Page 39 of Brutal Birthright

“…that's how I got this scar.” Brynne was flushed a perfect shade of pink to match her hair piled on top of her head, showing off the delicate points of her ear tips covered in several diamond studs. “Dragon-inflicted scrapes and burns don’t heal. I’m lucky I walked away with just this scratch and didn’t wind up a charred corpse. Never mind the strips my brother tore off me for sneaking into the lair while he wasn’t around.” She made a grabbing hands motion as Atticus set the tray down and he rolled his eyes at her.

“You’re insane. What were you thinking?” Saskia’s eyes were about to pop out of her head.

Ri slid in beside her two friends. Her distracted thoughts still half on the mystery seed the witch had just planted in her mind. Atticus squeezed in beside her, resting one arm on the back of the wooden bench seat behind her shoulders.

“Stubborn pig headedness. My brother told me I couldn’t do it…” Brynne shrugged and tipped back her glass.

“And so you just had to do it in order to prove you could.” Ri muttered into her own whiskey.

“See? Scary girl gets it.” The warm embrace of Brynne wrapped round her, and she planted a sloppy kiss on the side of her face. Then, pulled back with a high-pitched giggle, swiping roughly at the evidence left on Ri’s cheek with the sleeve of her top.

“Wow… that is not who I expected to see here tonight,” Saskia whispered loud enough for them to all hear.

“Who?” Someone at the table asked, but Ri already knew. It was like her senses had become attuned to him and his magic. Without seeing or hearing him, she just knew.

“Professor-fuck-me.” Another voice from further down the table gasped.

Ri felt her head begin to pound. Her body responded to his proximity and her nipples hardened.

“Did you know the rumour is that he never kisses or does anything to risk a weakness?”

“I heard that too.”

“Wouldn’t matter to me. He could do whatever he wanted and I’d say, thank you.”

The gossip flowing around the group was more than Ri could take. She certainly didn’t want to be thinking about Rowan of Nocturne right now. Let alone hearing about how he did or didn’t kiss.

Her imagination was vivid enough as it was.

But again, she felt that awareness—the undeniable sense of being scrutinised by him. Darting a look up, she was instantly captured by his piercing blue stare. Electric and smouldering with something ancient in the depths of his eyes. Before they flickered to something just over her shoulder, the blue darkened almost instantly. His jaw ticked and lips curled into more of a sneer than usual.

“Has he got blood on him?” Brynne cocked her head and murmured, giving a little wave in his direction. That seemed to divert him from whatever had captured his attention, and he nodded stiffly before carrying on inside.

Sure enough, as he turned to go through the doorway to the tavern, there was a distinct trail of dried blood that rose up from the collar of his black shirt and reached up the side of his face into his hair.

Was it his own? Or someone else’s?

Ri felt like her heart had stuttered inside her chest. Forgetting its own rhythm while he held it captive.

Leaving her with the same question rolling around inside her mind the whole way back to her room that night… How well did she know any of the Nocturnes?

Chapter 13

No matter the beginning, the end was always the same.

The nightmare of a blade slicing through her neck.

Her head rolling to the ground with a sickening thud.

Lifeless blue eyes that once sparkled with so much mischief and joy, would stare back at him from the barren wasteland beneath his feet.

Time and time again, his knees hit the dirt and his stomach emptied itself at the knowledge of what he had just done. The most vibrant of lives taken with only a single blow from the sword clenched in his fist beneath ghostly white knuckles.

Brigid.

The same fucking brutal and grotesque nightmare over and over. Unrelenting and without change now for the better part of a century. At first, it was vague, wafting in on the tide of sleep with only pale, formless concepts that left him unsettled. Then, gradually, the images became clearer. The sounds more vivid and grisly. Each time a new detail would arise to taunt him.

Flecks of blood on his sword would glisten a brighter crimson.

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