#romanowritesless

[romanoartsless]

I'm so sorry for this taking so long. I've been so busy and overwhelmed lately and all I want to do at the moment is spend all day watching YouTube and listening to the two new Panic! songs on repeat. Hopefully you didn't think I was on a hiatus, I wouldn't do that to you guys.

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Chapter 65

 Every time she put on a wig, Caterina was suddenly reminded about how itchy they were. It didn’t help that every step she took was accompanied by the dreading fear of a piece of her natural hair having fallen out of the cap. The cloak had luckily covered her enough to where no one could see her eyes or tattoos to glare at her for. It being the beginning of the colder season helped her blend in even more so.

She wasn’t even glancing at the people as she walked by. She had one mission and she wasn’t going to let anything-

 “M’am.”

 A small boy, maybe five, was now holding tight onto her hand. When she turned around and saw his pleading brown eyes, she didn’t have the heart to just walk away. “M’am please help me.”

 Caterina turned around and bent down to the boy’s level. He jumped at the sight of her face. The thought of children fearing her for her appearance broke her inside. If she ever had the chance to start her own family, would even her own children fear her? “Your eyes.”

 “I know,” she whispered, not wanting to draw much more attention to herself, “but you have to keep it a secret, okay?” The boy nodded. “Now what do you need?”

 He grabbed the bucket that sat behind him and pulled it up to her face. “My mommy and I barely have any water.”

 “I can help with that.” She scratched the top of his head playfully. “But this needs to be another secret, alright?”

He happily nodded again, causing a smile to spread across Caterina’s face. Something about the cities seemed to strengthen her magic, so she pulled what water she could out of the ground where they were standing on. The rain the night before let it be a plentiful amount. She transferred the somewhat muddy water into the bucket. The boy, wide eyed, stared in awe of the simple magic she’d just done. “Thank you!” he shouted before trying to walk away.

 After politely shushing him, she placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. “I’m not just going to let you have dirty water.”

He smiled wide in oblivion to the fact she was the last magic user in Novak due to a merciless massacre. Like a magnet, the specs of dirt littered in the bucket came clinging to her hand until she placed it all back onto the ground. “Thank-” he was about to shout again, but stopped himself, speaking in a softer tone next, “Thank you.”

She flattened out the hair she’d messed up earlier before he bolted to his mother with joy and a bucket of water in his hands. As she stood up and began to walk away, she couldn’t help but turn back one last time and mouth, “You’re welcome,” into the air.

Chapter 66

     Had Gideon not been there, adjusting his suit, Crispin would’ve broke down. Caterina’s plan or not, his fate was in someone else’s hands. Gideon’s blue eyes looked up at him, clearly saddened by the state of his friend. “You look handsome,” he said, trying to help bring some hint of positivity.

     “Thanks,” he barely mumbled back.

    Gideon turned back and sat down into the chair directly in front of Crispin, looking him up and down. He imagined he was just examining the outfit, but instead, after only a minute of sitting, he walked out the door of the changing room. After another minute, he came back in, frantically locking the door. “Gideon, what’s wrong?”

    He dug through his pockets until he pulled out something he kept locked in his fist. With his free hand, he sifted through one of the closets and pulled out a cloak. He tossed it towards Crispin before scooting the chair even closer towards him. “What the fuck, Gideon?”

    The tailor flipped his fingers to reveal the Petrov family ring in his grasp. “I can’t bare to watch you go through this. Take it.”

    Crispin turned bright red. “Dude, we broke up more than a year ago.”

    “I’m not proposing to you, you idiot! It’s for her!”

    “What?”

     “Not to sound creepy, but I watched you two… for a while. I saw how happy she makes you, so I set up a bunch of shit. There’s a little church out east I found by that hotel. I assume she’s around Silvia’s size, so the dress is already there and you’re dressed, so there’s that.”

     “Wait, what do you mean?”

    “I mean, if I can help it, you’ll be getting married today, just not to Silvia.”

     “Gideon-”

     “Go.”

    “But my father-”

     Gideon was running around the room, eventually unlocking and opening the window. “Look, I have this, don’t worry. I love you and I want you to be happy. I don’t want you to have to be forced to marry someone who you have no feeling for and well…” He seemed to speak from experience. “So go, be with her.”

    Crispin ran towards him, maneuvering the cloak over his head and onto himself as he did so. Once he got to Gideon’s side, he crawled out the window and took the ring out of his hand before sliding it into one of his pockets. Before he was able to close the window, Crispin leaned in one last time and planted a kiss onto the boy’s cheek. He couldn’t help but notice a greying across his face afterwards. “Thank you,” he told him before running off to go do the one thing he dreaded most today- get married.

* * *

     She sat outside the church, biting skin around her fingers to the point where she couldn’t tell if the red on them was her lipstick or blood. Once she caught the midst of multiple conversations, she let herself in. Her heart rate stayed as high a it possibly could as she aimlessly walked around in search for Shaw Petrov.

    Eventually she found him sitting in the front row with his wife and daughters. She wiped off whatever red was on her hands onto her velvet, green dress before approaching him. “I’m so sorry I’m late, Mr. Petrov.”

    His bright green eyes looked up at her in a way that made her skin crawl. “Amber Lynn,” the way her name hung on his tongue was nowhere near appropriate for speaking to someone his children’s age, “you’re finally here.”

    “Yeah, sorry it took me so long.”

    He kept looking her up and down, undressing her with his eyes. Oh gods. Abort. Abort. Abort. Abort. “Actually,” she pushed on, “my father needs to see you.”

    “So he does?”

     “Yes sir.”

    “And what does he inquire?”

    Gods. Gods. Godsgodsgodsgodsgods. Stop asking questions just leave. “I don’t know, he just told me to tell you he’s at your manor and he wants to talk.”

    “Well, alright then. Natasha,” his wife looked up at him, painted on smile on her face. He kissed her before standing up, towering over Amber Lynn, “I’ll be right back.”

* * *

    Caterina stared at the skulls on the mantelpiece. People with lives who were now degraded to a household decoration. Her people, she realized. Magic users just trying to get by until they were all brutally slaughtered. She wished she could bury them with the respect they so rightfully deserved.

    In all honesty, she didn’t feel remorse for what she was about to do. Even when next to the skulls were pictures or him and his wife and children, she felt more pity towards the already dead than the newly orphaned.

    The sudden sound of the door opening broke her thoughts. “March?”

 Before he could even notice her presence, her hand went up and sucked all the air out of his lungs until he came toppling down onto the ground. With one of the frames in hand, she bent down to his level and, even though he was already unconscious, bashed his head with it until blood trickled onto the floor.

 Chapter 67

     He pushed through the other guards and didn’t pay attention to whatever the woman at the desk was yelling at him as he ran into the king’s office. Before words could be exchanged, Thomas threw the box in front of him. “Explain.”

     The king cracked open the box, not even looking up at Thomas or acknowledging what he’d said. He sifted through the box; picking up the chain, reading some of the letters, and examining the photos. With one of the pictures in his hand, his eyes began to water. “I haven’t seen her face in decades..” The two sets of brown eyes finally met. “Do you know where she is?”

Oh. He didn’t know. He didn’t know Esther was dead. Of course.  “Caterina’s-”

“I mean Esther.”

Thomas didn’t even know if he wanted to tell him about her deceased status. It wasn’t his place. He had no relationship with her. He shouldn’t be the one to break the news. “She…”

All hope was drained from his body. “Oh gods… Is she…”

The words weren’t able to make their way out of his throat. To him, the lack of an answer from Thomas was an answer enough. The tears came bubbling up before the word dead ever could. It was painful to watch him cry. He was on his knees, sobbing decades worth of pain. Those pain filled brown eyes looked back up at him. “Caterina,” he pleaded, “my daughter. Please tell me she’s alive. Tell me I have something left.”

 “She’s alive.”

His tears turned bittersweet. He didn’t seem to question how Thomas knew all of this. An outlet, he was. “What’s she like?”

[falloutboy-on-boy]

”This is an apology pizza. Please take it or I will start crying right here.” - Crispin

“This is an apology pizza. Please take it or I will start crying right here.”

Jackie didn’t know what she was expected when she opened the door, but she was still taken aback when Crispin Petrov stood in the door frame with a large pizza box in his hands. “Why are you here, Crispin?”

“I came here to apologize for,” he looked down at his hand to do what Jackie assumed was reading something off it, “quote on quote saying that I’d fuck your sister against a wall until she couldn’t walk anymore.”

Jackie slammed the door in his face. He still kept talking through it however. “I hope you know I wasn’t kidding about the crying part.”

“I hope you know I keep a barrage of weapons in my house!” she hollered back.

He went silent. Jackie grinned, but still went back to open the door once more. “If you actually start crying,” she snickered, “I might just chop off your dick.”

Crispin nervously laughed. “Yeah, uh,” he said, “please don’t.”

Jackie pulled the box out of his hands with a grin on her face. “Come on in Petrov. I won’t eat this and I don’t want it to go to waste.”

They walked down the hall and the tension between them seemingly began to shrink. When they reached the table, Jackie threw the pizza box onto it. Crispin sat down and took a slice for himself. The two didn’t share eye contact as he sat and she stood nearby the table. “You’re lucky I knew you were joking or else I might’ve actually considered chopping off your dick.”

Crispin checked on his pizza.

[romanoartsless]

Hey so I gotta write this quick so here’s a three chapter update because why not!

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Chapter 53

“I miss it.”

Victor got up off the chair and walked over to where Esther stood at the window. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders when he got to her. “Esther,” he said as he played with her chocolate braid, “Novak was never kind to you. It doesn’t deserve you.”

“I still miss it,” she almost whimpered as she pushed away from his touch. “It was my home for nineteen years, how could I not miss it?”

“But Esther, you have me now.”

“And I appreciate your help with Caterina, but I still miss it.” Tears welled up in her black eyes, her voice trembling as she spoke. “I miss my brother, I miss my sisters, I miss my friends, and I- I miss my fiance.”

“He never deserved you.”

“We were going to get married, we were going to start a family. Him, me, and Caterina. We could’ve had more kids. I wanted three; two girls and a boy. I want to go back. I want to just go back and finally be Mrs.-”

“Esther! Esther. You have me. Me and you. Aren’t we family enough?”

She hesitated, almost as if she was afraid to answer. The urge to use her compulsion to make his interrogation stop was strong inside her. She didn’t act on them, however. Victor was her friend, he’d know when he crossed the line. But he didn’t seem to get the memo. “I care about you Victor, but it’s not the same. Caterina deserves a family.”

“She has you.”

“But Victor, she deserves her father.”

“Esther.” He pulled her in closer to him. Esther froze, but eventually eased with the thought of Victor understanding her boundaries. His hand brushed through the strands of hair not in her braid. “Aren’t we enough?”

Next thing she knew, Victor pulled her into a kiss. She wanted to push him away, but his grip on her was so tight she could barely move. The first time he’d kissed her she didn’t enjoy it and this time was no different. There was one problem. Esther missed a lover’s touch. She’d been practically alone for almost a year, only having Caterina for two months out of it and Victor for one. She closed her eyes and imagined he was someone he wasn’t- her fiance.

She pretended he was taller and the hair her fingers were bunched in was black instead of red. It made it easier for her just to sink into the embrace. His hands moved under her skirt and brushed against her skin, drawing closer and closer to her brassiere. Her mind screamed at her to pull away, but her body seemingly craved touch so much she simply gave way when he pulled the shirt over her head.

As his lips trailed down her neck and collarbone, she only thought about the other people who’d done it. Even as they were half naked in her bed, she felt like a body without a mind. She only missed Novak more. The bed she slept in, the man she lied next to, all of it.

After she’d let Victor have his way with her, she sat lifelessly in the bed. She wanted to use his sleeping state to her advantage and grab Caterina to run back to Novak, but as she wrote the letter explaining the things she wanted to do, she felt guilt build on her shoulders. Maybe Victor was right. Maybe the three of them were enough.

She bent down on the floor next to her bed and pried open the floorboard she made sure wasn’t quite in tact. She took the box out of the hole and opened it. With the letter in hand, she took out the envelope full of letters she’d never send and added it to it. Once it was sealed again, she laid it down back in the box, putting the silver chain over it to keep it in place.

When she closed the box, she stared at the intricate designs on the top a little longer. She remember buying it like it was yesterday. Her fingers traced along the letters CD before she put it back into the floor and locked the floorboard back on top.

Before crawling back into bed, she went into the adjacent room to look down at the baby in the crib. She brushed the back of her hand along her cheek, water welling up in her dark eyes. “I’m sorry, Caterina,” she whispered. “I’ll tell you everything when you’re older, I promise.”

Chapter 54

Lucky was what they called Jonathan Warren. The death of Victor Delikov was sudden enough as it was, but Jonathan’s abandonment only twisted the knife in Samantha’s back. Jonathan knew Victor would never let him live it down if he left his sister. Compared to most however, Jonathan was a good husband. Him and Samantha had known each other since they were children. He’d supported her through her hardships over the years and made sure no one ever called her Sammuel ever again.

But his downfall was a baby left on their doorstep in the middle of summer. He’d never wanted kids and no amount of time with his son would change it. Gideon never felt neglected or abused by Jonathan, but he also never felt loved by him. He couldn’t help but feel like his parents would’ve just been happier without him.

He would never forget how his mother just sat at the table, piece of paper in hand, sipping on a glass of water. When she went off to her room, Gideon could hear her weaps through the walls. He used her absence to his advantage and ran into the kitchen to read the letter.

Samantha,

I’m sorry I had to do this, but I’m not happy. I don’t want to have you suffer through my unhappiness. I just don’t want to be a burden to you- or Gideon. You know I didn’t want to be a father, but just seeing how happy that boy made you, I knew I couldn’t take that from you. As you know, I have family in Bortain, so I’ve decided to go back to them. If you don’t already hate me, I have one request; don’t become Bartholomew.

Love,

Jonathan

In the years following, his mother never became bitter of her husband’s decision. Gideon sometimes wondered if she respected it on occasion. He’d never heard her cry since that first day.

“Is everything alright, sweetie?” she asked from across the table, her grey eyes looking back at him.

“I’m fine,” he replied, not even looking up from his sketchpad. “I just bumped into a few people on my way here, same as always.”

