A Thief of Nightshade (15 page)

“You told me that you wanted to stay home.” His words dripped of remorse. “I just would never have imagined, still can’t fathom that ... it was your father who hurt you? Your own family?”

She hugged her arms across her chest and willed back the nausea that crept up on her in small, slow waves.

“That’s why you didn’t want me to ask your father permission to marry you ...

why you reacted that way when I said what I did to the kids.”

She didn’t realize how hard she was shaking until he pressed her to him. After a long silence, she said aloud the secret she’d been harboring for nearly two decades.

“Grant

was

finishing

up

his

doctorate. He came home for his residency and noticed that I wasn’t eating right, had lost weight and was running a fever. When he asked what was wrong with me, Father lied and he knew it. Grant asked me in private and I couldn’t lie to him. I tried to, but I couldn’t. The look in his eyes ... he already knew and I ... God, I didn’t want him to know. I hated to hurt Grant. Telling him what had really happened changed him.” Her breath hitched and it took her a moment to regain her voice. “He confronted my father and agreed not to report him under the condition that I, along with Brooke and Harry, went to boarding school; said that is was in everyone’s best interests. The family name had more worth than the mud it would be dragged through if the press got wind of Father’s ... indiscretions. I’m sorry, Jullian, I didn’t want you to know.”

Jullian slid one hand through her hair and held her at the nape of her neck, cupping the side of her face with the other.

She didn’t want to look at him. She didn’t want to see the same look she’d seen on Grant’s face. She didn’t want to feel like damaged goods anymore, but like so many times in the past, she couldn’t ignore the feeling of helplessness or fear that always seemed right on her heels. And death.

Every time she thought of the past, something died anew in her. Everything alive and well in her soul withered and something—something dark and ugly— took its place and held her tears at bay.

“I love you, Aubrey, unconditionally, and there isn’t anything about you that I don’t want to know.” The dragonfly’s wings shimmered, catching her attention.

Jullian placed his palm over it and it felt as though the necklace warmed to his touch. He looked up, tears in his eyes, and cleared his throat. “How Grant can still look at himself in the mirror, how he doesn’t lose sleep over this, it’s—”

“And exactly how do you know that I don’t?” Grant’s voice made them both jump. He’d come in from a side door and stood to Aubrey’s left. She turned around and watched her brother set his drink on the coffee table, his hand shaking as he brought it back to tug nervously at his collar. “Do you think that choice was easy for me?”

“It should have been,” Jullian growled. “There’s only one choice I could have made. Then again, I don’t give a damn about society or appearances or anything else you seem to value.” Jullian lowered his arm to circle Aubrey’s waist.

“Really? That’s what you think of me? That’s how you sum up everything outside of your narrow point of view?

You know, Jullian, I swear there are times I question if you’re even from this planet.

Do you have any clue what a trial would have done to her, to this family? And to what end?”

Jullian let his hold on her loosen. He tilted his head slightly, his voice a near-whisper, he was so angry. “That wasn’t your decision to make ... and to what end?

Did you ever consider that perhaps more than your family reputation needed to be protected?”

Grant scoffed, “Why do you think my father never came to visit them? Why do you think Brooke never lets the children spend time alone with him? Aubrey wasn’t the only one affected by this, but it doesn’t do any good to have it continuously brought up. It’s better this way. I don’t expect someone like you to understand.”

That did it for Jullian. Usually even-tempered, always serene, he snapped. He grabbed Grant faster than Aubrey could comprehend what was happening. His fist made contact with Grant’s face with a loud, wet smack, smearing blood across his lip and cheek. Jullian held a twisted knot of Grant’s shirt in one white-knuckled hand.

“Jullian!” She came up behind them.

“Let him go, please.”

Jullian hesitantly let go of Grant.

“You don’t know the first thing about me. I understand all about your privileged upbringing

and

your

self-serving

existence. You think you’ve done the right thing. You think that what’s important is what serves your family legacy, but allow me to let you in on something Grant—a legacy is only as worthy as those who carry it and you’ve placed that power in the wrong hands. You were an adult. It was your responsibility to protect her, not your family name. Instead you shoved everything under the carpet and ran like the arrogant coward that you are.”

A knock sounded at the door she and Jullian had come through. It was Brooke.

“Ya’ll all right in there? What’s going on?”

Jullian watched her brother with a bated glare as he answered.

“We’re all fine. We’ll be out shortly.” A few seconds later, Aubrey could hear Brooke’s voice coming from the far room, muffled, but no longer within earshot.

Grant wiped the blood from his mouth with his sleeve. He looked at Aubrey. “You’ve mistaken my actions for pretentiousness and it isn’t quite that simple, but if hating me gives you peace, then you have my full permission.” He stopped and wiped his mouth again with the heel of his hand; there wasn’t any blood left, but the move seemed more related to pride than cleanliness. Grant’s lower lip quivered. “There isn’t anything, anything, that I wouldn’t do for you, Brooke or Harrington. I don’t always make good decisions, but I did the best I could.”

He turned his attention to Jullian.

“You don’t know what it feels like, the grief that ... that has me ... this was my father, too! This was the man I had looked up to my whole life, from whom I’d prayed to inherit even the smallest modicum of greatness. Do you know what I pray for now, Jullian? I pray that whatever sickness lurks in his genes hasn’t been passed on. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t look myself a little closer in the mirror, just to make sure the disgust I felt for what he’d done hasn’t been forgotten. If the man I remember ...

the honorable, intelligent, loving man I knew in my childhood ... could do something so unspeakable, then what does the future hold for me? I’m self-serving? If giving up everything I’d ever wanted is self-serving, then so be it, Jullian. Then I’m an arrogant son of a bitch who cares about no one.”

