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William frowned. “If she’s not here, where is she?”
August laughed as he levered himself away from the wall. “She wasn’t real. I made her up to get you here.”
The bastard stared at August, a muscle twitching in his cheek. When August performed a mocking bow, his gaze snapped to me. “Why?”
“Why?” I echoed, the word carrying far more emotion than I intended. “Why what? Why don’t I have an imaginary girl here?”
“Why go to all this trouble to have a meeting with me?”
I laughed as I stepped closer, the sound bitter as my fury rose. I tamped it down, reminding myself to stay calm. If you were angry, you made mistakes, and I’d waited too long to fuck this up. “Surely, you knew that one day a relative of one of those poor women would come looking for you. You’d have to be stupid not to know that.”
“Most of them don’t have relatives. That’s why they’re chosen. I provide a new family for them. I provide―”
I raised my free hand, the hidden knife still behind my back. “Don’t,” I said, my finger trembling with the force of emotion. “Don’t give me all that religious bullshit. It doesn’t wash with me. It’s just the three of us here. No Seekers, so we can call it what it is… an excuse for you to do whatever the fuck you want, to collect women like they’re trophies and throw them to the wolves once they don’t have the attributes you want or you’re sick of them. Serena deserved better.”
William nodded. “Ah, Serena, is it?” He studied my face, eyes narrowing. “Yes, I can see it now. In the nose and the mouth. Not so much the eyes. Serena had brown eyes.”
“She had my mother’s eyes. I have my father’s,” I said, the words sounding like they were squeezed through the smallest of apertures.
“She broke the rules. She accepted her punishment.”
“Your rules,” August said from the corner, “are arbitrary at best, and very much geared toward punishing women rather than men. When was the last time you tied a man to that stake?”
“It’s happened.”
“Not my question. When was the last time? This year? Last year? Two years ago?”
The bastard’s shrug was unsatisfactory. “I’d have to check my records.”
August laughed with derision. “Yeah, you do that.”
He studied August. “The Lord does not appreciate turncoats.”
“The Lord,” August spat, “is not a consideration in my life. Never has been. Never will be.” He ripped the robe over his head and tossed it to the floor, rolling his shoulders as if shrugging off both a physical and metaphorical weight. He shoved it with his foot. “Anyone got a match?”
“So, the visions,” the bastard said, “you made those up too?”
“I did,” August confirmed.
The bastard’s gaze darted between the two of us. “So what happens now you have me here?”
“You die,” I said simply. “I might not have been able to save Serena, but it will save future women from being used and abused by you. I can at least do that for her.”
The bastard raised his chin. “Where were you when we spent weeks wooing her? And yes, you heard me right… weeks. Not days. She was a tough nut to crack.”
If he’d meant it as a slight, it wasn’t. It made me feel better to know she’d put up a fight, that the sister I remembered hadn’t been completely gone. “In the army.” I drew the knife out from behind my back and held it in front of me. “So, death is nothing new for me.”
“Now would be a good time,” the bastard announced.
I frowned at the words, and at how loudly he’d spoken them, realization coming too slowly that he hadn’t meant them for me or August.
So slow that another man stepped into the room before I’d finished processing the thought, gun raised but not pointed at anyone.
Chapter Thirty
August
William wasn’t so naïve after all was my first thought as Bruce stepped inside the room. Fuck followed close behind. He must have sent Bruce ahead with instructions to wait at the cliff’s bottom and follow when we knew our destination. Bruce had probably used the same hiding place Keaton and I had, which meant I should have known to check it. At the very least, I should have made sure I knew where he was before leaving the castle.