“Why don’t you check and see if there are any possible bruises forming? I could help you heal them a little faster.”

His eyes shot up towards her. The sight of her standing up to walk towards him flooded his veins with anxiety. “No! I mean no. You don’t need to do that, mom.”

Sorrow and disappointment shown in her face. “You’ve been insecure like this since you were thirteen, does it have anything to do with your father leaving?”

“No it doesn’t, I swear,” he said as he pulled down at the sleeves of his sweater.

“Well, alright then.”

She still walked towards where he sat, but only to look over his shoulder at the sketches he was working on. The Petrovs had commissioned him to design and tailor this Silvia Crocus’s dress and so he vowed to make the ugliest wedding dress his mind could conjure up. He even heard his mother cringe as she looked at his concept sketches. “Gideon honey,” she spoke with sarcastic worry in her voice, “please tell me you’re purposefully making it look this bad.”

“Do you expect any less from me?”

“What sort of creature have I raised?” she laughed.

He chuckled at her comment. “I could’ve made it worse, but I’d never hear the end of it from Sere.”

The smile on his mother’s face faded at the mention of the name. “About her…”

“Mom, she’s fine. She’s just a bit overprotective, that’s all.”

“She just- she reminds me of your uncle.”

“Uncle Victor was a wonderful man, there’s nothing to worry about.”

She rose her red eyebrows at the statement. “I grew up with him, Gideon.I know his baggage.”

“And I grew up with Sere, I know her baggage.”

As she walked out of the dining area, she let out a large sigh. Before turning the corner, she peaked her head around the corner. “If you want more inspiration, be sure to look at the Ranez’s wedding book.”

“Oh I will.”

Chapter 55

Caterina sat in front of the tree with the box in her lap. She did this every single year. Sitting in front of the tree her mother died on, she’d talk to her. It was therapeutic. Her birthday had always been the hardest day of the year for her to get through. It didn’t help that today just so happened to mark fifteen years since her mother’s demise.

“Hi mom,” she was already choking back tears as she spoke, “it’s me, Caterina. I mean duh, who else would it be? It’s my twenty-first birthday today, that’s fun I guess. I was what, two when you were twenty-one?

“I should probably catch you up on the past year. Well, I still haven’t opened this,” she traced her finger along the GVS engraved onto the lid of the box, “and I won’t. It’s not my place and I respect your privacy. The Crows are- Jackie and Blackwing are good, I don’t know about Silvertongue. She- she left. I still wish you could’ve met them. You would’ve gotten under Jackie’s skin, but who doesn’t.”

Caterina tilted her head back in a desperate attempt to keep the tears that were beginning to form in her eyes. “There is one thing that’s happened. The king’s having a competition for the throne. They’re supposed to find me and bring me in to make me like a slave or something. No one’s found me, yet. Well… There is Thomas. Unlike the Crows, I’m glad you’ll never meet him. I think you might scare him away with your lack of a filter I’ve been told about. He… he makes me happy.

“Is this how my father made you feel? I know you don’t want to talk about him because he’s dead and all, Victor told me you didn’t want to tell me about your past, but I still want to know about him. I mean he’s my father, but if you don’t want to talk about him can I ask you about your old friends? What about Natasha Petrov? I know her husband killed you- I only found out a month ago- but her son tells me you two were friends. Speaking of him, do you know anything about him when he was a baby? Blackwing would probably love to know.”

She couldn’t hold it in anymore. The dams in her eyes opened to a flood of tears and uncontrollable crying. Into her hands, she violently sobbed, “I miss you so fucking much. I want you back. I’m going to make to make Shaw Petrov pay for what he did to you.”

A hand was suddenly on her shoulder and she looked up to see Thomas. “Caterina,” he whispered in a sympathetic voice.

She pushed the box off her lap and stood up to wrap her arms around his neck. Her tears didn’t stop even as she was in his arms. The fabric on his jacket where her face sat even began to wet. After a few minutes, she was finally able to collect herself, pushing away from Thomas only to see a crushed purple flower in his hand. “Shit! Was this for me? Fuck. You brought me a flower and I crushed it.”

“Well,” he stepped away to reveal a trial of identical flowers, “there’s more.”

As she followed it, she began to realize what was going on. It was only cemented when she walked into the cabin and saw the six flowers she’d had since she was a child in a jar on the table. When she counted the purple flowers in her arms, there were only fourteen. “It’s my twenty-first birthday, Thomas.”

“You kind of crushed the last one.”

“Well, you did interrupt my mommy-daughter time.”

“And I apologize for that.”

“Don’t. It’s just a stupid thing I do on my birthday.”

“If it means something to you it isn’t stupid.”

She took the flowers out of her arms and strategically put them in the jar, one at a time. Once they were all in, Thomas handed her the last one and no matter how hard she tried to make it stand up, no matter what position she put it in, it always seemed to fall on its broken stem. “And what are we to do with this little guy,” she chuckled.

“It adds character.”

“If your definition of character is a sad, limp, little flower then yes, it adds lots of character.”

Thomas let out a faint laugh as he turned around to grab something off one of the chairs at the table. It was a bag. “Why did you get me something?”

“It’s your birthday.”

“Yes, but you didn’t have to get me anything.”

“But I did.”

She took the bag out of his hands slowly, her fingers lingering as they touched his. “You did…”

She pulled away the crinkled paper in the bag to reveal around a dozen violet hair ties tied together by a bow. “Thomas…”

“I know when you made that comment about purple hair ties you were probably joking, but I thought you still might enjoy them. I had them custom made because, you know, you’re the only person who has purple hair…”

Caterina took one of those ties, gave a heavy sigh, and pulled up her hair into a high bun. Her hand covered the back of her neck as she looked up at him and said, “Thank you.”

She was terrified when she turned around, not wanting him to ask about the scars on the back of her neck. Lucky enough for her, not a word about them came out of his mouth. “You’re welcome.”

He walked over to where she stood leaning on the counter next to her. Her hand slowly crept towards his until their fingers were tied together. His fingers traced over the tattoos on her hand, causing a faint smile to emerge on her face, her toes curling at the touch. With her free hand, she cupped Thomas’s face and pulled him down to close the space between them. His own free hand slid down her waist. The grip on each other’s hand released for Thomas to pick Caterina up.

Her hands were now both on his face, the tips of her fingers brushing his hair as he carried her off to her bedroom, closing the door behind them. “Lock it,” she whispered onto his lips.

Once the door was locked, the two of them fell back onto the bed and Caterina reached up to unbutton his jacket. Pulling away from their embrace, he looked down at her and asked, “Do you want to do this?”

And with the biggest smile she’d had in years, she looked back at him and enthusiastically said, “Yes!”

With his own grin, he brought himself back down to her level, his lips trailing down her neck and collarbone. Once he got to the collar of her dress, she could feel his hands pull up at the bottom of it until it was all the way over her head. Before he could get back to his trail, she glared up at him with a smirk as she said, “Don’t you think it’s a little unfair for you to be fully clothed as I lie here in my underwear?”

“My deepest apologies, Ms Scilia.”

He threw his jacket onto the floor himself, but Caterina made sure to help him unbutton and take off the shirt under it. When the two of them were both fairly undressed, Caterina reached up to her tied hair, took the hair tie, and flung it across the room. “It’s good to know you really treasure that gift I got you,” Thomas laughed.

“There’s more. Besides that, I’ll find it in like a year.”

The roll in his eyes was accompanied by a grin as he was pulled back down to kiss her again.

* * *

Caterina half panicked when she woke up to an empty bed until she began to hear Thomas’s voice from outside the door, along with Jackie and Blackwing’s. She grabbed her underwear and Thomas’s guard’s jacket off the floor and slipped them on. When she got to the door, she only opened it a crack, just enough to get a peek as she listened in on the three of them.

Jackie and Thomas sat at the opposite ends of the table, the Crow with a book in hand. Blackwing sat on top of the counter, kicking her legs as she picked at whatever food was on the plate she held. “Caterina’s door was locked last night,” Jackie said as she glared up from her book to the captain.

“Yes,” he replied as he picked up the glass of water in front of him.

“And you’re still here.”

“Yes,” he repeated, sipping the water now.

“So did you two have sex last night?” she bluntly asked.

She could hear Thomas almost choke on the water. There was also a warmth rising in Caterina’s own face. “No comment,” he coughed.

“The lack of an answer is an answer in itself,” Blackwing finally cut in, hopping off the counter and sitting down in the chair next to her sister.

“I was just about to say that, my dearest sister.”

The smile shared between the two of them would terrify even the toughest of men. “Smart minds think alike. Besides that, I heard them.”

In a desperate attempt to change the subject, Thomas looked down as he asked, “What are those scars on the back of her neck?”

Caterina’s heart rolled onto the floor, bouncing on the way there. Jackie and Blackwing’s faces simultaneously went blank. “The ones that say witch?” You could hear the hesitation before Blackwing said the last word.

“Those…”

“It was her sixteenth birthday,” Jackie began, “Cecelia Delikov showed up randomly and asked her if she wanted to go to the Delikov manor to celebrate- I mean, it was a milestone birthday. After deliberating for a few minutes, she went.”

Please stop, Caterina screamed in her mind, stop.

She didn’t.

“The three of us stayed here as usual, but when we woke up…” And there was one of the handful of times Caterina heard Jackie Crow almost cry. “Blood. So much blood. She was just sitting in a giant pool of blood. We thought she was dead.

“She didn’t say a word when we stitched her up. We made sure there weren’t any infections, but we couldn’t stop the scarring. When she came out of her room the next day, she had those tattoos on her face. We always assumed they were a control thing. Like if she couldn’t control her scars or her eyes or her hair, she wanted to control those tattoos.”

Before any more words could come out of any of their mouths, Caterina burst through the door and sat down at the table. Jackie shot her a look that told her she knew she had been eavesdropping. In an attempt to lighten the mood, like a teasing sibling, she simply said, “Caterina.”

“Jackie,” she replied in the same tone.

“How’d you sleep last night?

“Amazing.”

“Good to know.”

Only by Blackwing’s grin did Caterina realize she had subconsciously reached for Thomas’s hand and was currently holding it. A couple of months ago, she would’ve ripped it away, but right now she just wanted to hold it. Something came over Blackwing and she left the table, coming back with something in her hands. Caterina almost immediately pulled the box off the table after she set it down. “You left this outside, so I brought it in.”

She could feel Thomas peer over her shoulder at the initials on the box. “It was my mother’s.”

“Wasn’t your mother’s name Esther?”

“Yeah. It’s just…” She looked down at the initials and really thought about why those letters in particular were on it for the first time since she’d originally found it. GVS. “...I don’t know.”

Thomas shrugged as he got up off the chair to go and grab his clothes, but not before leaning down and planting a kiss on Caterina’s lips. She could hear Jackie groan, but before she could comment, her sister elbowed her. Caterina couldn’t help but smirk. She eventually followed him back to her room, leaving the Crows to have their sibling bickering in privacy. After she pushed the box under her bed she said, pointing to the jacket she still wore, “You probably want this back.”

He shook his head while he buttoned his white shirt. “Keep it.”

“Isn’t it part of your uniform, though?”

“Yeah, but I have more so keep it.”

“But-”

“Please just keep it.”

She gave a small smile as he softly kissed her forehead before walking to the door. Before he could turn the knob, she let out, “Wait.”

He turned around, his brown eyes tinted with a little concern. “What is it?”

“Thank you.”

“For… for having sex with you?”

“No! I mean yeah but… What I meant was thank you for remembering the little stuff I mentioned. No one’s ever done that for me- not even Victor.”

“You deserve to be remembered.”

Once he was gone, she was left alone to her own thoughts. Maybe she did deserve to be remembered. Maybe she wasn’t a dim candle that would barely even leave a trail of smoke when it was blown out, maybe she was a light that refused to go out no matter how hard anyone tried. Five words. You deserve to be remembered. She didn’t want to be in parentheses next to Shaw Petrov’s cause of death in history books, she wanted a chapter all to herself; Caterina Edith Scilia, last magic user of Novak.

[romanoartsless]

So I'm back at it again with another update for y'all. Not much to say besides another three chapter update (the first two didn't seem like enough so I thought I might as well add in the third one since it was pretty much already written at the time) so yeah!

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Chapter 56

     Shit. In one word she would describe her life as shit. Eight years since her mother died. One since Victor. Caterina sometimes wondered if her curse wasn’t the fact the hair on her head, but instead that everyone she loved would eventually find an early demise. Maybe she should just rid the world of her presence. No one would miss her anyways. There would be no cries over how tragic her death was, only fourteen and already gone. There wouldn’t even be a funeral. She’d simply rot in peace.

    She’d been able to distract her thoughts with magic for the past year. Pushing herself to the brink of exhaustion, she’d stay up learning every bit of magic she could. She had known bits of compulsion before since her mother had been a compulsionist, but she had only known the basics. Now she could get the king to willingly hand his throne over to her, if only she had her soul partner…

    Whenever she’d think of someone out there being bonded to her without knowing it, she’d repress the thoughts. The world was better off if she stayed nothing and no one to everybody.

     Now she’d mastered all the abilities to her fullest capabilities, even as she heard her mother’s voice in her head telling her not to, and had nothing to distract herself from her own thoughts. She couldn’t run to her books and read them until her eyes drooped to silence the voice reminding her she wasn’t wanted or needed anywhere, she’d already memorized them all cover to cover. Victor might’ve had all the books on magic he could find in the library in the Delikov manor, but he was dead and dead people can’t bring you words to stop the ones in your head from telling you to just kill yourself.

    Her eyes were immediately drawn to the knife on the counter. The thoughts in her mind seemed to control her body more than she could. She pulled back her sleeve and took the knife in her hand. Before it could dig into her skin, a loud caw from outside the window interrupted her. She threw the blade across the room as she ran to the window yelling, “Shut up!” out it. When the crow didn’t stop, she strategically grabbed it out of the air and whispered, “Let me die in peace,” to it before snapping its neck and tossing the body into the wilderness.

     She was about to pick the knife up off the floor when she heard the chirps of chicks. Her heart stopped. “No no no,” she panicked. “Oh gods, what have I done?”