Grant said once that he wasn’t interested in parenting, but when Aubrey thought about how much he loved Brooke’s children and how great he’d been with her when she was little, it made her wonder if he didn’t fear fatherhood.

Jullian unclenched the hand at his side and asked quietly, “Do you regret it?”

“Care to narrow that down a little?”

“Do you regret not turning in your father? Do you regret hiding all of this and forcing Aubrey and Brooke ... and yourself ... to be in his presence as if nothing ever happened?”

Grant’s eyes, already red from drinking, watered. “I don’t know. I once thought that maybe ... maybe not having to face what Father had done ... that Aubrey would be able to move on with her life, put it behind her. She and Brooke are so different. Brooke is fine. She’s—”

Aubrey interrupted Grant. “Brooke?

He...” She couldn’t say it, couldn’t bring herself to give a name to the act she’d had so many waking nightmares of. Aubrey had assumed that since Brooke always seemed so blithely happy that she’d been spared.

Grant looked sick. “Yes. I don’t know how long it had been going on for.

She’s never told me.”

“No, Brooke isn’t fine.” Jullian took Grant’s glass and held it up. “Neither are you. And the man who tore this family apart is sitting on that porch smoking a cigar, acting like nothing is wrong, when he deserves to be in prison. All you’ve done is take his place.”

Grant narrowed his eyes.

“Do you feel free Grant?” Jullian asked softly. “I know Aubrey isn’t. I’ve known she wasn’t—I just didn’t know why.”

Aubrey looked at Jullian. “Can you give us a minute?”

Jullian hesitated, then touched Grant on the shoulder in something of an apologetic gesture. Grant mutely tolerated it.

Once Jullian had left the room, Grant let go a sob that broke Aubrey’s heart and somehow she knew then that this moment wouldn’t repeat itself, that the next morning would find the Wright family just as outwardly perfect as they always were.

She silently leaned into him, letting him hug her for longer than his normal, casually close embrace. He shook as he wept and neither of them spoke. There wasn’t anything to be said.

WHEN AUBREY LOOKED UP, AISLINN WAS

asleep, Lipsey still by his side, but Given was gone. She listened for any sound. She hadn’t heard Given get up, but took a guess and walked to the lakeside, where she found Given sitting quietly.

“Can’t sleep?” Aubrey asked.

“Something like that.”

Aubrey sat down beside her. “I can’t either. I couldn’t remember my sister’s name earlier and just now, I was thinking about her. Her name is Brooke.” The moon was beautiful across the water and the woods around them were truly serene.

Of all the nights she had spent in Avalar, she should have been able to fall asleep the fastest on this one. Had it not been for the gravity of her thoughts, she probably could have. “Where is my iPod when I need it?”

Given looked at her curiously and it dawned on her that the Shade wouldn’t have the slightest idea what she was talking about.

“I’m sorry. You remind me so much of a friend I have back home that I forget you don’t know what I’m talking about sometimes. An iPod is a little device that plays music...” She stopped when she noticed Given’s shivering. It wasn’t cold outside—if anything the air was unusually warm. She reached over tentatively and felt Given’s forehead. Blistering heat met her touch. “You’re feverish.”

“No, though it must feel that way. I promise you it’s all right. And you will remember things on and off—names, places, events. The Lessening comes and goes, but it will get gradually worse as time progresses.” Given’s breath hitched in her throat.

Aubrey dreaded it, but she had to see. She pulled Given’s dress off her back and gasped. Bright red gashes covered her skin, identical to those that marred Aubrey’s back.

“It isn’t what you think it is,” Given said. “I wish I could take all of it for you.

I can only take the effects of the nightshade and the pain of your wounds, nothing more. It will pass for me, but it will give you enough time to do what you’ve come here to do.”

Aubrey was aghast. “The nightshade was poisonous to me, won’t it hurt you?”

Given smiled weakly. “Sometimes bearing the pain of others is the only way to heal yourself. And no, I’m a Shade, things affect me differently than they would any human, from your world or otherwise.”

“I will repay you somehow.” Aubrey couldn’t even imagine how to thank her for her selflessness.

“Save him, your prince. That will be payment enough. To see even for a short while this darkness lifted from Avalar would be worth any trial, any burden, anything.”

Aubrey nodded as the hollowing in her gut returned. Without thinking, she touched her shirt where the dragonfly rested beneath it.

Given’s eyes grew wide. “An Oran?

Still in existence?”

“A what?” Aubrey asked, taking off the necklace for Given to see. “Jullian gave this to me, it’s a dragonfly. Surely, you have dragonflies here.”

Given’s face lit up with a wide smile. She took it with painstaking care into her hands and looked at it closer.

“I’ve never seen one this close. I didn’t think they were real, to be completely honest.”

“I still don’t follow you.” Aubrey said, wondering if the fever was as imaginary as Given thought it was.

“He never told you what this was?”

Aubrey groaned. “He never told me anything, not directly anyway. He wrote books that I thought were fantasy. I couldn’t have imagined they were journals. He never mentioned anything called an Oran.”

Given was still grinning, like she’d been let in on some inside joke that Aubrey wasn’t privy to. “An Oran is a living thing that relays the feelings and emotions of its owner to the one who gifted it.” She handed it back. “Quickly, tuck it back away and don’t touch it in anyone’s presence unless you have no choice. It will glow to the eyes of a Fae, even through fabric, when it’s speaking.”

“Speaking? Jullian could read my mind?” Aubrey wasn’t sure how she felt about that.

“No,” Given laughed. “No, nothing so precise; but it responds to emotions and if you feel strongly enough about something, images of it. Aubrey, do you realize what this means? The Prince can feel you now, still. He may not be able to remember anything, but Saralia can’t stop him from sensing your presence here. That must be how she knew to send the Time Wraith. Both a blessing and a curse, I suppose.”