Chapter 75: Chapter 75

KILLIAN

My hands were bleeding. I hadn’t noticed how tightly I was clenching my fists until the smell of blood reached me. Slowly, I unclenched them, blankly staring down at my hands, and the sight of the blood made that night replay in my mind for the nth time.

It had been a day since Lenore had been mind-controlled… a day since my life had been turned upside down.

Though I had no idea how my father had worded it, what he'd commanded her to do was clear. And now her mind was fracturing because she was fighting so hard against what his magic had written into her nature.

I clenched my fist again and pressed my forehead against it, my chest tightening.

Through no fault of theirs, humans were weak, and when my mother gave my father the ability to mind-control others, it was never designed to be used against them. It was never even meant to be used in offense—only as a last resort defense. But the man he became after that stupid prophecy was not the man she’d fallen in love with… or perhaps he’d always been.

Before yesterday, there’d only been ten humans my father had puppeteered. It could have been more, but according to what was made public, it was just ten. The first had been an accident—a maid my father had come across while enraged after my mother’s death—but the rest had been some sort of… experiment. And the results revealed that mind-control on humans couldn’t be reversed.

But that hadn’t deterred us because there was a supernatural species that had never been mind controlled before… witches. I had no doubt that my father had tried, but if he’d succeeded, he would have never shut up about it. And though the witches he’d consorted with had claimed they couldn’t undo his mind-control on those humans, witches lied a lot.

Fabien had reached out to Celeste to find a witch, but she didn’t have one who could—was willing to—help, and she couldn’t reach the witch that took Aurel’s blood. He’d also reached out to my uncle who proceeded to come over this morning with potions and whatnots.

None of them worked though, and before he left, he’d told me to ask my mother for help.

My mother… I’d thought of trying to find her before he mentioned it, but my mind might as well be fracturing too because fear was blocking me from falling asleep. What if I fell asleep and my father came for her again?

This wouldn’t be happening in the first place if I’d been awake when he summoned her after all.

This is your fault, echoed in my mind and I swallowed around the lump in my throat. For decades, I’d done my best to make sure I’d never feel this helpless again, but I’d failed… I’d failed to protect my Lenore.

Just as I’d failed to protect my mother.

The door across from me opened and I lifted my gaze to see Lenore’s brother walking out of the bedroom. The grim expression mirrored what was pulsing through my veins, and I leaned to the side, catching a glimpse of Lenore on the bed before he shut the door.

“She’s still asleep,” he said and I gritted my teeth, nodding.

It had been Calley’s idea to sedate her last night and keep her that way until we figured out how to undo my father’s mind-control because she’d screamed relentlessly when we restrained her. It was like the fact that she couldn’t get to me was killing her. And when she woke up a couple of hours ago, after we gave her the potions my uncle brought… gods, I’d thought she was better. She’d seemed so calm and smiled at me when I drew closer. But then she wrapped her hands around my throat.

“I—” Lenore’s brother started, snapping me out of my thoughts. He was leaning against the door and staring at me like he was trying to figure something out.

He hadn’t believed Aurel at first when he told him what had happened and had been beyond pissed when he saw how we’d restrained her, but then he’d seen her try to strangle me.

Apparently, he’d thought something was wrong with her last night, but assumed he was just overthinking.

He dragged his hand over his face. “...How did you two start?” He wanted to understand why any of this was happening—how she came to matter so much to me that she was going through this.

I could have ignored him. I could have given him the vague answers Lenore gave him. But I wanted to feel something other than helplessness right now.

“I saw her in my father’s palace the first day she was here,” I said. “I thought she was a witch.”

Confusion crossed his face. “And?”

“...I tried to kill her.”

His eyes blew wide while he took a step forward like the words had pulled him on a string. When he spoke, his voice was deadly quiet. “What did you say?”

“The day before you came here, she tried to leave the palace after finding out my… father had given her to me,” I added while he took another step forward. “And I tried to kill her agai—”

Using the momentum of his next step, Cameron threw a hard punch to my jaw and the hit knocked me into the wall next to me. He must be wearing his enchanted necklace because my ears rang with the crack of bone meeting bone.

That’s better.

When I returned my gaze to him, his expression was a mixture of anger and confusion and his fist collided with my face again. I could taste blood now.

After the third hit, he stopped but tension still radiated from his shoulders and his expression warred with a visible urge to continue. “Why the fuck is she with you then?”

I spat the blood that had gathered in my mouth on the floor before dragging the back of my hand over my mouth. It left a crimson streak across my knuckles and as I stared at it, I said the words I hadn’t told her yet, “She’s my mate.”

That answer threw Cameron for a loop and he blinked at me like I’d grown another head. “That’s not possible.”

“But it is.”

She was mine and I was hers, and I badly wanted her back.