    When she looked out the window again, not far from where the crow had been sitting, sat a nest with three small chicks hungrily chirping in it. Caterina grabbed it off the branch then carefully placed it on the table. She dug through what little she had in the cupboards until she found a slice of bread. It was the last one, but these chicks deserved it more than she did. She carefully broke it up into even pieces and fed it to the three of them. “I’m Caterina,” she said as they pecked the bits out of her hand, “I guess I’ll be taking care of you three from now on.”

    In a few months she’d given them each names. She’d been reading one of her favorite books and decided to name the chicks after the main characters: Jackie, Silvertongue, and Blackwing. She hoped they were all girls. She wanted people to have intimate conversations with and she imagined they’d understand her more if they too were girls. “I’m just saying,” she vented to them, “it’s just not realistic for some gorgeous man to come bursting through my door and sweeping me off my feet. As much as the fairy tales make me fantasize, it’s just not going to happen.”

    Even more months passed until it was finally her birthday. She went to visit her mother as usual, but she brought the three little birds with her this time. She wished they could understand what she was saying, understand what they’d grown to mean to her. But all they did was sit on her shoulders as she cried at the base of the tree.

     A few days later, Caterina suddenly felt her magic strengthen. It came out of nowhere, but she wouldn’t let it pass without taking advantage of it. She’d read of Cyran Marigold who created a community of people out of her garden, but she’d also read about the toll it took on her body to make just one, even with her soul partner present. But Caterina had to try. With all three magic abilities, you could make non-human living things human, using them all at the same time. Caterina had that and three crows she knew’s lifespan was shorter than a human’s. “Jackie!” she called out, a bird flying to her and landing on her arm after she did so.

     The next day the strength in her magic had faded, but not enough to stop her from trying again with Silvertongue. “Caterina, it isn’t going to end well,” Jackie tried to tell her.

    “I don’t care.”

     When the sun rose the next morning, Caterina could barely keep her eyes open. “Caterina, I swear to the gods,” Jackie called out as she walked past her and Silvertongue with the last bird on her shoulder.

     She didn’t even look back at the two Crows as she walked out the door. Her magic had lost any added strength it had in previous days, but third time's a charm.

     When she didn’t come back in a few hours, Jackie and Silvertongue got worried. “Do we go out there?” Silvertongue asked her sister.

     Jackie replied by bursting open the cabin door only to see who she assumed was her sister cradling Caterina’s unconscious body. “What did I do to her?” Blackwing cried.

    Jackie just pushed her away to get to Caterina. The first thing she did was pull open her eyelids. With the knowledge passed down from her, Jackie knew immediately what the black pooling in the whites of her eyes meant. Infection. Jackie panicked and just slapped Caterina’s unconscious face. She knew Caterina herself was the only one who could stop the infection, but she couldn’t help but yell at and shake her body. “Get up! You made us so raise us!”

     The three sisters sat there for hours just waiting for Caterina to wake up- as herself or even the infection. In the early morning, she finally woke up, gasping for air almost as if she’d been underwater for the time she was out. A sigh of relief came out of Jackie’s mouth when she saw her eyes were regular black.

    Caterina couldn’t keep back the tears back as she looked up at the three black haired sisters standing in front of her. She hugged them like she hadn’t hugged anyone in what seemed like centuries- like family.

Chapter 57

     Blackwing was just minding her own business until two hands came from behind her and covered her vision. Jackie had warned her about situations like this, so she did what she told her to; elbow him where the sun doesn’t shine. “Happy birthday, I guess,” a familiar voice groaned.

     “Crispin! Oh my gods, I’m so sorry!”

    He tried to make his pain less obvious, but he wasn’t doing a very good job at it. “Happy birthday…”

     She helped him stand up straight, giving him a kiss on the cheek when he was fully upright. “Thank you.”

    She went to grab his hand to walk with him, but he pulled it away before she could. “Wait, you have to close your eyes.”

    “Huh?”

     “I don’t want you to see what I got you for your birthday. Close your eyes.”

    “Crispin-”

    “Please.”

     She eventually complied, keeping her eyes shut as Crispin walked her to places she had no idea. The two of them came to a sudden stop when he whispered, “You can open them now,” into her ear.

    While she expected something big and extravagant, when she opened her eyes, she was only standing in front of the building they spent their time at. “Crispin, is this a joke?”

    “No!” He turned her back towards the building, pointing back towards it. “It’s your birthday present.”

    She scowled back at him, to which he dug into he dug into one of his pockets and pulled out a piece of paper. “Here,” he said as he handed it off to her.

    Everything began to make sense as she scanned over the words printed on the paper. “Crispin… Did you- did you buy me the building?”

    “Possibly.”

     Blackwing began to tear up as she looked back at Crispin. He kept the smile on his face as he wiped away the water in her eyes. “Thank you,” she whimpered, “thank you so much.”

     He leaned down to her level and wrapped his arms around her waist as she wrapped her own around his neck. Next thing she knew, he picked her up off the ground and carried her into her new building. Once they came through the door, he put her back down onto the lobby floor. She lied down on the floor, consuming the walls she knew like the back of her hand, but instead as her own. These were her walls, her floors, her rooms.

    Crispin then came next to her on the floor, looking at her instead of the ceiling like she was. “You like it?”

     “I love it. Crispin, I love it so much.”

     She turned to face him, cupping his face when she did. “But you don’t have to buy me a bunch of expensive things.”

     “How else am I to win your affection?” he joked.

     She smiled, deciding to play along with his game. “Oh I’m sorry, you’re right. You must buy my love.”

     “Good thing I’m my daddy’s son. He’s got money.”

    “The only good thing Shaw Petrov ever did was make you and give you money to buy me things.”

    “Agreed.”

     “In all seriousness,” she said, changing the tone, “please don’t feel like you need to buy me things.”

    “Humble humble Blackwing.”

    “Crispin.”

    “Fine. I, Crispin Petrov, promise not to excessively buy things for my girlfriend.”

    “Good, now pinky promise.”

    “Oh Blackwing…”

    She sat straight up from the floor, her pinky up and pointed towards him. “I am dead serious, Crispin Petrov.”

    He rolled his eyes, but followed what she did until their fingers were tied together. Blackwing leaned in closer to him, their pinkies still knotted, and said, “Now you really can’t break it.”

    Crispin couldn’t help but pull her in to kiss her. There was a smile on her lips, but she still pulled away. “You can’t just kiss me and expect me to forget what I just said.”

     “You know that move almost always worked on the high ladies.”

    “Which I am not one of.”

    “Yeah but I like that. I like you.”

    “Like?”

     “Yeah…?”

    She smirked at him. “Just like?”

    His anxiety released at her playful tone. “Blackwing Crow, do you just want me to get up and give you the most grandiose, obnoxious declaration of love I can muster up?”

     “Yes please.”

    Crispin stood up from where he sat on the floor and ran towards the large staircase leading up to the first floor, leaning on the rail at the edge of the platform before the hall. “Blackwing… Do you have a middle name?”

    “No.”

    “Crow! You’re really fucking hot. What a hidden gem. Who would’ve thought I’d find such a fine fine lady in a pub in the middle of east Novak. And all I had to do was stab some pervert’s hand.”

     Blackwing had to muster up the power to suppress a giggle. “This isn’t quite what was imagining.”

    “And what were you imagining?”

    “Something a bit more… sappy.”

     “You don’t want to see me when I get sappy.”

    “Come on Crispin! It’s almost my birthday!”

    Crispin couldn’t help but fall for her batting dark eyelashes up at him and after he rolled his eyes, he sat down on the first step and began. “When I was thirteen, while my parents were in a head of the high families meeting, I snuck out into the Dobrev manor. I was just roaming the halls when I found this bookshelf. I picked up a random book and it was a wedding album. Roderich Dobrev and Anya Ranez.

    “Unlike a normal thirteen year old boy, I didn’t paint little penises on their faces. I just flipped through the pages and saw something I’d never seen before; actual, genuine love. These people looked so happy, and not the kind of happy where they smiled just for the photo, but the kind where they didn’t even realize someone was taking their picture because they were too busy staring at each other.

     “In my head, I told myself, ‘That. I want that.’ Then for the next eleven years, it felt like everything I was ever told was that I couldn’t.”

    When the tears began to form in his eyes, Blackwing sprinted up the steps until she sat next to him, her arm around his shoulders and her other hand cupping his face. She wiped away the small trait already rolling down his cheek with her thumb. “It’s okay,” she softly spoke, “there’s no need to cry.”

     “You’re that.”

    Blackwing didn’t know how to reply, only looking into his bright green eyes. The two of them sat in silence, staring at each other, for what felt like hours until Crispin lied down, his head in her lap. “Happy birthday, Blackwing.”

     “Thank you.”

Chapter 58

    “Cecelia Delikov was my best friend for what felt like forever.”

    Silvertongue had expected Edith to lay out an all black outfit for her this morning. From what she knew, you wore black to funerals. But to her surprise, a bright blue dress was sprawled out on her bed. She felt similar surprise when everyone at the funeral, from the king to the youngest Petrov daughter to Lorelei Ranez giving a eulogy, wore the same shade of blue. Delikov blue she later realized.

     Everyone’s eyes were locked on Lorelei- all except her own husband’s. March Ranez was staring at Natasha Petrov as if his life depended on it. As if every second he spent looking at her was worth a minute of air when he was drowning in a sea of his own longing. Perhaps when the gods made March and Natasha they knew they would fall in love, so they used the same ingredients and mixed them in the same bowl, only to put that soul into two bodies bound never to hold one another the way they so desperately wished. It was almost as if they were made to fall in love, but destined never to be together.

     Silvertongue turned back to Lorelei to see her wipe away tears from her pale blue eyes before she continued. “Although we fell apart some when we began to raise our children, I always knew she was still there for me. Cecelia was there when I needed advice or just someone to talk to. We’d even talk about boys like a bunch of school girls. One of the ones we’d mention frequently is even here today.” The looks on the Petrovs faces told everyone this man wasn’t her husband. “She… she meant so much to me. Frankly, Cecelia Delikov was too good for Novak- too good for all of us. Now she’s with Victor forever, the place she always wanted to be. Thank you.”

    Once Lorelei had stepped away, Edith almost immediately replaced her. The lack of any emotions in her voice sent a chill through the room. It wasn’t the lack of emotion Silvertongue heard from Caterina, which she later learned was actually too many emotions to process where none could win the starring role. There was simply nothing in Edith’s voice, almost like she was a void simply possessing a body, not a girl speaking at her mother’s funeral.

“Thank you Lorelei,” she spoke, “I’m just going to cut the bullshit and tell you. I’m sick of keeping her safe when she’s done absolutely nothing for me. Her name’s Caterina.”

 Silvertongue’s heart stopped on a dime. Edith had to have been delusional, this was nothing they’d discussed.

“She’s a witch and she lives in the forest of east Novak. If she had a soul partner to be found, she’d easily be more powerful than all of you, she’s achieved all three abilities. You’re all fucking idiots for not finding her! We brought her into Novak! We branded her as a witch! Why haven’t you fucking found her?! Why haven’t you fucking killed her?!”

 She ran up to Edith’s side before anything more could come out of her mouth. “Edith, you’re spewing nonsense,” she ad libbed, “you’re just upset, you lost your mother. Let’s get you some rest, come on.”

 “No! You fucking idiots! She’s real, she’s a witch! She stole my father!”

 Once Edith was away to cool, Silvertongue took her spot and said, “I’m so sorry about her. She’s had a hard time coping and because of that she’s convinced a magic user must’ve killed her mother. You can see why this is crazy.”

Half of the crowd was still too grief stricken to even nod in agreement, the other seemed flooded with confusion. Silvertongue only noticed five people out of what looked like a hundred in the crowd who were even the slightest bit suspicious of Edith’s words: Shaw and Crispin Petrov, Amber Lynn Ranez, Gideon Warren, and the king.

* * *

     March couldn’t help but wonder where Edith and her companion had gone after the fiasco. They hadn’t come to the dinner planned after the funeral, even hours after it had started. Edith was a grieving child, so he didn’t think about it too much. He was walking back to the dining mall where all the high families had collected when-

    “I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to run into you.”

     When he looked up and saw the most beautiful turquoise eyes to grace this world, his heart skipped a beat. “You’re okay, Tash.”

    She was clearly in a state of panic as she attempted to straighten his suit back up. “Are you sure? I don’t want you to get upset. I swear this was just an accident.”

    He reached out to push a strand of sandy blond hair out of her face, but she flinched when his hand went towards her face. It destroyed him inside to think about she was used to when someone’s hand was anywhere near her face. “I’m sorry,” he said as he pulled his hand back to his side, “I should’ve told you what I was going to do.”

     “No, I’m sorry. I- I’m sorry.”

    “Tash…”

     “I’m sorry.”

    She went to run away in the opposite direction March was going until she turned back for one last glance. When she noticed his glasses were still crooked, she slowly walked back to him, reached up to his face, and straightened them. Her fingers lingered on his frames for a second longer than they should’ve. Neither one of them could even muster a breath for the split second they spent staring into hazel and blue-green respectively. Finally, after what felt like years, Natasha stepped away from him and went back to her initial path. “Goodbye March,” she said as she turned to look at him over her shoulder one last time.

     “Goodbye Tash.”

 * * *

    “I gave them what they wanted and they think I’m fucking insane.”

    Edith still hadn’t cooled down in the deep night after the funeral. Silvertongue tried everything to get her to calm, but nothing was working. “I thought the plan was to have Crispin find her and win the competition after we’re married.”

     The laugh that came out of Edith’s mouth was chilling. “Silvertongue, how naive of you to think everything will go according to plan. He’s probably all buddy-buddy with Caterina now. Your sister is his little mistress, so what’s to say the witch isn’t his new best friend.”

    “What are we supposed to do then?”

    “Push one domino and watch all the others fall down with it.”

    “What does that mean?”

     Edith spread out three objects that sat on the table in front of them: a pen, a paperweight, and a book. “Here’s Caterina,” she said as she opened up the book, “she is easily influenced by your sisters.” She took the pen and placed it on top the open pages. “And as we know, one of your sisters with Mr. Petrov, so all we do is…” Once she was standing, the paperweight in hand, she dropped it onto the book, crushing the pen sitting on it.

    Ink was spilling everywhere, Silvertongue panicked, trying as desperately as she could to get the black liquid off the pages. She threw the now broken pen and chipped paperweight to the side, ruining her blue, silk dress in an attempt to dry the pages. “What are you doing, Edith?!”

