Page 57 of The Night Runs Red

Rion bellowed in pain, his hands raking across the desk and sending the contents careening onto the floor. His chair fell back as he ran his fingers through his mussed hair. My uncle watched as the man I loved tore apart his study just as he had torn apart my heart.

“I will kill you if you tell her,” he said, turning on my uncle with a vile gaze that turned my stomach.

“I should have forced your hand or killed you many moons ago, but here we are,” Castor said, spreading his arms wide. “Standing in a mess of your family's making. You killed Corvina, Rion. Whether by accident or not, that scar etched upon your chest is a glaring reminder of how much she wanted to live.”

“Who hurt you?” I’d asked him that question time and time again, only to be met with a placating response that gave nothing away. Gods, I was so fucking stupid—a fool falling into bed with a man I barely knew .

I was too lost to hear the footsteps rounding the corner before it was too late. Strong hands gripped me from behind, pushed open the door, and threw me to the ground in front of the two men I’d loved more than anything. My head swam with their confessions, and I could no longer differentiate between reality and falsehood.

“Calia,” Rion breathed, taking a step forward. He stopped when he saw the mascara-stained tear tracks running down my face. Only one thought formed in my mind, and I let him hear it.

I don't trust you. Stay away. Don't come closer.

Renwick and Leonora strode into the room, the former winding his thick fingers in my hair and jerking it upright. I couldn’t stifle my scream as he pulled the strands taut and forced me to stare into Rion’s silver gaze.

"Take your hands off her," he snarled. His staccato breaths and tight shoulders gave away his fear, but I didn’t know if it was for my well-being or because he knew I’d heard everything.

“It is so nice to see you, Castor,” Leonora purred. “Now, I do not have to leave my house to slit your throat.”

“Perhaps your threat would hold some weight if I didn’t already know you are absolute shit with a blade.”

Her eyes narrowed into tiny slits before she turned toward Rion. He clenched the side of his desk, the wood groaning underneath the white-knuckled pressure. “You’ve done well, son,” Leonora said, walking over and patting him on the cheek. “She loves you more than she wants to admit—more than her sister ever did. Look at that hatred burning inside her.”

“Sister?” I whispered, flicking my gaze between Castor and Rion. To my uncle’s credit, at least he looked ashamed, but my husband's gaze was growing colder with every second.

“Yes,” Renwick said, resting his lips along the shell of my ear. I tried to pull away, but his grip tightened once more until I cried out. “It’s a shame, really. She was such a pretty little thing, so vibrant and full of life until Rion bled her dry.”

I couldn’t think, couldn’t move—not as I stared back at the man I thought I knew. His words hit me like a bullet as I remembered what he said about his past love.

“She was murdered.” That’s all he’d shared. I hadn’t thought twice about the significance before, but now I felt sick. That fucking bastard. He had every opportunity to tell me the truth, yet he spat in my face with his omissions.

But I had no sister. My mother and father struggled to conceive me, and given how hard the birth was, they settled for me alone. Or so I thought.

“Look at me, baby. Please,” Rion whispered, imploring me to obey just this once. “Please, just look at me…”

But I couldn’t focus as my mind clouded, drowning me with wave after wave of confusion.

Leonora laughed, flitting her gaze between Rion and I. “Your family has kept so much from you, Calia, but you mustn’t blame them. It was not their fault they had forgotten all about your poor sister.” She ran her finger along Rion’s shoulder as she spoke. “There isn’t much money can’t buy, and when you have pockets that run as deep as ours, you will find an answer for nearly every problem. Corvina Darrow and her untimely death were one of the biggest problems we have ever encountered, but even still, we found a way to make her disappear.”

"What did you do to her?" I asked, attempting to steady my voice.

"The D'Arcy's have searched for a cure since the day this curse was placed on our people," Leonora began. "Time and time again, we were told nothing could be done. The magic used to bind us to our celestial bodies had vanished, taking the power to revert us back to our old selves with it. But twenty-five years ago, Rion's father stumbled upon a document taken from the old fae palace before it was burned to ash."

"Let me guess," I said sarcastically. "It said you needed Darrow blood."

Renwick tightened his grip at my remark, but Leonora nodded. "That has always been known, dear, but how the Darrow blood needed to be taken was the issue." She waited for understanding to dawn, smiling when she saw it in my eyes.

Love. It had to be given through love.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

“You fucking bastard,” I seethed, tempering my splintering heart in the process. Rion’s pleading eyes fixed on me, imploring me to stop making snap judgments before he could explain himself. But our clock had run out, and we were now living on stolen time.

“Calia, please,” he began again. His body visibly shook from the force needed to keep his emotions at bay, but it did nothing but stir my anger further.

“It was all a lie, wasn’t it?” I thought as I sifted through our short-lived toxic history until realization dawned. “Oh, gods… That’s why you’ve been trying to soften me up since the day of the attack, right? Because you knew after how you acted, I would never open that window of opportunity for you to climb through again.”

I felt stupid, unimaginably so, and it was all my fault. Because I fell for a man who wanted to watch me bleed as he and his family prospered. “You used me, you manipulated me, and for what? So you can break a curse set in motion by both our ancestors?”

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