Page 48 of Cursed

“What about Titus?” I pressed.

Valen sighed heavily, leaned against the garage door, and rubbed at his stubbled chin thoughtfully. “We need to approach him carefully. Avril’s gotten under his skin—”

“No shit,” I grumbled. “But what if—”

“Bastian,” Valen cut me off sharply and turned to look directly into my eyes. His gaze was hard as steel. “Enough with the ‘what ifs’. We’re doing this.”

“But—”

“Shut the fuck up!” He thundered, silencing me with a level glare. “We need to show Avril what she’s dealing with and talk to Titus about how we’re going to handle Lucian.”

I shrugged. “I don’t know whether you’re being brave or stupid.”

Valen ignored me and started towards the manor with a determined stride. He paused, only to toss me a glance over his shoulder. “Are you coming?”

With a sigh, I fell into step with him, and matched his slow pace.

The damp chill of Withermarsh wrapped us in its tight grip and shadows stretched around us as we neared the imposing structure that we called home.

“Remember,” Valen warned as we passed the wrought-iron gate, “we need to keep this quiet. Last thing we need is Lucian hearing about this.”

“You act like I’m new to keeping secrets,” I scoffed.

“You’re new to keeping secrets that matter,” Valen snapped. “We also need to play nice,” Valan added as if an afterthought, his gaze never wavering from the manor’s towering entrance. “Titus won’t be happy about this.”

“Was he ever?” I chuckled venomously. I received a warning glare from Valan in response. His sooty mood was contagious, but I wasn’t about to let foreboding dissipate my spirit—not here, not when what awaited inside was bound to be ten times worse.

As we neared the entrance, its grandeur did nothing to mask the sense of dread that hung like the scent of rotting leaves in the crypt-like halls.

“How are we going to get Avril to trust us?” I asked. “She hates us—”

“We need to convince her,” Valen interrupted. “She came to us for help once—”

“And we turned her into a bet,” I said with relish.

Valen shot me a look, but he said nothing. He’d been the first to take advantage of her—he just didn’t want to be reminded of it.

I shrugged and kept my gaze on the towering, foreboding structure of the manor. “It doesn’t matter how it happened—”

“No,” Valen cut me off again, and I heard the barely suppressed fury in his voice. “Itmatters, Bastian. We screwed up, and now we’ve got to fix it.”

“Says the man who loves playing the hero,” I shot back and rolled my eyes at his sentimentality.

“Says the man who cares about consequences.” He turned to face me, and his dark glare was intense under the silver glow of the moon. “You’re always so busy stirring up chaos, you never stop to think about what it costs.”

I wanted to argue and shatter his self-righteous demeanor with a cutting remark. But words failed me at that moment—because maybe he was right.

After what seemed like an eternity, I found my voice again. “We need a plan that doesn’t involve us dying or getting disowned—”

Valen nodded grimly. “Or Avril getting hurt,” he added.

“Or that,” I agreed, begrudgingly. We trudged in silence for a moment, each consumed by our thoughts, until we reached the double doors of the main entrance to the mansion.

“Side door,” I said. “We can’t go in the front—”

Valen paused for a moment and then nodded and changed direction to take a path that wound around the manor. “We can’t claim to be doing this for Avril while planning to protect our necks at the same time,” he said.

I looked at him incredulously, “What are you talking about—”

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