     “Crispin’s only claim to fame is his little sexual deviance.”

    “Edith! What does that have to do with any of this?!”

     “It’s so easy. How did I not think of this sooner?!”

     “Edith!”

    “Fuck him!”

    Silvertongue froze for so long the ink seeped through the fabric of her dress, staining her hand. “Edith…”

    “Think about what it will do to him.” She pointed to the damaged paperweight on the floor. “And her.” Then the broken pen next to it. “And her.” She simmered in the last two words like an expensive meal you wanted every bite to last forever. Her hands went down onto the book, not caring about the ink engulfing her palms. After a second of just staring at her hands, smiling, she lifted them off the pages and cupped Silvertongue’s face. “Make me proud, Silvertongue Crow. Make me proud.”

[romanoartsless]

I'm too lazy to write this part so here

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Chapter 51

 “Who the fuck is this, Blackwing?”

It took her a second to collect her feelings before she finally said, “Crispin… Petrov.”

“Blackwing! His father- you know what his father did. Just imagine what he’ll do to me.”

 “He’s not like that Caterina, I swear! He- Well-” She leaned over to his still unconscious body and rolled up his sleeve, exposing the white scars going up his left arm. “His father drove him to this, Caterina. Please give him a chance.”

She rolled the purple fabric back down, buttoning the cuff when it got to his wrist. Before turning back to Caterina, she placed a kiss onto the man’s temple. ‘What should we do?”

 “Go to your room, Blackwing.”

“But-”

 “I’m not going to hurt him. I promise.”

Before Blackwing hesitantly got up and walked into her room, she grabbed a towel and threw it over the man’s face. She put her hand on Caterina’s shoulder, leaned down, and whispered into her ear, “He has the eyes.”

* * *

    Crispin opened his eyes to darkness. He began to panic until he he reached up to his face, felt a piece of fabric, and pulled it away. The place he sat was only half familiar, from the split second he saw it before going unconscious. When he looked around, it was almost impossible not to immediately be drawn to the woman with bright purple hair. “So you’re the last magic user, huh?”

    She let out a faint laugh as she got up from the chair and paced around the cabin, strategically avoiding eye contact. Even then, Crispin was able to get a brief look at her face. It reminded him of the pictures his mother had of her and old friends- and vaguely of Saturday Ranez. The main difference was the black ink etched into her face, the most notable of which was a black bar going from her chin all the way down to her collarbone. He could only imagine the rest of the art on her body. She also had bruises covering parts of her face.

    “Tell me,” she spoke in a low voice, “what makes you think I’m a magic user? For all you know, I’m just a measly peasant girl with an affinity for purple.”

     “With hair like that, you’re either a magic user or a soul partner.”

     “True, true. The former. I’m surprised you didn’t say my eyes, I mean, they are black.”

     “If you don’t face me I can’t see your eyes.”

    She stopped in her tracks. “Put the towel back on your face.”

    “But I can’t see anything if it’s-”

    “Put the towel on your face! Cover your fucking eyes!”

“Gods, it’s just my eyes.”

“Cover them!”

 He opened up a pocket in his jacket and pulled out black, tinted glasses. Once they were on, he turned to her and said, “How do I look?”

She hesitantly looked over at him and instantly felt at ease when she couldn’t see green through the lenses. He would’ve winked had the glasses not covered her vision of his eyes. Granted, she could’ve killed him with magic, but nonetheless he still would’ve winked.

“Petrov?”

“Yes?”

 “Good.”

“...Good?”

“Your father, what do you think of him?”

“Hope he rots in hell.”

A devilish grin grew on her face. “Help me kill him.”

 “Wait what?!”

 “I said, help me killed him.”

“I don’t even know your name, why should I help you?”

She held out her hand towards him in greeting. It was just as inked as her face. “Caterina Scilia.”

“Like the prostitute family?”

Her scowl sent chills down his spine. “Yes,” she spat in his face, “like the prostitute family. You have a problem with that?”

“No no! My mother’s best friend was a Scilia. E- Es-”

       “Esther?”

     “Yeah! Yeah, Esther Scilia. They were so close when I was a baby. You two related or something?”

     “She was my mother.”

    “Oh… Well, uh, tell me Kitty, why do you want my father dead?”

     She told him only brief details of the gruesome murder of her mother. The small details still made him sick. They were so disgusting, Crispin felt the woman’s desires for blood were justified. He was about to open his mouth and give her his condolences, but she cut him off with, “I don’t want your pity, I want your help.”

    “What shall we do then, Kitty?”

    “Well first of all, stop calling me Kitty.”

    “No…”

    Her black eyes rolled as she crossed her arms along her chest. “Petrov.”

    “Fine! What are we supposed to do?”

    “I need you to be a distraction.”

     “Me? Be the distraction? You do realize your hair is purple?”

     “Well, you can step out into Novak and not become an immediate target.”

     “Ah. True, true.”

    “You need to set up something.”

    A thought suddenly came to his mind. “No I don’t”

    “What do you mean you don’t?! You’re the distraction!”

    “Woah, calm down, Kitty. There’s already something that’s going to happen we can use a distraction.”

    “What?”

    “My wedding.”

    Somewhere else in the cabin, he could feel the presence of a heart breaking so strongly it might as well have been audible. “I don’t want to hear every detail of the high family politics at the moment,” the magic user said, “but I must ask, when is it?”

    “In a little less than four months.”

    “Good, that’ll give us enough time to devise a plan, tie in another person-”

    “Tie in another person?!”

    “Yes. A distraction is only good if we can get him from it to me, and you’ll be too busy doing wedding shit to be that person. Just one, we only need one other person.”

    “How about just using Blackwing?”

    “No no no, she’s not high class enough. We need someone who wouldn’t rat me out, but isn’t suspicious enough to your father. We need someone he’ll pity.”

    “I think I know someone who would fit that bill.”

    “Perfect.”

 * * *

    The speed at which Crispin ran to Blackwing when he saw her made Caterina glow inside. In actuality, it was closer to everything he did with her. Caterina always had and always would be willing to do almost anything to see her Crows happy. She was still willing to do anything to see SIlvertongue one last time. But right now she just stood and smiled as she watched Crispin pick up Blackwing in a tight embrace, her feet a few inches off the ground.

    Blackwing’s regular smile could make any day a little brighter, but this one was different. It brought her immense happiness as usual, but this time accompanied by a tinge of pain. Blackwing was happy, but what if this happiness caused her to do the same thing SIlvertongue did- abandon her and never look back at the wreckage she left behind. Caterina pushed those thoughts back into the area of her mind she only unlocked when she needed an excuse to cry a little longer.

    She couldn’t help but listen in through the ajar door when they walked into the bedroom (she knew she wouldn’t be listening in on anything sexual at least, not when it was Blackwing). When she noticed the Petrov take off his lenses, she was careful as she peaked through the crack.

    Blackwing began to rub her thumb along his forehead as they lie face-to-face on the bed. “I’m sorry about Caterina.”

    He let out a breathy laugh as his hand slowly glided down her hip. “It’s fine. I wish every time I got up from being knocked out a purple haired bitch wanted my help to assassinate my father.”

    Caterina wanted to burst through the door and slap his head, but lucky enough for her, Blackwing already did it for her. “Crispin! Caterina’s pretty much my family, you can’t say that kind of stuff about her.”

     “Fine then, what do you propose I call her?”

     Preferably not Kitty, Caterina thought to herself.

     “Caterina.”

    “I like Kitty more.”

    She saw Blackwing roll her chocolate eyes. “Fine.”

    Blackwing might have been a bit of a people pleaser sometimes, but luckily Caterina inherited her mother’s stubbornness. Petrov could call her Kitty one more time before she shrivelled up his manhood in the most painful way she could imagine. To be quite honest, the only thing keeping Caterina from running in there and putting that cocky bastard in a chokehold was Blackwing. This Crispin Petrov began getting under her skin the second he walked into the cabin.

“I’m sorry about earlier,” he said in a much more serious tone, “about thinking you were working with Edith just to get close to me.”

Now she knew these new things he’d thought of Blackwing, the chokehold sounded even better than before.

 “It’s okay, I shouldn’t have been so vague with you.”

“I respect you, for wanting to protect her.”

Something in his body language told Caterina it wasn’t a lie and she began to regret her fantasies of the chokehold. “She’s family.”

“Blackwing, your little family unit is even more stable than all the high families combined. I hope you know that.”

“If only you knew.”

But Caterina did know. She did know what Blackwing was referencing- more so who she was referencing.

 “I wish I had a family like that.”

“But you do.”

“Who? My dad can’t decide if he wants me to make him dozens of green eyed grandkids or if he finally just wants me to off myself, my mom went crazy and talks to those stupid skulls more than her own children, my sisters act like I don’t even exist even though I helped raise like half of them-”

He stopped abruptly when Blackwing kissed him softly. “Me Crispin. You have me.”

When they began to kiss again and again, Caterina closed the door the rest of the way. She’d let them have their privacy in this moment. Rather have Blackwing happy here than have her run for it like Silvertongue.

* * *

     Blackwing walked Crispin out of the cabin in a different path than the one Thomas took. Caterina didn’t want any chance of them running into each other. Those world didn’t need to collide.

     Thomas walked into the cabin, let himself into her room, and wrapped his arms around her neck, his head balanced on her shoulder. When she turned to face him, his golden brown eyes went wide in terror. It took her a second to realize he was looking at the bruises and cuts Edith gave her. “Caterina!” he exclaimed, her face now in his hands as he kneeled on the floor in front of her. “What in the gods’ names happened to you?”

    She told him about Edith and the more she spoke the more horrified Thomas got. “Please don’t do anything to her, though. I don’t… Just don’t.”

    He pushed up on his legs and kissed the cut on her lip. “I won’t.”

     He went to stand up, but she stopped him. “I know who it is.”

     “You know who?”

    She leaned over to her desk, grabbed the file, and handled it to him. “Him. He did it. He killed my mother.”

     Thomas looked down at the name on the file and began to curse in a language Caterina couldn’t understand. She assumed it was Nell. He began to pace around the room, running his fingers through his hair in frustration. When he finally turned back to her, she swore she saw tears in his eyes. Next thing she knew he was back to Caterina’s side of the room with his arms around her. He whispered something Nell into her ear. She didn’t dare ask what it meant.

     “Don’t do anything stupid to him, Thomas.”

    “He killed your mother, Caterina! Shaw Petrov killed your mother…”

    “Mine. He killed mine. Your mother is fine, she hasn’t been touched by Shaw. Why do you care so much?”

    “Because I care about you, Caterina!”

    “Well stop!”

     “I can’t! Even if I could I wouldn’t. Caterina,” he kneeled down back in front of her, his hand running through her purple hair, “stop telling yourself you aren’t deserving of anything good. You don’t need to push me away.”

    “But I do! Everyone who cares about me dies or stabs me in the back.”

     “Do you want to or do you feel like you have to?”

    Her black eyes met his brown ones with a tinge of sorrow in the darkness of them. “I feel like I have to.”

    “And what do you really want to do, Caterina?”

    She leaned down to his level and gently kissed him. “That,” she whispered into his lips.

    “I like that choice.”

    She gently pushed him, causing him to let out a soft laugh. “Cockiness isn’t attractive, Thomas,” she cooed as she twirled her tattooed fingers through his chocolate curls.

    “Don’t tell my brother.”

     Thomas went to pick up Caterina, but she hissed as his fingers brushed across the bruises under her dress. His expression went from desire to horror the second the noise came out of her mouth. “What’s wrong? Did I hurt you?”

    “No no no,” she held his face, forcing their eyes to meet, “you’re fine, I just-”

     She halted her speaking, pushed him off her, and unzipped the back of her dress. Before she fully pulled it off, she was able to catch Thomas’s now reddening face. Any joy in it went away almost immediately when he saw the purple spots scattered across her stomach. He was on his feet in the blink of an eye. “I’ll see if I can find some ice or like a cold pack. While I go do that, can you sit up? You’ll heal better if you’re elevated. Unless you can’t do that because then go-”

     “Thomas, this is just normal for me.”

    “This,” he said as he gestured to the almost dozen bruises across her body, concern in his voice, “is normal?”

     “You should see it when it’s bad,” she attempted to joke.

     Now she fully understood how seriously he was taking this. Not even a hint of a laugh came out of him. Before the silence became unbearable, Caterina said, “I can sit up,” to which Thomas walked out of the room.

    He came back a few minutes later with a cold pack in hand and piece of bread in his mouth. “I’m not hungry, Thomas,” she told him as he walked through the door.

     “I am,” he replied with the bread still in his mouth.

    She rolled her eyes at him. “You better buy me a new loaf.”

    Thomas dug into one of his pockets and threw ten gold coins onto her bedside table. She couldn’t help but gawk at them. The Crows could buy more than a dozen loaves with this. “Holy shit, Thomas! What bread do you think I need?”

     “I think you guys don’t need to scavenge,” he said between bites.

     Once the slice was gone, Thomas gently placed the pack along the bruised areas on Caterina’s stomach. She bit back the urge to wince in pain. “Is this okay? It’s not hurting is it?” he asked.

     “No, it’s fine,” she lied.

     Everytime he applied pressure, it became more and more difficult to hold in her cries of pain. “Talk to me,” she finally said.

    “Huh?”

     “Talk to me, Thomas. I need a distraction.”

    He glared up at her. “I thought you said you were fine.”

    “We don’t need to argue semantics at the moment. Just talk please.”

     He rolled his eyes before looking over at her right arm and saying, “Those are really good. Beautiful actually.”

    She blushed a little. “Thank you, I did them myself.”

    “So you’re left-handed?” She nodded. “What about the portrait? Is that your mother?”

    She looked down at the ink on her upper arm, smiling when she met eyes with the person depicted. “Yeah. It was a self portrait she did before I was born. Portraits were her specialty. I used to copy them when I was little, it would help me cope. I think she even did a portrait for the king.”

    “I thought you said you did them yourself,” he teased.

    “I’ll have you know, Thomas Arthur Dubroin, that tattoo took me nearly a whole year to replicate and get on my body. And tattooing yourself isn’t all fun and games. Just imagine a needle poking your skin thousands of times… consecutively.”

