Page 91 of Daughter Of The Ninth Line
The fuck?
Using every ounce of training I’d needed to survive my own childhood, I pushed down my reaction, placing it in a tiny box for me to open later, and kept my body language neutral. “Doyou believe that? I wouldn’t think it was something that could be so ambiguous.”
Slipping away from me, she rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling. “Sometimes, yes. Sometimes, no. I was three. Logically, I know that there isn’t anything a three-year-old can do that could be construed as intent. But sometimes, I have nightmares. Nightmares of me being too close to the edge of those cliffs, of ignoring her words to come back. I was a baby, so there’s no way I’m actually remembering the real event. Plus, it changes almost every time.
“Sometimes, if the dreams are good, I come back to her when she calls, but she dies anyway. She trips on a rock and stumbles forward, going over the edge. Sometimes, I ignore her words and start to fall, so she lunges forward and pushes me back, but falls herself. Sometimes, I dream that the maid pushes her instead, but that might just be my mind finding a reason to hate her.” As her voice broke, I dragged her a little closer to my body. “It was the maid who informed my father that my mother had fallen. She was entering the clearing with a picnic basket and saw me grab my mother and push her over the edge, like I was possessed by evil spirits.”
The scoff that burst from my lips was unbidden. “You werethree.A baby from the Ninth Line with no magic. Surely your father didn’t believe that you’d suddenly gained the strength of a full-grown adult, able to heave your mother over the edge of a cliff?” The very idea was preposterous. You’d have to be deficient in wits to believe that bullshit.
She shrugged. “I don’t know if he believed her or not, but he grieved his wife so wholeheartedly that it was whispered around the Barony. He needed a scapegoat, and I was conveniently there, unable to defend myself because my grasp on language was rough.”
Because she had been a toddler. Keeping that comment to myself was harder than I imagined. “Surely, after the grief subsided, he could think about it logically?”
Her tiny headshake planted a kernel of something in my chest. Rage? A thirst for revenge?
She let her lips rest against my skin. “I think I became a convenient outlet for his anger. At least until Kian was big enough to stand between us.”
Jealousy rose to fill the space of my rage. “Kian?”
“My oldest brother. The Heir.”
Feeling like an idiot, I was glad she couldn’t see inside my brain. Of course she meant Kian Halhed, Heir to the Ninth Line. I had met him once or twice at events, although he looked nothing like Avalon. He was a quiet, silent man. Serious. So unlike my brother, it was surprising that we even shared a country, let alone ancestors from long ago.
I’d also met the spare Heir of the Ninth Line. Whenever there was a Conclave, we were forced to interact with the other spare Heirs. I’d forgotten the boy’s name, but he was much like his older brother, solemn and serious. What had that family seen? Why hadn’t they protected Avalon?
“Your father hurt you?” I asked the question, even though I knew the answer. I had to hear her say it.
She shrugged again. “Physically? Yeah, in the early days. After Kian stumbled on my father trying to stab me through the chest in a drunken rage, my brothers worked together to make sure I was never alone with him. I think it shocked even my father, though, whatever Kian said to him that night. After that, he kept his punishments to the verbal variety.”
I ground my back teeth so violently, I could hear the scrape in my ears. “I’m going to kill him for you.”
She laughed bitterly, like I was kidding. She didn’t understand yet the depths of my devotion, but she would. The Baron of the Ninth Line was living on borrowed time.
chapter fifty-six
Avalon
It wasodd having Vox Vylan in my bed. If someone had told me a month ago that I’d have the spare Heir to Ebrus beneath the covers of my single bed, that I’dwanthim there, I’d have laughed in their face and taken them to see a healer, because obviously, something would’ve been severely wrong with them.
Even dredging up all these old hurts was less painful, because his warmth was steady support. His almost dispassionate way of asking questions made me feel validated, and I smiled softly.
“It’s ancient history, Vox. If I survive the next two years, I can go home and live up in the mountains by myself. I’ll never have to live in the Keep again.”
He scoffed, holding me closer to his body. “You’re never going home to the Ninth Line, Avalon. Not unless you want to. Hayle won’t allow it.”
I narrowed my eyes, even though he probably couldn’t see it in the darkness. “Hayle doesn’t tell me what to do. Neither do you.”
He shook his head, his fingers still brushing gently across the skin of my shoulder. The spot felt like it was electrified. “Of course not. But you have options now, even if you decide you no longer want to pursue this… thing we have. No one in Rewilllifted a finger to help you. If you never want to return home, both Hayle and I will help you settle somewhere else.”
Choices. He was giving me choices, something I’d never had before. But at what price? Nothing in Ebrus was ever free.
The thought was like a lead ball in my chest. “What is it you want, Vox? Why are you really here in the middle of the night? Because if it’s for sex, I have to warn you, I’m probably not very good.” I choked on the words, but he needed to know. This shit was escalating faster than I could have imagined, and while I felt like I was out of control, I liked it. “I’ve never had sex before.” My fingers played across his chest.
His whole body tensed for the first time. I’d told him I murdered my mother—no reaction. Told him my father beat me—total calm as he plotted my father’s demise.
Told him I was a virgin, and he got stiffer than a board.Men.
“You’re a virgin,” he said slowly.
