Burnt Devotion (7 page)

“Wyn?” I asked, the steadiness of my voice sounding unfamiliar to me.

“That’s how,” she breathed, the words taking far more effort than should be necessary.

Her eyes fluttered open from where she leaned against Thom, a playful smile dancing on her face at what she had accomplished, despite the fact that the risk and danger to her had been great.

“I used to do this to Cail,” she gasped, squeezing my hand. “Bind his heart with a shield. It kept Edmund out of the Štít and his mind. It gave him freedom. You feel it, don’t you? Free?”

I could only nod. “A Štít? Is that what he did to me?”

“No,” Sain answered, his voice sounding louder without the competition inside of me. “What he has done to you is much more dire. You are his son. You already have his blood, so he can control you without such complex methods. You will never escape what he has done to you. You must become stronger than it.”

My stomach dropped at the accusation, a million memories of what I’d had to endure as
his son
flooding me. Every beating, every snub, every moment I was ridiculed. Perhaps it was because I didn’t want it to be true. I didn’t want him to ‘own’ any more of me. I didn’t want Sain to be right.

Even though he was.

“But, right now … Everything is clear … like when we were in the waiting place.”

“Yes, but even in the waiting place you were plagued by the monsters Edmund placed inside your soul. Wyn has only shielded your soul from the monsters, but the memories and the emotions are still there. She has just made it easier to decipher them.”

I knew he was right. Even though the voice was gone, even though I felt more of what I used to be, I wasn’t whole. I still had the memories of Joclyn hunting and hurting me, memories of a distorted version of me that he had used against me from the moment he had broken my mind, when he had begun to take ‘me’ away.

Everything tensed as the memories began to grow, weighing me down until it was hard to breath.

As much as I didn’t want to admit it, I knew Sain was right. I had more to defeat than the voice. I had to rise above what Edmund had done to me from the beginning.

What he had created.

What I had become.

None of this was me.

I was dangerous.

My breath heaved with a shake as I let the shield cover me, savoring the freedom of my mind for as long as Wyn could give me the gift.

“Don’t give into it, Ry,” Wyn said, her voice shaking as I felt the shield begin to slip, her exhausted magic retreating back into her.

I wanted to scream at her not to leave, but with one look, I knew there was nothing I could do to stop her. Besides, what little calm I had been given had been a lifesaver. Like a reset button, it had given me another chance to gain control of my mind.

I lay back against the wall as I prepared for the onslaught and steeled my mind against the voice that was coming. I promised myself I could defeat it, even if I felt as weak as Wyn looked.

The stone was strangely comforting as I huddled against it, pressing myself into it, wishing that somehow I could fall asleep and escape the voice for a while along with the acute longing to attack and hunt Jos down.

This much anger, this much hatred wasn’t me. Well, it didn’t used to be. Not before my father took control. Not before he changed me.

Before him I would have done anything for Jos. I sacrificed myself for her, because of the carefree life she gave me.

He had taken that all away.

I pressed my body into the stone again, right as it began to shake, right as the feral sounds of a never-ending pain echoed through the abbey, rippling through my bones until it was as if I felt it for myself.

I knew exactly what it was.

“What was that?” Wyn asked, her voice sounding half exasperated and half fearful as the building shook underneath us again.

“Ilyan,” was all I said, grateful when my brother’s name on my tongue didn’t insight another onslaught of anger and fear. Though the voice screamed within me, I ignored it, at least for now.

“Ilyan?” Wyn asked, more in surprise than in question. “What happened? They couldn’t have been fighting, could they?”

“Nothing is perfect, Wynifred,” Thom grumbled from beside her. “If their porcelain chamber pot didn’t break soon, I was going to smash it against the wall. It’s about time they went at each other’s throats.”

Wyn nodded numbly as the yells continued, the abbey continued to shake and tremble with his pain. We sat there in silence, waiting for it to slow, waiting for it to calm. It never did, though. It only grew until my own heart began to ache with him.

“Shit storm or no, I am beginning to wish Talon was still here,” Thom said, his hand moving up and down Wyn’s arm as she flinched, the sound of her mate’s name causing her physical pain.

“I guess I better stop it before it gets to out of control.” Thom spoke as though it was the most unsavory thing in the world, a severe lack of disinterest making me question his intentions. Then again, as the room rumbled and yet another scream of pain and heartbreak roared around us, I guessed I could see why he wouldn’t want to go to his brother.

Our brother.

Thom sighed and pressed Wyn against him in farewell. Dust fell around us like rain, the abbey rumbling right alongside it. Then, without out another word, he stood and moved toward the door, his dreads swinging wildly with the movement.

“You coming?” Thom asked before he had moved more than a few steps.

I froze at the question,

“I’m sorry?” I could barely get the words out. He couldn’t be talking about me, could he? He shouldn’t be. Putting me before Ilyan right now would be madness.

Thom only laughed. I guessed madness was his forte.

“He’s your brother, too. You know, family sticks together and all that. One of the many lessons our loving father taught us.”

“But, it might … I mean … I know why he’s…”

“So do I.” Thom spoke sadly as he looked toward the sound of breaking glass and crumbling stone. The first real sighting of emotion in him seemed very out of place against the tough biker guy that stood before me.

“I would only try to kill him.”