    Thomas physically cringed at the thought. “I’ll pass.”

    “As I thought.”

     “Well, when did you give yourself your first tattoo, Ms Tattoo Expert.”

     “The day after my sixteenth birthday.”

     “Ooh, so do you have a little dainty one in a hidden spot then?”

    “Nope. This was my first one.” She pointed at the black bar going down her chin to her collarbone.

    “You uh… dove in deep.”

    “Caterina Edith Scilia is not a pussy, she commits.”

“I can tell.”

The smile on his face was almost unbearably beautiful. She wanted nothing more than to lean down and kiss him. So she did. Thomas sank into it as if he’d waited forever for her to make the move. His mouth opened to hers as their tongues brushed. She reached out to unbutton his guards uniform jacket and tossed it on the floor. Thomas’s grin shown even as their lips were touching. His hands drifted down to her waist until-

“Ow!”

The two of them suddenly remembered why they were there in the first place. Thomas awkwardly patted the cold pack onto her bruises again. You could’ve heard the flap of a butterfly’s wing in the room in that moment. Caterina half wished Jackie would burst through the door any second, witty comment ready, just to break the ambiance, but she never did. Of course, the one time she wanted Jackie to walk in, she didn’t.

“So…” Thomas finally spoke up.

“So.”

“That was uh…”

“Yeah.”

 Caterina heard the sound of a door closing and couldn’t help but feel a weight lift off her shoulders. Jackie. She came through the door, not even batting an eye at Thomas. As she looked over his shoulder to Caterina’s stomach, she put her hand onto Thomas, kneeled down to his seated level, and said, “I’ve seen worse.”

 “See! That’s what I told him!”

“Now,” Jackie continued, “should I ask why you’re half naked and why his jacket is on the floor?”

 “It uh, got hot…?”

Jackie rolled her eyes before walking out of the room, only to return a minute later with a book in hand. She sat herself down at the desk, kicking her boots up onto it. “What are you doing, Jackie?” Caterina asked.

“Babysitting,” she promptly replied as she cracked open the spine.

 Chapter 52

 Crispin had been eyeing her for the past few days. She hated it more than anything. Not that she didn’t like Crispin, she just didn’t understand the intentions of the stares. One day, a week or so after the glances began, Amber Lynn couldn’t take it anymore. She watched as he snuck out of the party and followed. After a few minutes of trailing behind, he finally looked back at her. Before he could say anything, she asked, “Why have you been staring at me for the past week?”

“I mean, you’re not very hard on the eyes.”

“Crispin!”

 His face went blank. The expression made her anxiety worsen. “What’s wrong, Crispin?”

“We can’t be out in public.”

“What do you mean?”

“Follow me.”

 She hesitated, but eventually began to follow him, not wanting to be left alone. He took her to an abandoned building near her family’s manor. Since it was so close to her home, she knew the teens of Novak would sneak in there and have sex. She’d even done it a few times herself. “Crispin…?”

“Sit.”

“What’s going on?”

“Just sit. You’ll regret it if you don’t.”

Even in her confusion, she complied. Without even thinking about it, she began to pick at her nails in an attempt to ease her anxiety. Her mind immediately went to the worst possible things it could simmer up. “We need your help,” he finally said.

“Who is we?”

“Me and Caterina.”

“Who is Caterina?”

“You’ll find out if you agree to help us.”

 “Agree to help you two do what?”

 “Kill my father.”

Amber Lynn was glad she had listened to Crispin and sat down because had she not, she would’ve fallen to her knees. “We can’t just kill your father, Crispin.”

“If all three of us work together we can.”

 “No we can’t! Screw the Dobrevs, your father runs this country! He has puppet strings on everyone! Killing him is pretty much the same thing as killing the king! I don’t even have baggage with him either. What the hell do you think my motive would be?”

“Sere.” The name alone sent a chill down her spine. “Think of how your dynamic would change. She won’t walk all over you- no one will, not when you’ve had a hand in Shaw Petrov’s murder.”

“I can’t do it.”

“Amber Lynn, please.”

 The tone in his voice made her feel needed for the first time in nearly a decade. He was right, though. No one would look at her the same if the plan went through. No longer would she be Amber Lynn Ranez who cried when put in a crowd, but instead Amber Lynn Ranez who had a hand in the assassination of one of the most powerful men in Novak. The glory was unbearably tempting. “I’d like to meet this Caterina before I make my decision.”

 “Great! Come back here tomorrow, same time.”

* * *

      Blackwing had come to her that night and told her Crispin wanted to meet up again in an old, abandoned building near the Ranez manor. She’d read enough books and looked at enough maps to know the general layout of Novak. A high family manor would be easy to find. If all else failed, she could just look for Crispin instead of the building. His tall stature made him stick out like a sore thumb.

 She threw on a wig she’d saved for years to go into town. It was the same color as her mother’s hair, but styled into a long bob with bangs long enough to cover her eyes. Victor had gotten it for her for her thirteenth birthday- the last birthday she had with him. She’d pestered him about it for months until he walked through the cabin door with the square box in hand.    

 The dress she put on had short enough sleeves to expose her almost fully tattooed right arm (she had a few on her left arm, but being left handed it was easier for her to do more detailed work on her right one). She knew the people would be staring at her anyways, so she’d rather it be at the ink in her skin than her eyes.

 As she walked out of the forest, she made sure to pass her favorite tree. She’d found it a few years ago, on her birthday when she went to go out to the tree her mother was burned on. What drew her to it was the initials carved into the trunk. GW + SP. She’d even conjured up a story in her mind about them. She imagined they were two magic using kids, oblivious to their upcoming fate. One tap on GW, one tap on SP. Both for good luck.

Caterina had only been on the streets of Novak once, and even then she was in a carriage. Everything she knew about Novak was hearsay, so she felt like an ignorant child as she walked. The people were even more rude than she thought they’d be. They weren’t even subtle about their whispering and pointing. Three different people even ran into her, none of them apologizing. A fourth one eventually bumped into her (they didn’t apologize either), but this- this time was different.

Her heart stopped for what felt like forever. She could feel the magic in her veins intensify. The feeling was almost too much for her to handle. She couldn’t for the gods remember the last time her magic felt this strong. Even though she’d never felt the sensation before, it was almost too easy for her to put a finger on it. Soul partner. She wondered if they could feel the bond between them, too.

When she turned around, all she saw was a crowd of people. No one stood out to her as she scanned the faces. She wanted to yell out something to them, just so they’d know she was out there. If they were anything like her right now, they probably went to great extents to conceal whatever their unnatural physical attribute was.

She stood there hopelessly, a single tear falling down her cheek, realizing there was no safe way to find them. In whatever turn of events happened, one or both could be put in danger of conviction- or worse, execution. She’d rather not have them then put them in danger, so she wiped away her tear and kept walking as if nothing happened.

* * *

    Amber Lynn sat, impatiently awaiting the arrival of whoever this Caterina was. She was beginning to think it was all a joke made up by Crispin to keep the facade going of the two of them being in a relationship in order to get his engagement called off. She finally got sick of waiting and swung open the building’s rotted doors. Before any words could come out, Amber Lynn’s breath was taken away by the woman in front of her.

     She looked about the same age as her, but at least half a foot taller. Her deathly pale skin was contrasted by dark ink imbedded in her skin, anywhere from her arms to her face. Amber Lynn guessed she could’ve been blessed with curves had she not looked like she skipped at least one meal a day. But what took her aback the most was her face. Not the tattoos on it, but instead the shape. It reminded her of looking in the mirror. The same sharp angles that looked like she could cut wood on them. A Ranez face.

    The woman clearly didn’t take the time to feminize her face like Amber Lynn did, but granted the angles worked well with the edge she gave off. “Are you a Ranez?” Amber Lynn slipped out before even thinking about it.

    When she looked back at her, her heart skipped a beat. The eyes she was looking into were as black as the darkest of nights. Only a magic user could possess eyes like that.

    The confusion on her face was clear as day. It was also present in her low, raspy voice when she replied, “No…?”

    This was the Caterina Crispin had told her about yesterday, she presumed. It now made her understand why he was so hesitant to share everything about her. Amber Lynn wasn’t raised to hate magic, but when you grew up in a generation without magic, it was only natural to be a bit shocked when you laid eyes on your first set of unnaturally colored eyes.

     “Who the hell is this?” Caterina asked, facing Crispin again.

    “Caterina Scilia, Amber Lynn Ranez. Amber Lynn Ranez, Caterina Scilia.”

     “Cut your bullshit, Petrov! Why the hell is she here? Are you trying to throw me into high family drama or something?”

     “You said to find someone else to help us.”

    She groaned as she pushed Amber Lynn out of the way to get into the building. It took Amber Lynn’s breath away when she pulled the brown bob away to reveal violet locks that reminded her of the banners flying above the Dobrev manor. Caterina turned to her and held out her hand for her to shake. “Caterina Scilia, and yes, like the prostitute family, don’t ask about it.”

    “Amber Lynn Ranez,” she said as she shook her hand.

    “Are you sure you want to do this?”

    No. “Yes.”

    “Sit down.”

    Amber Lynn complied, sitting down on a stack of hay. Caterina shot a glare to Crispin and spat out, “Did you not hear me, Petrov?”

    “I’m sorry Ms Scilia,” he mocked as she sat down next to her, but with his back to Caterina.

    She could see the magic user roll her black eyes as she said, “You’re lucky Blackwing would never forgive me if I did so much as lay a finger on you.”

     “Do you not think I’m using that to my advantage?”

     Amber Lynn could tell Caterina was fighting the urge to pull out her hair at every word Crispin said. And Amber Lynn couldn’t blame her. “Who’s Blackwing?” she asked, attempting to break the tension.

    “My girlfriend,” Crispin said before Caterina could even let out a single syllable.

    The answer only confused Amber Lynn more. “But I thought you were engaged.”

    “I am. I’m my father’s son aren’t I?”

     It was obvious to see Caterina’s patience was short when it came to Crispin. “Long story short, she’s basically my sister. Now…”

    “Now what?”

    “Now we find a way to blow out my daddy’s brain.”

     “Petrov!”

    “I’m sorry, is that not what we’re doing.”

     She shot her glare over to Amber Lynn, who was now terrified at what venom she might spit at her. “Is he always like this?” was all she asked, to Amber Lynn’s relief.

    “For as long as I’ve known him.”

    She looked back to Crispin, his back still facing towards her. Amber Lynn couldn’t help but wonder why he sat like that, but even more as to why Caterina didn’t question or fight it. “You are one cocky motherfucker, Petrov.”

    “It’s to hide my hundreds of layers of self loathing.”

     “Well, why don’t we get back to the reason I put myself in danger by coming out here in the first place.” She turned to Amber Lynn. “I’m assuming he told you.”

    “Only the basics.”

    “So you know that I want Shaw Petrov dead?”

     “She knows.”

     “Was I talking to you, Petrov?!”

     “No.”

     “That’s what I thought.”

    “Yes, he told me.”

     “Good.”

    Amber Lynn swore she saw sorrow in the magic user’s eyes, almost like she was sorry for involving her in this. It even appeared in her voice, no matter how hard she tried to mask it. “You don’t have much you need to do- neither of you do. When I get caught, I won’t bring you two into it.”

    “Don’t bother,” Crispin said without hesitation.

    “What do you mean?”

    “I’d rather be Aunt Nina than my mother. I helped, don’t lie about it. I’m not ashamed about it.”

    Caterina looked at Amber Lynn, seemingly to see if she too had any input. “Don’t bother with me, either.”

    A small smirk formed on the magic user’s face. “Well, alright then. Here’s what we’ll do.”

    She explained the plan in parts. It started with Crispin’s. All he was to do was go on with his wedding as planned. The event was big enough as it was, it would easily serve as a distraction. All Amber Lynn was to do was to walk up to Shaw and simply tell him, “My father wants to see you at your manor,” then walk back to her seat like she didn’t just sign his death certificate.

    It wouldn’t be hard to convince her father not to attend the wedding. March Ranez wouldn’t be caught dead at a Petrov held event, even if Natasha was there. He was too stubborn to let Shaw win even petty battles.

    “Why do you want Shaw dead?” Amber Lynn finally asked.

    “Without getting too much into my childhood trauma,” she awkwardly chuckled, “he killed my mother.”

     “Oh.”

    “When I was six.”

    “Oh…”

    “And I saw it all go down.”

    The room fell silent, almost as if Crispin didn’t even know the detail. “Anyways!” she spat out. “Back to plotting murder!”

    “You didn’t tell me you were that young.”

     “Murder, Petrov!”

    “I wouldn’t have been as rough with you if I’d known.”

    “Wow! How about we forget about what I just said? Murder, fun, no more Shaw Petrov!”

    Amber Lynn began to gain a new respect for Caterina and she could tell Crispin was, too. It completely changed the environment. “Caterina,” Amber Lynn let out, “I’m sorry that happened to you.”

     “Don’t apologize, please. I’m sick of apologies.”

    “Then let’s do it,” Crispin said, “let’s kill Shaw Petrov.”

[romanoartsless]

Ayeeee bby back at it again with the updates. I haven't had school for the past week (or next week) so I've been able to get more writing done.

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Chapter 49

     “You said you wouldn’t bring my sisters into this.”

    Edith grinned from across the table, taking the small bit of food on her fork into her mouth. “We had to, Silvertongue.”

    “But you promised!”

     “And promises can be broken.”

    When Silvertongue had listened through the walls of the Petrov manor the other day, she wanted to barge in and explode on Edith for dropping her sister’s name. “But-”

     Edith took another bite before asking, “Why are you so inconsistent?” Silvertongue didn’t answer, only looking down at her plate, moving the food around with her fork. “One day you want to protect your sisters with your whole life and the net you want them rotting in a hole. You’re lucky your sister got away from Vladimir. I’d never hear the end of it if I actually got her killed.”

For a second, the only sound in the Delikov manor was Silvertongue’s fork falling out of her hand and onto the table. “You were trying to kill my sister?”

“Yes. For you.”

Silvertongue’s heart stopped beating for a second, but she was still able to muster out, “Which one?”

“Blackwing. Jackie is far too violent. She probably would’ve killed him before he was able to breath in her vicinity.”

