Maven doesn't deny any of it. "I'm going to kill your father next. Does that bother you?"
I adore how blunt she is. "Quite the opposite. Tell me any way I can help."
"I see the burning hatred is mutual."
"More than. Morals have never influenced me much, and I have enough blood on my hands to paint a continent, but compared to Somnus, I'm a saint. He's the reason I've spent much of my life hunting down predators to dish out my own form of justice."
Maven traces the piercing in my eyebrow as if lost in thought. She's touching me so freely tonight, and each time she does, my heart rate doubles.
"Sexual predators, you mean," she clarifies finally, then starts healing my hand once more. "That must have something to do with you slaughtering all those humans in court."
"They were all complicit in allowing a serial rapist to go free. Many were bribed, others acquiesced. I decided to rid the world of that level of cowardice."
"Good. And the rapist?"
He's the reason I came to Halfton in the first place weeks ago. I received a mysterious, anonymous tip that the man who walked free, who I was so looking forward to torturing, would be in the area. And while I didn't find him in Halfton, I did come across the faint, lingering remnants of the most uniquely stunning aura I'd ever seen—Maven's aura.
After that, I'd been searching for her. I returned to Everbound and attended the Seeking, hoping to see who that beautiful, shimmering dark mauve aura belonged to. And the moment I saw her standing on that stage, everything ceased to exist for me beyond her.
"Not yet," I reply softly, barely resisting the urge to kiss her again. Instead, I touch the softness of her dark hair again, toying with it.
She studies me. "I heard you also killed Silas's parents' keeper. And his uncle."
"Technically, they killed themselves," I muse. "I only planted the seed in their minds. Constantly."
"You must have had a reason."
My lips twist up. "Must I have?"
When she raises a brow expectantly, I sigh and release her hair. This is something I never intended to tell anyone. Still, I'm thoroughly enjoying this openness with my dark little darling. If I'm an open book for her, perhaps she'll return the favor one day.
"Omar Crane, the keeper of Silas's parents' quintet, was a wolf shifter with a sickness. The kind of perverted sickness of the mind that I hunt down at every chance. He enjoyed taking advantage of children, especially the children of powerful legacy families."
Her face darkens with the same wrath I feel every time I find one of those disgusting bastards.
I look away. "Unfortunately, I had to become intimately familiar with that sycophant's mind in order to more effectively break it, so I know that for him, it was a power trip. Ruining the heirs of his competitors in secret, hiding his putrid fantasies from the world. And when I was in his dreams, exploring his psyche to find the best ways to unravel him, I realized that he had his eye set on..."
I hesitate. Should I tell her this? It may only upset her.
"Set on?"
"Decimus," I mutter.
Her eyes widen in shocked outrage. I was right. This is upsetting her, so I hurry to finish and get it over with.
"He was eight years old at the time and drew too much attention as the miracle child of the revered Decimus family. Which means he drew Omar Crane's attention, too, in all the worst ways. When I discovered that, I unraveled Omar's mind piece by fucking piece until he craved death more than anything else. Watching him drive that silver through his own forehead was beyond satisfying, and I have never once regretted it."
Maven takes a moment as if trying to compose herself despite overwhelming emotions. Then she whispers, "You killed Silas's family to protect Baelfire."
How utterly soft that makes me seem. I make a noncommittal noise and study my previously injured hand. It still stings like hell, and the gradually regenerating skin is bright red, but at least it's no longer half-melted.
"It was a domino effect," I explain. "I only drove their keeper and Crane’s uncle insane because they were involved in trafficking. The rest of the lot killed each other or themselves on their own after that, driven by curses and such. But Crane would never believe me if I told him that. He's much more comfortable hating me for it, so I've never bothered explaining."
She nods and then sits beside me on the bed. "If Baelfire was eight, you would have been…thirteen?"
"Something like that."
"You're very sweet, in a fucked up way," she informs me.
