Page 23 of The Devil In Blue
I was gripping the wooden arms of my chair with white-knuckled force. When the women disappeared through a small, round window high above the dining room, I turned back to look at the count. He stood at the head of the table, staring down at me with eyes bright as moonlit snow.
My heart stopped for a breath and I felt my body shiver with unease. Not because I feared death. I stopped fearing death a long time ago. I was stricken with a sense that I was lost, wandering aimlessly. And that was the worst feeling.
“I don’t know what’s going on,” I muttered shakily. “But I’m sure Lucien has answers for—”
The name triggered something in the count once more. He tilted his head like he was hearing something high-pitched and uncomfortable. Then he gripped the edge of the table with both hands and tossed the whole thing to the side as if it was not made of thick glass and piled with plates and candles. I jumped from my seat as the table and all its contents flew across the room, crashing into the wall. Plates shattered. Food soiled the marble.
My spine went painfully rigid when I turned to look at the count again to see two giant black wings unfold from behind him. They nearly spanned the width of the dining hall. Iridescent onyx feathers blocked out the light of the hallway and were tipped with a talon as large as my hand on each peak.
With one beat of his wings, he was on me. His hand coiled around my throat and he shoved me backward, kicking my chair to the side with his foot. I clawed at his wrist as he forced me against the wall. My blood turned to ice. I was pinned between a marble barrier and a winged demon. I hadn’t felt so helpless in a long time, but the feeling was all too familiar. Waves of anxiety rippled through me at the sudden vision of being restrained, gagged, and fed words that I didn’t understand. And though the count wasn’t quite cutting off my air, I still felt like I was suffocating.
“Stop with this act, Briar,” he hissed, showing me his sharp fangs as he spoke. “These lies. You are a witch. A fraud. A deceptive cunt. A traitor.” He squeezed a little tighter, pressing his body into mine. “Did you think I wouldn’t find you? Did you think you were safe in that little town? Fromme?”
It was making sense now.
“I will end you before I let you tear me in half the way you did when you left!”
His grip was unyielding and I was helpless against it. If he wanted to, he could twist his wrist and snap my neck. The words he was saying made me wish for it, in a way. He was saying things I was supposed to know. A past I was supposed to remember. It was all anyone had ever done.
“You’re him,” I forced through my lips. “The one they told me about. The one who will destroy me.”
Tears stung my eyes and suddenly he was squeezing too tight. I couldn’t breathe. I wanted to welcome it, but my damn body had other plans. My body didn’t want to die and I began to writhe, kicking my legs and tugging at his fingers, scratching my own skin with my nails just to pry him off of me. I needed air.
When darkness started to come, he released me. I sucked in a painful breath, collapsing onto my hands and knees. Rubbing my throat, I came to terms with what I’d just realized. This man—this count—was the thing they’d all warned me about. The one who helped slaughter the family my mind could not even do me the courtesy of remembering. He was real.
Slowly, I found his boots standing in front of me and panned up to see his face staring down at me. His wings were folded back, but he was no less menacing.
“Iwilldestroy you,” he said. “For you have destroyed me.You, a flame, and I, a moth, and you have burned me.” He slowly crouched in front of me and instinct forced my head down like a submissive dog. Reaching out, he snatched the necklace from my neck and crushed it in his fist, letting the pieces shatter to the ground like dust. “I would have burned the whole world for you. But now I might burn it because of you.”
Staring at the pieces of the necklace, something in me cracked. I tilted my head at the multicolored mess of broken crystals and twisted metal.
I wanted that necklace. I loved it. I’d chosen it and he’d given it to me. Lucien had never given me anything of my choosing. He never cared to ask. Seeing that trinket broken on the floor tore my tired heart to pieces and I couldn’t begin to understand why. It was only a thing…
I hadn’t lashed out in anger in so long. Like an alcoholic resisting wine, I had resisted letting my emotions free. It had only ever served to condemn me. How easy it was to submit to the anger and pain and despair that once made me. Southminster had leached that part of me away… but not entirely. The bore of Lucien’s company and the drab style of his house had tempered the need to explode.
But the count had the opposite effect. His ramblings of another past I didn’t know twisted me inside. I was shattering like that little moth made of jewels.
“Why would you do that?” I muttered, sweeping my hands over the twisted pieces of jewelry.
A shard of metal sliced into my finger and immediately it bled, adding crimson droplets to the mess. I didn’t care. Physical pain was a feeling at least. One I’d used many times in the past to distract from the other kinds of pain. The pain of not knowing.
“It was a gift,” I said, my vision blurring.
Tears filled my eyes and dripped into the blood. Brows furrowed, I looked at the odd combination and accepted that it was all me. Blood, broken pieces, and tears.
The count stood, his leather boots stressing as he moved.
“You don’t even like necklaces,” he scoffed. “You hate anything around your neck.”
He turned to walk away and fury ran its cold hands down my face, stealing my self-control. I jumped to my feet, the frustration I felt at Southminster coming at me like a flood full of debris. The rage I’d bottled up around Lucien thrust itself forth and only made it all worse. It knocked me one way and then the other, making me feel unstable and out of control and lost in my ire. I bolted toward the count, nails out. I was going to jump on his back, but he spun to face me. I slapped and punched and wildly tried to beat him only to feel his hands around my slender wrists, holding me at bay.
“That was mine!” I screamed. “You gave it to me! It was mine and I loved it!”
In all my struggling, I managed to swipe his face with my hand, smearing blood across his cheek. His eyes burned with irritation and he knocked me back with both hands. I stumbled, tripping on the hem of my dress. Reaching out, the count grabbed the front of my dress and I thrashed to pull free.
“Let me go!” I screamed.
I was a young woman in that asylum again. I felt trapped behind a tight jacket, arms folded uncomfortably. My throat burned at the memory of food being forced into my stomach when I just wanted to starve.