 She wanted to laugh at the truth of the statement- Jackie would throw punches first and think about it later- but the context held her back. And for a brief second, Silvertongue wondered if her sisters even thought about her. If they ever missed her. If Caterina even missed her. Caterina…

 “You wouldn’t try to have Blackwing killed just for that reason. So why? Why her? Why now?”

“Good question, Silvertongue!” Edith mocked before whispering, “Finally,” under her breath. “It was the exact reason I brought it up to Mr. Petrov. She’s in the way of our plan.”

Silvertongue’s dark blue eyes went wide. “Wait, how?”

 “She seems to be Crispin Petrov’s little girlfriend.”

 “But Blackwing-”

But when she dug back into her memories of her sister, it all began to make sense. Of course she would fall for Novak’s local heartbreaker. She was the only heart he couldn’t break. She was just like him.

“But Blackwing what?”

“Never mind.”

“As I thought.”

Silvertongue pushed her still full plate of food away from her as she got up from the table. “I’m going to head off to bed.”

 “Goodnight, Silvertongue.”

She let out a weak, “Night,” as she walked into the room set aside for her months ago. It didn’t feel like home then and it didn’t feel like home now. “You shouldn’t feel at home here,” Edith might tell her, “You should feel at home in the Petrov manor.” But if truth be told, the only place she felt at home was a small cabin in the middle of nowhere in the forest of east Novak.

* * *

     “Mother!”

    Edith ran up the stairs to her mother’s room and stood outside the door, knocking. There was no reply. She assumed her mother was only napping so she came back in a few hours, knocking again. No reply. Anxiety rose up in Edith. “Mother?” Her knocking became more frantic. “Mother? Mother!”

    She burst through the door to see her mother’s lifeless body on her bed. Edith froze in place. “Mother…” she whimpered.

    Tears began to fall out of Edith’s baby blue eyes. All of a sudden she was a little girl again. A little girl who only ever had her mother- a mother who drank more than she parented. But she was all Edith had. She’d never had long time friends, she wasn’t even close to her cousin. Her mother and Caterina were the only consistants in her life.

     They weren’t always warm arms to run to, but they were still arms that held her. Her mother always held her like a promise she always intended to break. Edith even romanticized the smell of alcohol breath the way a girl might romanticize her mother’s perfume.

 She cradled her mother’s head in her arms as she sat at the edge of her bed. Whenever the tears would begin to blur her vision, she’d wipe them away with her red sleeve, not wanting them to get into her mother’s now dull, ginger hair.

When the crying stopped, she was instantly filled with rage. Without even thinking about it, she ran out of the room to go into her own, brought out her mallet, and began to walk downstairs, to the exit. “Edith?” a concerned voice came from the bottom of the steps. “What’s wrong?”

 She wiped the tears and makeup from her face and glared over at Silvertongue. “Nothing.” She walked to the door, opening it, but before she left, she turned back to Silvertongue and said, “I’ll be back.”

 * * *

    Edith had been gone for a few hours when the knock came. Silvertongue had thought it would be Edith coming back, so when the pale blue eyes at the door did not belong to her, she was taken aback. The short man who stood in front of her looked eerily similar to Edith, but his hair was deep brown instead of red. “Yes?”

    There was a strange sort of anger behind the boy’s glasses as he looked at Silvertongue. She could’ve even described it as disgust. “Is Edith home?”

    “No.”

    “Aunt Cecelia?”

     “I think she’s in her room.”

     He rolled his pale eyes, but still continued with his questions, “Can I go into the library?”

     “I guess.”

     And as he walked by, Silvertongue couldn’t help but notice something in him. Something that was all too familiar, even if she’d only ever seen the boy a handful of times- for gods sake she didn’t even know his name. She couldn’t put her finger quite on it, but something about him reminded her of those pictures in the cabin.

* * *

    “This is really good,” Blackwing said to Caterina between bites of their meal.

    “Thank you,” Caterina replied.

     The three of them ate their small dinner in silence until the door to the cabin swung open to a furious Edith. Caterina could already sense this anger was different than the usual. She gave the Crows a look that spoke for itself. Run.

     Edith grinned, knowing exactly what Caterina was doing. She threw her mallet onto the table, in front of the sisters, standing beside them, and blocking them in. “You’re going to pay.”

     Caterina met Edith’s eyes, refusing to show her fear. “For what?”

     The lady began to run her fingers through Blackwing’s dark hair, causing her to quiver in her seat. “You’re the reason I lost someone, so I’ll be the reason you lose someone.”

     She went to take her second hand and put it on Blackwing’s head to do gods know what, but she froze. But it wasn’t her controlling the freezing. No matter how much Edith tried to move her hands, they just stayed in the air. She shot up a blue glare at Caterina. “What are you doing, witch?!”

    Caterina took her hand out from under the table, her twirling fingers controlling the water in Edith’s body. “I think you sometimes forget I’m probably the most powerful magic user in the world. I mean, a natural born elements user is rare enough, let alone one who’s learned not only one but both the other abilities.” And even though everything she said was exaggerated, she made sure to say it in the most convincing way to send a sense of fear into Edith.

     With another flick of the wrist, Edith was flown across the room, crashing into the wall. But it was clear to see, even in the chaos, Edith bought nothing Caterina said. “And you seem to forget your magic is weaker than a child’s because even the laws of magic knew you deserved nothing and no one.”

     Caterina held back the anger the statement caused her, but Jackie didn’t. A knife came flying across the room and landed in the wall, so close to Edith’s face it cut off a few strands of her red hair. She simply got off the seat, walked over to Caterina and Edith, pulled the knife out of the wall, and put it to Edith’s throat. “You’re really one to talk, Delikov. Who do you have? Us?”

     Edith simply laughed in Jackie’s face. “So intimidating,” she mockingly spat.

    Jackie pulled the knife away from her throat, her expression blank. Edith grinned until the knife came down and slashed across her cheek. “You bitch!”

    She patted her cheek, smirk on her face, and just told the lady, “You can cover it with makeup.”

    The Crow walked away with her sister and locked them into one of the bedrooms so Edith couldn’t come in after them. She still tried to run to the door and beat it open, but she fell to her knees before she could get there, clutching her throat. “What is it, Edith? What’s wrong?”

     Edith glared up at Caterina, her face blue. “Oh, you can’t breathe? I’m sorry.”

     Caterina released the magic’s grip on Edith’s airway and kneeled down next to her. She began to kick at the magic user, spitting curses at her. When Caterina put her hand on her cheek, Edith pulled away immediately. “Don’t touch me, witch!”

    “I’m trying to heal you.”

     She hesitantly allowed Caterina to heal the cut on her cheek, but she didn’t heal it completely, only enough to leave a scar. “For someone who hates magic, you seem to reap the benefits of it quite a bit.”

    A stiletto came into Caterina’s stomach all of a sudden. Repeatedly. “My mother is dead, witch!”

     “So is mine,” Caterina coughed up.

     “Because of you!”

     Even in her pain, Caterina rolled her eyes. “This just in, every discourse in the Delikov family is automatically Caterina Scilia’s fault.”

     The same heel came down onto her face, her lip splitting open. “Had it not been for you my father would have never left!” Another kick to the stomach. “And my mother would never have drank!” Another. “And she wouldn’t have died!” Another.

     Edith bent down to Caterina and grabbed her face. “I will make your life even more miserable. Just like you did to me.”

     She took the magic user’s head and slammed it into the floorboard. Once. Twice. Three times.

     Caterina didn’t fight it. She just let it all happen to her. Rather it be her than the Crows. She didn’t pray to any gods, but she did reach out to her mother in her mind. “I will make your life even more miserable than I already do, Caterina Scilia,” Edith repeated. “Don’t ever doubt my capabilities. It’ll come when you least expect.”

    The last thing Caterina remembered before the world went black was the toe of Edith’s stiletto coming into her face.

* * *

     Caterina woke up with an unbearable pain in her face. She went to stand up and look at the damage somehow, but whenever she did, it felt like someone stabbed her in the gut. When she lifted up her dress to get a look at her stomach, she cringed at the sight of already purpling skin. She’d hate to see what her face looked like. She heard the sound of movement outside her door and in a few seconds time, Blackwing came stumbling into her room, cold pack in hand and Jackie in tow. “You’re up!” she exclaimed in a voice too positive to be genuine.

    “Yeah,” she simply replied.

    The Crow stumbled to Caterina’s side and pressed the pack to her lip. “Jackie, put your nose back into place while you were unconscious,” she said, “and I stitched up your lip. You should be able to take it out in a few days.”

    Caterina wanted to give the sisters a smirk, but so much as the thought of moving her face hurt. “Thanks.”

     She hissed in pain and Blackwing went to pull the pack away, but Caterina shook her head and the Crow pushed it back onto her lip. “It’s fine,” she said as she took the pack out of Blackwing’s hand and kept it pressed to her own face. “Could I be left alone for a little, actually? I kind of just want to take a nap right now.”

     The Crows both nodded and complied to Caterina’s request. As they closed the door behind them, the room went dark and Caterina began to drift off to sleep, a cold, tingling sensation still present on her face.

 Chapter 50

     Caterina had stayed locked up in her room for a few days. Blackwing and Jackie wondered what she was doing in there, but they didn’t want to bother her if she was sleeping. Even when the door was still locked, they decided to still go out to the market. Jackie had caught a buck the other day and she knew she could get a good amount of money for the skin, so she didn’t want to miss her chance at an offer.

     Blackwing stood behind her sister at the cart, only half listening to the bickering going on between Jackie and the seller. She’d eventually drifted off into her thoughts until Jackie snapped her out of it with, “Just go.”

     “Hmm?”

    “Go see your little boyfriend.”

    “My what?”

    “Oh my gods Blackwing, just go see Crispin.”

    Her face went red in embarrassment. “What makes you think I wanted to go see him?”

     The look on Jackie’s face said it all; she wasn’t buying anything Blackwing said. “Do you really want to get me started?”

    She pulled her sister into a soft embrace and placed a small kiss on her cheek. “Don’t do anything stupid,” Jackie yelled at her as she skipped off.

     “I won’t,” she hollered back, “that’s your job.”

    And before she became a blur in all the people, Blackwing watched her sister roll her evergreen eyes with a shy smile on her face.

* * *

     “Crispin?” she called out.

     “I’m up here.”

     She followed the sound of where his voice came from until it lead her to a door. Everything was different this time. When she opened the door and saw him, she still felt the warmth and longing she always felt when she saw him, but it was accompanied by an ache in her heart. In that moment, she wished she didn’t know the things Shaw Petrov had done because now when she looked at Crispin, she not only saw her best friend, but also the son of a man who stripped any chance of innocence away from an undeserving child. Had it even crossed his mind- how his father’s actions affected the families of the lost? Probably. This was Crispin Petrov. He was the farthest thing from his father.

    Blackwing ran over to the edge of the bed where Crispin sat and plopped herself onto his lap. When she turned to face him, their faces were barely an inch apart. “Hi.”

     His left arm wrapped itself around her waist while his right hand strategically moved under her chin. “Hi to you, too,” he said before closing the space between them as their lips met. Once she caught the taste of his lips, any thought of Shaw Petrov flew out the window.

“About the other day,” she said as she pulled away, “it didn’t mean nothing to me.”

“What makes you think it meant nothing to me?”

She ran her fingers through his sandy blond hair as she spoke. It felt like it he’d only half combed it in the morning. “Nothing I- I just wanted you to know.”

He then leaned his face down into the nape of her neck and began to ask, “Blackwing, how does Edith Delikov know you?”

* * *

So much as the sight of the high ladies made Jackie want to pull out her hair. Their entitlement had always driven her insane. How could one person think the world owed the so much? In her eyes, they were deserving of the same thing as everyone else, nothing more.

 As she watched the group out of the corner of her eye, she couldn’t help but notice a girl who clearly belonged with them, but still stood alone, outside the circle. When she turned to the area Jackie stood, she recognized the freckled face instantly. The last time she saw it, it was at the other end of her gun. Amber Lynn Ranez.

 She’d only had one, short interaction with her, but Jackie still thought she was one of the most beautiful girls in Novak. Her long, blond bob. Her hazel eyes that were borderline amber in the sunlight. Her sharp, angular face that was somehow still delicate. Her freckles that Jackie could trace her fingers along for hours. Her- “Are you staring at me?”

“Uh… no.”

Amber Lynn’s face went red. “Oh gods,” she stuttered, “I’m so stupid. I’m sorry. I thought you- you looked like- what was I thinking? You were probably just looking at something near me. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry.”

“You’re fine.”

“Really?”

 “Yes.”

 As Amber Lynn began to pick at the skin around her nails, Jackie couldn’t help but notice how her hands looked nothing like a high lady’s were supposed to. Her fingernails were bitten down so far they were bleeding. The skin around them were the same- picked at and bleeding. One of her fingers was even wrapped in a bandage. “They always do this to me.”   

    Jackie turned to face Amber Lynn and saw her now playing with her necklace, the Ranez family medallion. “Do what?”

    “Fuck, sorry. I- you know what, just ignore me.”

    “You’re fine. I don’t mind being vented to. I’m quite used to it actually.”

     “Oh… Well, they just bring me along and then abandon me. I’m just an afterthought, I guess. Nothing special, nothing important.” She shrugged. “I’m used to it though.”

    She acted like she didn’t even question feeling like nothing to the people she considered friends. Amber Lynn then picked up a chain from a cart and began to model it. It was gold with three amber jewels at the front. “How does it look?”

     Jackie tried not to gawk at Amber Lynn, but she couldn’t help but stare at her for a little longer than she probably should. “You look beautiful.”

    The look on her face made it seem like she hadn’t been complemented in years, and with what Jackie had heard of her so called friends, she wouldn’t be surprised if it was true (even if the men of Novak likely lusted after her). “Thanks.”

     Amber Lynn handed the seller a handful of gold coins, even more than the necklace was probably worth and handed it off to Jackie. “Could you put this on for me?”

     Jackie did as requested and clasped it around the girl’s neck. “Thanks.”

     “You’re welcome.”

    A group of young women, the high ladies of Novak, were suddenly looming over Amber Lynn. The look in her hazel eyes showed their intimidation tactics worked all too well on her. “Amber Lynn,” a short brunette wearing a wine red, sleeved dress spoke, “why are you speaking with a peasant? This is east Novak, for all we know it could be a witch.