“Your choice. Soon, you will have to get to know who your family really is.” He began to move before he had finished, leaving me cowering against the wall with Sain’s hand firmly on my knee, the pressure keeping me in place more than anything.

“Sain”— Thom turned as he stood in the doorframe, his forehead wrinkled in an emotion that didn’t quite meet his eyes—“will you take Wyn back to her room … or at least pretend to? We all know she has no intention of staying there, after all.”

His voice was so flat I couldn’t be sure if he had spoken in jest in or in truth, but Sain only laughed and nodded in agreement.

I didn’t know what to make of Thom. He was far too quiet and sullen for me. The idea that we shared a father, that we were related, seemed a little too ridiculous.

Thom stuffed his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket then walked out of the room in a shuffle, his shoulders hunched as if he had been born with a hump.

I watched him go, the voice growing steadily louder as I fought it, fought the pull to follow Thom out of the room, though I knew it was an impossibility. I knew I couldn’t fight the voice for much longer.

No matter how hard I tried.

You should kill him, too.

Thom and Ilyan.

You should kill them.

I should?

As if Thom had somehow known exactly what Wyn had in mind, she left moments after he did. However, unlike Sain had said, he made no move to stop her.

She had stared into him in some silent conversation I didn’t even try to follow before she had slowly pushed herself to standing, her weak body leaning heavily against everything we were surrounded by in an attempt to get to Joclyn, to handle the aftermath of the fight with her boyfriend in some ridiculous best friend way that movies liked to pretend they understood.

Months ago, I would have been the first to stand, the first to offer her my arm and lead her out of the room to wherever her destination was, but not now.

Not anymore.

Now, it was all I could do to focus on the chill of the stone wall I pressed my face against and keep my body from rocking, my hands from clawing at my hair.

At least I was trying. At least I was able to.

The small moment of clarity that Wyn had been able to give me had granted me that. Even if everything was loud and confusing, I could remember what sanity felt like now. I had a goal to work toward, no matter how simple it seemed.

I already knew it would be much harder than even I understood.

Until Ilyan had expelled Ovailia from the Abbey, I had been under someone’s control from the moment I had found Joclyn’s mark. For months, I had been trapped in a prison with bars and monsters that were controlled by my father and one of his pawns. What was more, despite the fact that the bars were gone now, despite being in the care of someone who should have been deemed safe, the monsters were still there.

I was still locked inside of my own head, trapped with the voice that plagued me.

Stop messing around! Get up. Find her.

She doesn’t love me anymore.

I know. That’s why you need to stop playing around.

Kill her.

I can’t.

Do it now.

You heard me.

Kill her.

I groaned, a long throaty exhale that rattled my chest and filled the air with more pain. The pressure of Sain’s hand against my leg increased at the noise, and the touch sent a jolt through me with a jerk, the movement going through me like a live wire.

“What is it, Ryland?” Sain’s voice was lined with that same paternal calm that I had learned to love, that had calmed me from the very first time I had heard it.

My focus turned to him before darting away again, and my heart rate picked up to a speed that felt both painful and impossible.

Tell him
.

When the voice rattled through my head, I couldn’t stop it. My hand moved to tangle through my hair while my stomach tightened in defeat and fear. I tried to focus on the chill of the stone, the pull of my hair as I had always done. While it did its job, it still wasn’t enough. I continued to hear my father’s voice echo in my mind, his laugh rattling through my soul in such a way that it only brought more fear.

Fear not only for me, but for those around me, as well.

I was sure he was standing right beside me. I could almost feel his hand on my back, prompting me to find and kill them.

“Ryland?” Sain asked again, his voice filled with the same depth I had heard so many times before. “No one is here. It is only you and I.”

He’s lying.

Ilyan is here.

Not far away.

Close enough to kill.

Kill.

You can still hear him.

You can reach him.

He’s not far …

No! I can’t. I won’t. I won’t.

It’s just me and Sain.

That’s a lie.

I’m here, too.

No!

You’re never alone, my son.

You’re not here. You’re not real.

It’s just me and Sain, same as it was before.

I jerked to Sain again, the constant pull of my fingers through my hair lessening for a moment as the reality of what he had said seeped in.

No one else was here.

I’m here.

I pushed the voice from my mind, battling against the pressure it filled me with. Instead, I focused on Sain, determined to overcome and find a way out of the prison my father had created for me.

“How did you know?” I asked, surprised at the clarity of the words that bled from me.

“I know because I’ve lived through what you have.” Sain’s voice was dark, the gravely base filled with more pain than I had ever heard from the old man.

He leaned toward me slowly, the dim green light that surrounded us cutting across the dark shadows of his face and casting him in monstrous shadows.

I pressed myself into the stone as he moved closer and laid his hand on my shoulder in the same pressure that always pulled me back from the monsters Cail had kept me controlled under. Glad when it did the same this time, I exhaled, the painful burn of my oxygen-deprived lungs all but gone now.

“The voice you hear? I heard it, too. I
hear
it, too.” If I had been surprised at what Wyn had told me before, it was nothing compared to this, nothing compared to the way my eyes widened and jaw tightened.

See? He lies to you, too.

They all lie to you.

All of them.

The voice was a growl of accomplishment that I couldn’t even find it inside of me to rebut.

After all this time, it was right.