Savage Beauty(34)

“You don’t know the meaning of civility!” Luna raged. “Everyone believes you’re perfect, but they have no idea what kind of monster you truly are. And I won’t stop. I don’t want to be bound to you for an eternity. I can’t live like this anymore, Aura. I won’t.” Luna sighed. “I can’t believe you used Phillip to spy on me. As if sending Pieces wasn’t enough!”

Luna’s eyes darkened a shade. “You just won’t stop.” she said. “So I have to stop you.”

The winds began to rage. All of a sudden, we weren’t in her bedroom, but in Aura’s garden. Rose petals were blowing all around us. “No!” Aura cried. “You’re killing them!”

“Better them than human beings,” Luna muttered.

The ground began to writhe and upheave, and then all hell broke loose as the decomposing bodies of every one of Aura’s victims climbed out of their earthen graves.

“What are you doing?” Aura screamed.

“Look at what you’ve done! LOOK!” Luna screamed at her sister. “You killed them all!”

“I did it to protect us, to protect you! They wanted to kill us for what we were or take our home away. I couldn’t let them win,” Aura argued.

Luna shook her head. “If what you showed me was really William, then you’re just like him. You only ever look out for yourself, which means you deserve every bit of wrath I can rain down on you, sister.”

“Don’t call me sister,” Aura spat. “If you think a spell to break our bond is going to stop me, think again. And you should know that if you come at me, I will end you. I’ll plant you in my garden along with the rest of them!” A decayed man placed his hand on Aura’s shoulder. She screamed in terror as he tore at her pretty white dress.

“Whether you or I die, I’ll finally be rid of you,” Luna said coldly. Aura disappeared and with it, the scene of horror.

I swallowed, watching as Luna turned toward me. Her voice was empty when she told me, “Wake up, Phillip.”



When she woke at twilight, her first thought was of William. “Before I went to sleep you said you weren’t sure William deserved my revenge. Why did you say that about him?” she rasped. What she really wanted to know was if what Aura showed her was really William. If he’d lied and deceived her. I was positive he had.

“Because I knew him better than anyone. You were sixteen when he arrived at the palace, right?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Luna,” I took a breath, “what Aura showed you was the truth.”

“How can you know that?”

“Because I saw William with girls. In Grithim, if he wanted to bed a girl, he would act the same way. Get close to her. Pretend to be caring and devoted. He would even tell her that he loved her and that he would make her the Princess of our Kingdom. And when he got what he wanted from her, he left her behind to face the consequences of a ruined reputation.”

A tear slipped from her eye.

“I know you loved him, but William,” he paused, “was very good at playing the part in order to get what he wanted. He was a good liar, an even better manipulator of persons, but I never even heard him tell our mother—not even once—that he loved her. Those words meant nothing to him. He only used them if they could get him the thing he wanted most.”

“I was stupid.”

“You were young.”

“My sister was right. I was pathetic, falling in love with the first boy who spouted what I wanted to hear.”

I shook my head. “It was what you needed to hear, and he preyed on that because he thought he could somehow kill you and Aura and take Virosa for Grithim. If he had come home and told our father that he’d slain two fae Princesses and taken a Kingdom, he would have been heralded as a savior and made into a legend, which is what my brother always wanted.”

“And you? What do you want?”

“I just want you to be safe.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re my friend.”

“Friends don’t kiss each other the way we do,” she laughed, her eyelids drooping heavily.

I kissed her temple. “I know.”

This was too fast. Our emotions were heightened by the direness of the situation, of the web of truths and lies that we were trying to untangle. She was still only seventeen, and I was only twenty. She needed to find herself before she decided how she felt about me. She needed to untether herself to have the freedom to learn who she truly was.

Maybe that would be enough. If she were free, and if now she knew what William had done and who he really was, maybe she could forget about seeking revenge on her sister and just live her own life. Her way.

Maybe I could be a part of it.

The sleep walking and sheer emotion of learning the truth, that someone she cared for wasn’t perfect after all, had worn her out. Luna and I stayed in that night. She argued that time was running out and it was, but she needed to rest. The fact that she didn’t put up much of a fight meant she knew it, too. She couldn’t garner the magic she needed, couldn’t fight Aura unless she got her energy back.

So I cooked and we ate dinner. We talked into the early morning hours until I could barely hold my eyes open and the sun began to lighten the sky. Our night together came to an end, but it had been worth it. She knew that she had to do this for herself. Not for William. And Aura could no longer use him against her. She’d lost an edge over Luna, and I couldn’t have been happier.