    Jackie simply laughed. Did this girl really think her snobby words alone would intimidate her? Jackie was at least a head taller than a majority of girls and could easily crush every single one of them like a berry. “You’re either incredibly stupid or- actually I think you’re just incredibly stupid. My eyes are green. G-R-E-E-N. Green.”

“You’re-”

“Right? Oh wait, that shouldn’t be a question, of course I’m right. It seems you really didn’t really take that expensive education to heart. That’s a shame really. I would kill for the chance of education like that.”

 “Ashlyn-” Amber Lynn began to speak up, but was eventually cut off.

“Who the fuck do you think you are, calling me, Ashlyn Maya, a high lady of Novak, stupid? You’re nothing compared to me.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Jackie said, not actually sorry, “how rude of me. My name is Jackie Crow.”

She held out her hand for the girl to shake, but all she got was her nose stuck up at her. “A no name, just as I presumed.”

“To be quite honest, I’ve never heard of Ashlyn Maya, I’ve only heard most of you referred to as bitch.”

Ashlyn scowled, grabbing Amber Lynn’s arm, trying to pull her away from Jackie. In that second, Amber Lynn’s feet might as well have turned into concrete. Even when her supposed friend told her, “Come on, Amber Lynn. Let’s go!” she stood her ground.

“No!”

“What do you mean no?”

 She pulled her arm out of the girl’s grip and all of a sudden her’s and Jackie’s hands were intertwined. “I’m sick and tired of all of you telling me what to do. I’m a Ranez, I’m a member of a high family. You are all nothing compared to me.”

Jackie could’ve sworn she saw tears welling up in her hazel eyes, but before she could get confirmation, Amber Lynn whipped around and pulled Jackie down to her level until their lips were interlocked. For a split second after the initial kiss, Amber Lynn pulled away and told Jackie with her eyes, “Just go with this please.” And so Jackie did.

 She pulled her down again and Jackie couldn’t tell if the smile on her lips was real or all part of the act. Amber Lynn bunched her dark hair in her hands, her short nails gently scratching her scalp. Her lips tasted like honey, sweeter than any kiss Jackie had before.

Amber Lynn finally pulled away from the Crow, turned to the high ladies, and said, “And Jackie’s my girlfriend, so don’t call her a peasant.”

She walked off, still holding onto Jackie’s hand before her friends could reply. When the two of them were alone in an alley, far enough from the high ladies so they couldn’t hear them, Amber Lynn’s facade of confidence vanished almost instantly. “I’m so sorry!”

 “It’s okay. It made some sense for the situation, I guess. Plus I’m not one to complain when a pretty girl kisses me.”

Her freckled face went as red as it possibly could. “Thanks, but it was inappropriate and uncalled for and-”

Jackie took one of Amber Lynn’s hands, looked her in the eyes, and said, “Amber Lynn Ranez, if you ever need another fake girlfriend, Jackie Crow is always free.”

A small, awkward smile grew on Amber Lynn’s face. She stood up on her toes and placed a soft kiss onto Jackie’s cheek. “Thank you,” she whispered into her ear before walking out of the alley, turning back to wave before finally stepping out of vision.

* * *

    “I can’t tell you.”

    “Blackwing, just tell me. You can trust me.”

    Blackwing didn’t know how to handle all of this. How was she supposed to explain this? How would she give an explanation without giving Caterina away? “Crispin, I- I just can’t tell you.”

     Sadness formed in his emerald eyes. “Do you not trust me?”

     Blackwing’s hand glided down his cheek in an attempt to comfort him. “I do trust you. Just know this has nothing to do with you.”

    He pushed away from her touch, almost repulsed by it. “Are you working with her- Edith? Do you actually feel sexualy attraction? Have you been lying to me the whole time? If you lied to me about this, what’s to say you wouldn’t lie about other things.”

    Blackwing felt a knife go through her back. “Oh gods no! I swear on my sisters I’d never lie to you… besides this. I’m just trying to protect someone and with you being a Petrov-”

     “What the hell does me being a Petrov have anything to do with this?!”

    Both their tones were almost toxic, their yelling like throwing chemicals at each other. “Everything! Fucking everything!”

    “And how is that? Or can you not tell me that either?”

    “No! No I can’t! But I guess you can’t handle that because you’re just an entitled little Petrov!”

    Those words in particular seemed to hit him harder than the others. “Is that what you think of me?! Huh?! An entitled little Petrov?! If that’s what I am what are you, Crow?!”

    “I’m a girl who doesn’t get everything spoonfed to her and actually works for her shit! I’m a girl who has to live in the fucking forest of east Novak because you fucking mortals will kill anything to do with magic-” She froze as soon as the words fell out of her mouth. “No,” she whimpered as she fell to her knees. “No.”

    Crispin instantly dropped his frustration, going down to his own knees to her level. “Blackwing, what do you mean magic?”

    “Oh gods,” she cried, almost as if she didn’t hear him, “what have I done?”

    “Blackwing, I’m so sorry for yelling at you, but just know that if this really has anything to do with magic, I won’t turn you in.”

    She looked up at him, her brown eyes wet. “It’s not me I’m worried about.”

    “It’s the magic user, isn’t it?”

    She simply nodded. “And I,” her voice quivered as she spoke, “I was- my sisters and I were- we were made by magic, Crispin.”

    The words hit him like a boulder. His expression went blank, not at the fact Blackwing was created by magic, but at the realization the fact caused. “Is Edith her soul partner or something?”

    Blackwing shook her head, her black hair falling into her face, to which he pushed it back behind her ear. “We don’t know who her soul partner is. And Edith- well…”

     She began to lift up her dress until the scars along her body were exposed. Crispin turned away, not wanting to look at them. He almost immediately changed the subject. “What’s the magic user’s name- unless you’re not comfortable with it, that’s cool, too.”

    “Why should I tell you that?”

    Crispin let out a strange laugh. “I want to see if I can help you guys.”

     “Help? How in the world could you help? You’re the son of the man who killed her mother-”

    Her hands flew over her mouth as soon as she said the words. “I’ve said too much, I have to go.”

     “Blackwing, wait.”

     She began to walk out of the room and before he could stop her, she was already down the stairs and out the door.

* * *

     The second Blackwing came bursting through the cabin door and laid eyes on Caterina, she fell to the floor, sobbing. “I’m sorry, Caterina,” she cried into the magic user’s arms, “I’m so sorry.”

     “What’s wrong, Blackwing? What happened?”

    The words coming out of her mouth were unable to understand as the tears continued to fall from her dark brown eyes. All Caterina could understand were the words told, Crispin, and sorry.

    It all began to make a strange sort of sense when a blonde man came bursting through the door. Looking down at Blackwing, while panting, he said, “Please don’t kill me Blackwing, but I followed you.”

When Caterina looked up at him, she saw those eyes- Petrov eyes. Before she could even think, she threw her hand up and cut off his air flow. Next thing she knew the cabin was now filled with one unconscious man, one Crow who was sobbing even harder now, and one extremely confused Caterina.

[romanoartsless]

I hope none of you got yourselves too worried by me saying act one was over. I didn't plan on taking a hiatus and I don't plan on taking them ever really, so don't worry (I'd never finish this thing if I took one lol).

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Chapter 47

    In his whole twenty-four years of life Crispin Petrov hadn’t blindly smiled throughout the day until today. Even when he sat on his father’s couch, next to the woman he was forced to someday marry, his face was still covered in a grin. His mind still reeled through images of Blackwing: her lips on his, the way his hands felt in her hair, the faint smile he’d catch on her face between kisses. In his mind, nothing could rip his current state of happiness away from him.

    He turned to where his mother stood by the mantlepiece, staring at her husband’s skulls. For as long as Crispin could remember, Natasha would talk to- even name- the skulls Shaw kept in their house. Occasionally she’d try to reorganize them, but Shaw would always object. “What are you doing?”

“I just thought Esther and Isla should be close to each other.”

“Leave the skulls alone, Natasha.”

“They weren’t super close, but they’re still sisters so I thought-”

“Leave the skulls alone, Natasha.”

 The two of them then sat on the seat across from Crispin, Edith Delikov in the chair next to it. “I see you’re pretty happy, Crispin,” Shaw said.

 Crispin didn’t even do so much as look at his father. He wanted to simmer in his state of positivity for as long as he could and he knew even the sight of his father would ruin it. “We can do this without his input,” Edith finally spoke up.

It took everything inside him not to turn and glare at her, but he knew it was what she wanted. “Does she know why we’re here today?” Shaw asked, gesturing towards the dark haired woman seated next to Crispin who beared a scary resemblance to Blackwing.

“Why yes, she does.” Edith gave her a nod before requesting, “Silvia, why don’t you remind us why we’re all here.”

“To set the wedding date,” the woman- Silvia- said as though she’d rehearsed the line many times before.

They wanted a rise out of Crispin, but he kept his anger bottled up inside him. Edith still smiled her grim smile, even as she said, “My vote is in three months.”

Without hesitation Crispin spit out, “Six.”

Shaw was enraged by his input, but Edith kept him in line. Her grin even grew a little after he spoke up. “We can’t do six, Crispin,” she began, “we have to have the wedding before next year.”

 “Then five.”

“Four.”

Crispin debated his options and when he realized he didn’t really have any other, better ones, he said, “Deal.”

* * *

     Everyone had left the room except for him and Edith. She’d give him side eye glances every time his eyes would drift anywhere near her. Whenever her icy blue eyes would meet his, he’d feel an indescribable sort of uncomfort. “So,” she finally spoke up, “how’s Blackwing?”

    Crispin’s breathing stopped for a few seconds. “How- how do you-”

    “Everyone was at my cousin’s party and let’s just say, you’re not the most quiet drunk.” Relief filled him until she continued with, “Crispin Petrov and Blackwing Crow, what a pair.”

    His eyes went wide as soon as she said her full name. “I never said her last name at the party.”

     “Oh I know.”

     He wanted to shrug it off  as a simple lucky guess, but he couldn’t. She had said it so eloquently, as if she’d known the name for years. “How do you know her?”

     “You really think I’m dumb enough to tell you. Let’s just say I know people who know things- valuable things. And I’d be an idiot to tell you about them this early on.”

    “Edith-”

     “And you think you’re so much better than your father, but you’re just like him.”

     “Don’t you ever compare me to him.”

    “You’re cheating on your fiance, love.”

    “I was forced into the engagement, love.”

     “Why are you trying to paint me as the villain? In my perspective you’re the villain. I’m just trying to help a girl get a better life and you’re trying to ruin it. How do you think you’re the hero? You’re a liar, you’re a cheater, you’re a coward-”

     “Shut up!”

     “I don’t hate you, Crispin Petrov. I’ve known you practically my whole life. You’re just one part in a big plan that you’ll never understand. And I wish I could tell you about it, but you’d go and blab your little mouth off to Blackwing and she’d ruin it all.” She stood up from her seat and began to walk out into the room where everyone else had gone off to, but not before saying, “Congratulations on your engagement, Crispin.”

 Chapter 48

     “How do you do it, March? How do you live knowing no matter how much you care about them, you’ll never have a chance with them ever again?”

    “Bartholomew, you act like life is a game people always play by the rules. People cheat all the time. It isn’t a fair game and it never will be.”

    Thomas was going to just walk straight into the king’s office until he heard March in there, consoling him. Inbetween words he could also hear muffled cries come out of the king’s mouth. He didn’t want to intrude on their alone time, so he just stood outside the door, listening in on their conversation through the walls.

    “I should just listen to Shaw- call this whole competition off. He’s right. It’s useless. It won’t work out the way I want it to. I should just give the throne to Crispin.”

    “Bartholomew! Do not just listen to Shaw! He’s what got us here in the first place! If you give his child the throne you might as well have pulled the trigger to blow out Novak’s brains.”

    “You’re just biased, March. With Natasha and everything-”

    “This has nothing to do with Natasha! It has everything to do with the fact that no one in this entire fucking country has the guts to call that man out on his actions all because his last name is Petrov! He’s driven his child to try and kill himself! Twice! And Nina-”

     “March! I just- I don’t want to talk about Shaw right now. I- I-” The sound Thomas heard come through the door next sounded like the king crying into his cousin’s shoulder. “I want her.”

     In a few minutes time, March eventually walked out of the office and seemed a bit startled to see Thomas standing by the door. “Oh,” he said as he slightly jumped, “hello captain.”

     “Hello Mr. Ranez.”

    Thomas peeked through the door and met with the king’s crying brown eyes. “Should I come at some other time?” Thomas asked.

    “No no,” he said, wiping away his tears, “you’re fine. Please, come in.”

     He sat down in the chair in front of the desk. “I’m sorry for not coming in this morning,” he began to explain himself, “I just-”

     “You’re fine, Thomas. I know it was raining last night and you’re not one to mess around, so I trust you. Just don’t make this a habit, please.”

    If only the king had known what he’d actually been doing. He didn’t let his facial expression give it away however, he just gave a simple smile and nod. “Yes sir.”

    “So… have you found anything?”

    “Not yet.”

    A thought suddenly came to the king’s mind and it showed in his face. “The forest! Have you thought about checking the forest?” Panic set into Thomas. “I can’t believe I haven’t thought of this! It makes perfect sense! So few people are even allowed to know about it, it’s a perfect hiding place!”

    “Your Majesty!” The king instantly looked up at Thomas, hope in his dark eyes, but it all faded away when he said, “I’ve already checked there- multiple times- I haven’t found anything.”

    “You’re right,” the king’s voice quivered as he spoke, “Victor and Shaw found nothing so why would you? I guess I’m just a blind optimist.”

    Thomas felt at ease again. The king couldn’t even think of the possibility of the magic user being in the forest, because if he mentioned it to Thomas why wouldn’t he mention it to the other men in the competition? “I’m sorry.”

     You could tell in the king’s voice he was holding back a stream of tears. “No no, you’re fine. I just- I- You can go now.” And as Thomas walked out of the office, he heard soft sobs coming through the door.

[romanoartsless]

I know I usually post two chapters at a time, but I swear, there's a reason there's only one chapter in this update. This is actually the end of act 1! Woohoo!

