Savage Beauty(22)

“I’m sorry,” were the last words I spoke before slipping away into the comforting darkness.



“You’ve been keeping secrets, sister.” Aura pushed my hair away from my face. “Whose mark is this on your lips and cheek? You let a dark fae mark you, and yet a handsome young man is staying at your cottage? Funny. He looks a lot like William.”

She conjured him then; a vision of William standing with his hands folded behind his back. The angry stitches holding him together glared at me. “He says it’s his little brother,” Aura whispered. “Phillip? Is that his name, dear?” she asked William.

“Yes,” he answered in his deep timbre voice, his eyes still fixated on me; the eyes that brought all of the guilt and pain to the surface once again. There was something strange about him. He almost looked... angry.

“I’d like to meet him,” she said nonchalantly, pushing her cuticles back.

“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” I said, sitting up straight.

“Why, Luna. Surely, you’ve learned your lesson about sharing by now. We are two halves of a whole. What’s yours is mine.”

“Not this time,” I gritted, willing the floor to fill with scorpions.

She raised her feet up onto the mattress and rolled her eyes. “Always so dramatic. Don’t you ever tire of the darkness?”

“No more than you tire of the light.”

“How did you meet him? You must tell me all about him. Is he very much like William?”

Was he like William? No, he wasn’t. William was... selfish. As much as I loved him, he loved himself more. It took time, distance, and seeing Phillip’s instinctual reactions to realize it. Maybe that was why it stung so badly now. I loved William more than he loved me, and I only now saw it because of his brother’s nature.

“I can pay him a little visit tomorrow,” she cooed. “I have to know more about the man who stole your heart.”

“No one has stolen my heart.”

“I beg to differ. Peace showed me your reaction. When he stepped onto the porch and you knew I would see him, you were terrified. If you didn’t truly care for him, you wouldn’t have responded in such a way. Yes, I think I’ll visit him. Perhaps we can chat about his feelings for you. And perhaps he’ll change his mind about you when he sees how poisonous you are,” she said pleasantly, shaking a scorpion off her white boot.

William waited patiently as the floor writhed, but I kept the creatures from him. I knew it wasn’t really him, but it didn’t matter. I would never hurt him. And I wanted her to know that even though she was the one who brought him here, it wouldn’t be me who harmed him. Just as it wasn’t me who tore him apart. It was her.

Inwardly, my anger turned to anticipation. Would she wear the same smile when she learned she was bound to her castle? Would her roses wither when she could no longer tend them? Would her killings stop?

As much as we were opposite, we shared a few of the same traits. Aura was tenacious. Determined. Stubborn and vengeful. She would find a way out eventually, and when she did, she would try to make me pay. Not physically, but emotionally.

She would strike at Phillip.

I turned the scorpions into serpents. Every shade of venomous species in existence slithered around her, writhing beneath her boots and stretching their bodies up onto the mattress. “Seriously, Luna. You have to stop this childish behavior.”

“I’ll stop when you stop,” I said sweetly, pushing her from my head. I hoped she bruised her ass when she fell from my dreams.





chapter nine




PHILLIP

Luna hovered in the air above her bed. Gone was the peaceful sleep I first found her in. Today she thrashed and fought against something, her chest heaving, teeth gritted, and her cheeks puffing with every exhalation. “Stay away from him,” she growled.

She’d been so desperate outside, afraid for me. The dove she’d warned me about had seen me, and like Ember, the fowl’s eyes were intelligent, calculating.

But Luna was so weak she couldn’t stand. She couldn’t even crawl toward the house. She tried, but was too exhausted. This strange cycle she was stuck in drained most of the life and energy from her. Her sister was stuck in a similar, but opposite cycle, if I understood it correctly.

While Luna slept, I read, pausing occasionally to digest the information. Aura was ruled by the day and Luna by the night, opposites that needed one another to survive. In the day, Aura thrived while Luna ruled in the darkness, each sleeping during the opposite times of day and in opposite seasons, Aura hibernating in winter while Luna slept in summer.

I moved one of the kitchen chairs into her room to watch over her.

Something must have happened last night.

Her lips were black and a dark crescent moon had been painted on her cheek. I knew she’d left to find the dark fae from reading her diary, but what did he do to cause these marks and make her fall off her broom when she came near the ground?

She didn’t look injured, just exhausted. But if he hurt her...

Luna whimpered and a sheen of sweat broke out on her forehead. I held her hand, rubbing soothing circles onto the back of it. She finally calmed and slept less fitfully, but the day was long, the longest I’d experienced, while waiting for night to bring her back to life.