I squeezed my eyes shut.
Fuck this. Not again. Not now.
I was weak, so weak. I was falling apart because I couldn’t have what I wanted, like a spoiled child throwing his toys around his room.
We all needed to be strong now, together, to prepare for what was coming. Corbin seemed confident that the way to stop the fae would present itself in his books, but I knew better. Battles like this were won in blood. That was what our parents had learned. My legacy was to fight.
Blood was the only language I understood.
I have to fight for Maeve, for Mum, for Corbin and Rowan and Flynn and Jane and Connor, because second chances were everything and they all deserved to experience joy and peace. Which meant I couldn’t keep wallowing in this. I had to get it out of myself, the only way I knew how.
I grabbed the sword, and held it against my skin, laying it over the crisscrossed scars – an open book of my past weaknesses written across my body.
I gritted my teeth against the pain that was coming. The healing pain that would give me the strength I needed.
I drew the blade until blood flowed.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
MAEVE
Ihad a fivesome.
Afivesome.
I didn’t even know there was a technical term for that.
The five of us collapsed against the Chesterfield sofa, our naked bodies tangled together. As the endorphins wore off and the last tendrils of my magic floated off to join the others, my mind wandered. My eyes counted the gilded leaves that bordered the painted panels on the ceiling, and then I noticed the panels themselves. Painted in a Renaissance style – although I suspected they were 17th-century copies – they depicted scenes from the Bible. Angels resplendent in gauzy fabrics bore the righteous up to heaven, while demons boiled the sinners in the hellish scenes below.
I thought about the Crawfords.
Kind of a buzz killer to remember your parents after amazing sex with four gorgeous guys, but those panels made me think of all the sermons Dad had given during Sunday service, all the times he leaned out from behind his lectern, admonishing us that Hell was real, that it waited for fornicators and sorcerers and people who did not know the Glory of God. He never said it,but I knew he included ‘Atheists’ amongst those not entering the Kingdom of Heaven.
I loved my parents with all my heart. I missed them so much that my chest ached. I tried my best to run my life according to the example they set. But in the month since they’d been taken from me, I’d already broken every hard rule they’d ever tried to drill into me.
Witch, fornicator, atheist, worshipper of false idols.Take your pick. I’d racked up an impressive rap sheet of sins.
I couldn’t believe I thought they’d somehow approve of what I’d done. In their worldview, I’d be going to Hell. I’d be boiled in pitch and separated from my limbs and little demons would be jabbing pitchforks in my butt. I’d be sentenced to pushing a stone up a hill forever. Eagles would have a field day on my liver.
When I mulled over this choice for the last couple of days, I thought of it as following their lead, as thinking for myself and not listening to what society or religion or whatever told me to do. And now, I’d never felt further from them. Lying in that pile of bodies, I suddenly felt completely, incomprehensibly alone.
I sat up, sliding my legs out from under Corbin. I hunted around on the rug and on top of the globe bar for my clothes. My fingers trembled as I tugged my shirt over my head and zipped up my skirt.
“Maeve?” Rowan’s head popped up from the pile. He lay on Corbin’s chest, his long eyelashes tangled together and his dreadlocks splayed out in all directions.
“I have to go,” I said.
“Are you okay?”
Trust Rowan to see the panic in my face.
“Yes. I’m fine. I just need togo.”
I raced out of the room before Rowan could reply, before the tears I’d been holding back could spill over. They did this now as I fled up the stairs.
At the top of the first flight, my mother’s gaze caught my eye. I stumbled in front of the painting, gasping and sobbing as I saw her expression.
Her face was twisted again – not with horror, but with concern. Her wide eyes gazed at me like she wanted to ask me what was wrong.
