Thirteen
HAVEN
Iwasn’t dead.
My eyes were crusted shut. Exhaustion made twitching even a finger an impossibility. My back ached. Ached, not burned. Aching was better than burning. Aching was way better than death.
The air carried the scent of lavender and something medicinal—sharp and clean, nothing like the stale dampness of the pit that had clung to my nostrils for days.
I’d been moved. Clean linen sheets replaced the rough stone floor. The mattress beneath me was soft enough that my body had actually sunk into it. After days on a cold, hard floor, it felt luxurious.
“When will she wake up?” Grayson snapped. My being unconscious inconvenienced him? Was he just eager to resume torturing me? What an asshole.
“She almost died,” a woman replied. “And she’s not out of the woods yet.”
I was, but I wasn’t about to pry my eyes open and tell her. Especially not with Grayson in the room.
“Can you hurry this along?” he demanded.
How is she? Will she recover?No such questions for Grayson. Instead, he reduced me to “this.” Such. An. Asshole.
“So you can beat her again?” the woman shot back. She was my hero.
“You dare?”
“I changed your diapers. I held your hand when you learned to walk. Dried your tears and patched your childhood wounds.” She tsked. “I hoped you would grow into a man I could be proud of.” Her tone made it clear he hadn’t.
Ouch. She was definitely my hero.
“We had no choice. Either Drake whipped her or Carron killed her. Those were our options.”
“And the poison?”
“Poison?” Grayson was loud enough to shake my bed.
I barely kept myself from flinching.
“You didn’t know?” the woman asked.
“I did not.”
“Then I’d say Carron did kill her, and Drake tortured her on her way to death.”
“She’s not dead.” Did he think my clinging to life somehow excused them?
“By rights, she should be. They used ricopin. No one survives that. Combine ricopin, her wounds, hunger, and dehydration, and she should be dead four times over. The fates must have plans for her.”
Nope. No, thank you. Hard no. The fates could keep their plans. I was still alive thanks to Grandmother and her potions, not the fates’ dubious auspices.
“She’s just a shield.” I could hear Grayson’s sneer. In his entitled mind, a shield was beneath the fates’ notice. Not that I wanted them to notice me.
“What happened to that sweet boy who used to bring meflowers from the garden? Who cried when he accidentally stepped on a beetle?” The woman sounded genuinely curious.
“We’re fighting two wars. I can’t afford to coddle a shield.”
“No one would accuse you of that.” Her voice was as dry as dust.
“Wake her up.”
