatred for him and it ran too deep for that to happen.”
“You took me when I was twelve years old!” she screamed, and I winced. For a moment, I saw her as a young child, hopeless and at Lucan’s mercy. I felt sick with the image in my head.
His head tilted. “Veronica, you were homeless, being tossed around from man to man for The Vatican. I took you, yes, but I gave you everything you wanted. I didn’t treat you the way that all the other men did. I didn’t even fuck you the way they did.”
Her face turned blank, as if being triggered by her past. In this moment, I felt for her. She was a woman in pain, who directed it at the wrong person.
I cleared my throat. “Veronica, you directed your hatred at the wrong person. It was never Brantley’s fault for what you went through.”
Lucan smiled at me, and I couldn’t help but curl my lip in disgust.
“Helping me doesn’t make what you did to all those people right, Lucan. What you did to your son. He still lives with those demons, he and Madison both.”
“I’m not trying to right my wrongs, Saint. I’m just making sure you live to have that baby.”
I don’t realize that I’m holding my breath until I notice everyone watching me with eager eyes. “He helped them push her out. I’m not making excuses for him, and I’m not making excuses for her.” I bring my eyes up to Brantley. His jaw is hard, his eyes cold. “They were both bad people. You are not, Brantley. You are not going to be like them. You were the product of their war. It’s why you could never find peace.” I sigh, closing my eyes to stop from watching pain flash over his. “Micaela and Daemon were there to get me through. They said I wouldn’t have to worry about anyone again. Not from The Kings’ world anyway, unless they get through the two of them. Something tells me, no one will be able to do that.” I stifle a laugh, snuffing my ru