“Get out of the way, Caledon. You can’t protect her any longer. Father has looked the other way but this ends now. She dies tonight. And if you won’t kill her, I will.”
And you will follow, hovered unspoken in the air.
“I don’t think my sparrow wants to go with you. She belongs to me, Ben. I know it must be hard for you, seeing her come to me so tamely; especially when your sparrow was so eager to be rid of you, she died screaming your sins.”
A low growl came from Ben’s muscled throat. “Father agrees with me.”
“Of course he does. He wants us all to be as cold and miserable as he is. Haven’t you noticed how he thrills to our fights? Who do you think left that book out for Noelle to find in the first place?”
Ben’s mouth fell open like a gasping barracuda’s. “You’re lying,” he said at last, uncertainly, wan and sickly in the moonlight, with smudged shadows under his eyes. Cal didn’t know what his father had told Ben after his wife’s death, and had never thought to ask, but it was clear that he was thinking on it now and that it offered no relief.
“Father lost his faith in sparrows years ago. You’ve seen how he treats our mother. All he’d like to do is hunt and fuck. It doesn’t really matter if Noelle had accepted you or not, Ben. Father would have found a way to split you apart eventually, just as he never really would have let you have Nadine.”
He felt her flinch, small and silent behind him. It wounded his heart.
“You’re fuckinglying,” Ben screamed, startling an owl from the trees.
“Ask Father. He’s been grooming you for this your whole life, Benjamin. Every speck of brick. Every drop of blood. All leading to this—ask him what he intends for you.”
“I told you to get out of the way.”
Ben rushed him. To Cal’s surprise, he didn’t fire his gun, despite his earlier threat. When he lunged, it was with the butt of his rifle, which he obviously intended to use to pry them apart. Cal would never know if this was a vestigial mercy or if Ben merely wanted to extend the effects of his cruelties by making him watching the death of another woman in the woods.
He would never know because he swung up his own rifle and instinctively fired before it even occurred to him to ask. His reflexes had always been better than his brother’s or his father’s, and the hunter never expected to be the quarry.
Ben’s head exploded.
Blood formed a black mist in the moonlight, freckling Cal’s face and chest. He was a crack shot and at this distance, there was very little to correct when it came to aim.
Cal stood there, swaying on his feet with exhaustion and shock, watching Ben’s brain slide out from the hole in the back of his head before the rest of him followed with a wet thud. “Fuck.” Cal’s gun slipped out of his sweaty hands and hung uselessly in front of him as he stared at his brother’s corpse. He heard his sparrow gag behind him. Which reminded him—
It isn’t over yet.
Shaking himself, he bent to grip Nadine behind her knees, swinging her into his arms with a grunt to avoid putting pressure on her wound. She fell back in his arms, limp and unresisting despite what she’d just see him do. She was in shock. So was he.
They passed Odessa on the way back to the house. She was still in the same spot but now the bottle of Champagne was nearly half-empty and she was dancing in place to keep warm. She lifted her eyes as they passed, lingering on the blood on his chest.
“Did you kill a deer?”
“I killed a raven.”
“Baby Cal.” Her voice lost its slurred archness. “You didn’t—”
“I left my gun. The safety isn’t on.” He turned away. “Please get it for me.”
“It’s not supposed to work like that!” she shouted after him. “You’re not supposed toturnon each other. It’s only supposed to be about the deer!”
What had she thought would happen, when she sent Nadine to him? When she had chosenhimover Ben? Surely, on some level, she must have understood the fate she was condemning their brother to when she acknowledged Nadine was, and always would be, his sparrow.
You’re not the only one who’s been living in a fairytale.
His sparrow gripped at him, fingers slipping at his sweat-slicked neck. Reminding him what was at stake.
“You killed your brother,” she said shakily.
“I know.”
“What’s your father going to do? Wasn’t he the heir? What happens when you kill the wrong person? What happens, Cal?” she demanded, voice rising when she received no answer.