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Chapter 46

Thomas decided, after the party was over, he would make his way over to Caterina’s cabin, even if his meeting with the king was scheduled for tomorrow morning. He’d still felt bad about leaving her hanging for those two weeks, so he thought it’d be nice to give her a surprise visit. When he entered the cabin, she and the Crows were nowhere to be found. “Jackie? Blackwing?” he said into the emptiness. “Caterina?”

    “I’m out here!” a familiar voice called from outside.

     He walked out to see Caterina kneeling at the edge of a pond, washing a pile of clothes in it. “I see the Crows left you to do some work,” he joked.

    “Not all of us have the luxury of servants and maids, Dubroin,” she came back at him. “Some of us have to do our chores ourselves.”

 He reached over to help her clean the clothing, but she stopped him, wagging her finger in his face. “What do you not understand about some people have to do their own chores?” she asked in a sarcastic manner.

“I’m just trying to be nice,” he laughed.

“Haven’t you heard? Nice guys finish last.”

 “Oh, so do you want me to just act like my brother?”

 “Go for it.”

When he turned back to her with a sultry look on his face, his eyebrows were raised as he began to seductively lick his lips. “Hi,” he said in an almost unrecognizable voice, “I’m WIlliam Dubroin. Do you wanna, I don’t know, spend the night with me sometime?”

He grabbed Caterina’s hand and placed a kiss on top of it to finish off the act. Then, in an instant, Thomas went back to his normal self. “What the fuck was that?!” Caterina exclaimed.

 Thomas laughed. “My impression of my brother. I’ve been able to do it since I was fourteen.”

“He was saying that kind of shit when he was fourteen?!”

 “It was all talk. Truth is, when I left Arnell, little old William James Dubroin was still a virgin.”

“Oh what and you weren’t?” Thomas seemed to avoid the question. “Oh my gods you weren’t!”

“I had a girlfriend, alright!”

Thomas could see a tinge of jealousy in Caterina’s face, no matter how hard she tried to hide it. “So you just got up and left her in Arnell?”

 “We broke up before I left, don’t worry. I’ve met much better options here in Novak.”

Caterina’s face went red. “Excuse me, are you flirting with me?”

 “Maybe.”

“I’m sorry sir, but that was a simple yes or no question.”

 “Well, are you flirting with me?”

 “I’m flirting with you if you’re flirting with me.”

“Fine then, I’m flirting with you.”

 Caterina was taken aback. That was not the answer she had expected. She brushed it off quickly, however. She’d gotten good at that over the years, letting every good thing said to and about her go in one ear and out the other.

She playfully pushed at him, to which he pushed her back. They continued their pushing match, progressively pushing harder and harder until- “Shit!”

“Caterina!”

 Caterina fell into the pond, now standing soaking wet in the shallow end. Thomas just sat at the edge, once he realized she was okay, laughing. She gave him a vulgar gesture, with only strengthened his laughter. In reply to it, she used a bit of her magic to fling some water in his face. He leaned down closer to the water to give her her own splash, but she grabbed his arm and pulled him in too before he could. “Caterina! How am I going to explain to the king why I’m sopping wet?”

Conveniently, right that second, rain began to fall from the sky. Caterina pointed up to the sky and said dryly, “That.”

He laughed again and picked her up in the water and carried her out of it. “Thomas!”

 Thomas then began to run back to the cabin, but went back and grabbed the pile of clothes when Caterina yelled, “At least pick up my laundry, too!”

Caterina whined as he carried her off, claiming she was getting wetter because she half covered Thomas. When he set her on the bed, she immediately hopped off it. “Do you want me to get my bed wet or something?!”

“I mean, you’ve probably slept in that bed since you were a kid, you’ve probably peed in it. A little rain isn’t going to hurt it.”

Again, she gave him a vulgar gesture which caused him to laugh. “Do you have a spare, dry outfit I could put on?”

 “Yeah, but I doubt it would fit you. It’s all mine or the Crows’s.”

 “Oh…” He began to walk out of the room. “I guess I’ll go out and,” he pointed to his wet uniform, “hang this up to dry.”

 He closed the door behind himself and Caterina began to change out of her wet clothes. She put on her favorite, warm pajamas and prepared for bed, since it was getting late. She blew out the candles in the room and tucked herself into bed. Her mind wondered to bright green eyes and dead mothers when her eyes closed in an attempt to fall asleep. It always did. She’d barely ever gotten a full night’s sleep in fifteen years. She could still remember being a child and waking up crying, wanting Victor to be there and comfort her. But Victor wasn’t here anymore, so she had to fight through it by herself. Or did she? “Thomas, could you-”

 Thomas stood in the middle of the small living area in only his underwear. Caterina’s face went red. “Caterina!” Thomas grabbed a blanket a blanket off the couch and covered himself with it, clearly flustered. “What are you doing?”

“I uh…” Act like he’s wearing clothes, Caterina. Act like he’s wearing clothes. “I was going to ask you if you want to come in my room and sleep with me.”

“Oh…”

 “Not like that! Not like that. I uh- I get night terrors and it’s really hard for me to just, you know, sleep and I thought like it might help if you not slept slept with me, but just slept with me. Does that make any sense?”

 “Yeah, but Caterina, I’m in my underwear.”

Caterina’s mind took a blank. She wasn’t thinking clearly when she took off her clothes. When she looked down at her pajamas on her floor, realizing what she’d done, terror rose up in her. There was nothing she could do go back and change what she’d done so she just looked back up at him, awkward smile on her face, and said, “Well, so am I.”

Thomas ran over to her and threw the blanket that was covering him onto her shoulders. “You’re going to freeze, you idiot. Now come on, let’s get you to bed.”

 They walked into the room and Thomas came over to the side of the bed where Caterina sat and tucked her in. She leaned up onto her arm when he began to leave. “Are you going to stay?”

And even though he knew he had to see the king early in the morning he said, “Yes Caterina.”

 He went around the bed and lied down on the opposite side of Caterina, his back towards her. She held out her hand and touched his bare back, causing him to turn around to face her. “Do you need anything?”

“I just,” her face went red as she spoke, “wanting to face you. That’s all.”

“Goodnight Caterina.”

“Goodnight Thomas.”

* * *

    Morning came and when she woke up, Caterina realized she’d slept through the whole night. To most it’d seem normal and expected, but to her it was a blessing. Her dreams were still dark, but nowhere near as bad as they usually were. When her eyes fully opened, she was faced with a still sleeping Thomas. A smile tugged at the edges of her mouth as she looked at his face. If she was being honest with herself, she wouldn’t  mind waking up like this everyday.

     After a few minutes, she began to see Thomas’s golden brown eyes open. She tightly closed her own to make it seem like she was still asleep, but he didn’t fall for it. “Were you staring at me?” he groggily asked.

     “I’m asleep.”

     “Oh, sorry,” he said sarcastically, “I didn’t mean to bother you while you were sleeping.”

    She took the pillow from under her head and threw it at him. He dodged it before it could hit him. “Good throw.”

    In the pause between then and when he got off the bed to put back on his now dry uniform, Caterina wanted nothing more than for him to lean down and kiss her. Not even a long, passionate one, just a quick one that still made butterflies swarm her stomach. She hated that she wanted it. She hated that she wanted to kiss him. She hated that she wanted to be close to him. But no matter how much hate she had for it, she still felt that way.

     As he changed out in the living area, she peeked through the small crack in the door. Her eyes His eyes glanced up for a single second, but in it he made eye contact with Caterina. “Are you watching me change?”

     Caterina tripped over her own feet, falling through the door. “I uh…”

    “First you watch me sleep, then you watch me change. Tisk tisk, Caterina Scilia.”

     “Let me explain myself-”

     “Caterina, I was kidding. You were just trying to get a peek at a nice piece of ass.”

 “Oh,” she chuckled as she spoke, “you think you’re a nice piece of ass?”

 “Why else would you be staring at it?”

 Her face went even brighter red in embarrassment. “Touché.”

They both stood still as the room fell silent. Neither one seemed to know what to do in the moment. When the words began to fall out of her mouth, Caterina couldn’t do anything to shove them back into only her thought, no matter how badly she wanted to. “Can I kiss you?”

Thomas’s expression went blank. “What?”

 Shit. “I didn’t mean to say that!”

 “But you were thinking it.”

 Fuck. “I guess…”

“You guess?”

“Okay fine! Yes, I was thinking it! Lately I’ve just wanted to put my mouth on your mouth… a lot.” His face reddened at the comment. “So I don’t know, maybe we could just kiss, see if there’s anything there, and if there isn’t, we act like none of this ever happened.”

“But what if we do?”

 “I haven’t thought this far…”

The two of them stood in an awkward silence for a second before Thomas said, “Well then, go ahead.”

“Huh?”

“Go ahead. Kiss me.”

 For an impulsive decision, this was going much better than she had expected. She slowly walked over to where he stood and gently wrapped her arms around his neck. They tried to lean in and kiss a few times, but failed at each attempt; either bumping noses, leaning in the same direction, or just general unpreparedness. Caterina finally stepped away, giving up on the attempt. “That did not go well.”

 “No, it did not.”

 Her palms were practically soaking wet from the sweat at this point. She eventually stuttered, “Do you want to just… try that again, but like I didn’t give a giant monologue two seconds before. Pretend like it’s a super spontaneous kiss or something.”

“Yeah! I mean- yeah. That’d be fine. Just… come out me when you’re ready.”

 “Cool.”

She still stood at the wall after five minutes, causing Thomas to say, “Did you have anything you wanted to do right now or…?”

She held out her hand to silence him and seconds after she had it back at her side of the room she was already on the opposite side of the room, lip locked with Thomas. The kiss only lasted for a second or two, but Caterina still felt a rush in her veins. As she looked up at Thomas, who was so close she could feel his breathing on her face, the rush became stronger and found its way to her head. Half of her brain power went to holding back a wide grin, the other thinking of every possible thought Thomas’s mind could have conjured up in the moment, good and bad.

Thomas answered all her mental questions when he pulled her into another, more passionate kiss. His hands bunched themselves into her hair as hers were wrapped around his neck. Next thing she knew, Thomas picked her up and carried her back off to her room and placed her on the bed, staying lip locked as he did. A smile tugged on Thomas’s mouth and Caterina felt it across her own lips. She had to suppress a smile of her own. His lips trailed down onto her neck and were about to go down onto her shoulder until she pushed him away a little. “Not that. Not right now. I just- not now.”

 When Thomas looked down at her without any disappointment or anger in his brown eyes, Caterina felt a weight lift off her shoulders. She wasn’t ready for that. Not now. Maybe not ever. It was too close. She’d get more attached. It’d hurt more when he left. “It’s okay,” he said. “What are you okay with?”

 “Well, first of all, I wasn’t done kissing you, Mr. Dubroin,” she replied in a dry, humorous voice.

“Oh,” he began in a similar tone to her, “I’m sorry, Ms. Scilia.”

He leaned down and kissed her again. Her fingernails dug into his brown hair, causing him to let out a soft moan. If she could describe anyone’s lps as home, it would be his. This was what she would fantasize about when she was a child; someone- man, woman, neither- who wouldn’t care about her harsh exterior, someone who would want to kiss her despite it. She’d almost entirely lost herself in the kiss until the door to the room opened and whoever opened it began to say, “Caterina, I just wanted you to know that we’re-”

 “Jackie! This isn’t what it looks like.”

Jackie’s emerald eyes looked mortified. She looked like she wanted to go back in time and get a chance to knock. “Oh what, so you two weren’t just fucking?”

“No!”

 “Oh sure.”

 Blackwing came into view, popping up behind Jackie. She turned over Jackie’s shoulder, whispering what seemed like two words into her ear. Before she turned back to go into the living space, she gave Caterina a wide smile, her brown eyes bright. Jackie begrudgingly followed suit.

Thomas let out a nervous laugh, his face practically the same color as Blackwing’s favorite burgundy dress. “I uh- the rain stopped- I should- I should get going.”

“Yeah…”

 * * *

“Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye,” Jackie mocked. “Oh my gods, Caterina! How many times do you need to say goodbye?! Once! Fucking once!”

Caterina smirked. “You’re just jealous.”

 “I don’t act like that with the girls I’ve kissed. And Blackwing hasn’t even kissed anyone to do that.”

 Blackwing’s face went red as she grabbed at something under the fabric near the neck of her dress. Caterina couldn’t help but give a twisted smile towards Jackie. “Blackwing hasn’t what?”

 Jackie’s head whipped around to Blackwing so fast it might as well have spun off and rolled onto the floor. “It was the Petrov wasn’t it?”

“Maybe…”

Jackie’s rage had always been quick to boil. To an onlooker, the Crows would seem vastly different because of their anger alone. But it couldn’t be farther from the truth. All three of them had terrifying fury inside them, it would just come out in different ways. Jackie’s rage was the material mothers used in bedtime stories to scare children into behaving, but Blackwing’s was what fueled their nightmares. Taking all of this into account, the peak of Blackwing’s rage made Jackie’s current state look like a child’s tantrum. “I’m going to chop that piece of shit up into miniscule cubes, put them in a box, and send it to his mother.”

Blackwing giggled as she pulled the chain around her neck out from under her dress. The gem attached to it was a bright shade of green. The kind of green that consumed you wholly as you looked at it. The sight of it alone caused Caterina’s heart to beat so fast it could have hopped out of her chest. Hide in the bush, Caterina. Her sight went completely out as she was thrown into her memories. Hide in the bush and don’t come out until you know you are one hundred percent safe. She reached out to her mother, but her fingers went straight through her. “Mom,” she whimpered behind tears.

And it was like she was six all over again. The man this time, however was not a black mass. He looked young, his dark black hair slicked back to fully show his sharp face. Caterina wanted to scream out for her mother, but everytime she opened her mouth not a sound would escape her lips, so she sat still in the bushes, her black eyes wet. And then she saw them- the thing that made her wish for an escape- his eyes. They were the same bright green as everything in her nightmares. She wanted to vomit when her mother’s name rolled off his tongue. “Esther Scilia.”

Esther smirked up at him with recognition in her face. “Hello Shaw.”

[romanoartsless]

If y'all don't shed a tear after this than I don't know what to say because like, I'm finally giving you smooches.

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Chapter 44

 The window had been seemingly taunting her in the past few weeks with the world that sat behind it. As soon as she woke up, Amber Lynn crawled out of her bed to look out it. The doctors had cleared her last night, knowing she’d probably want to go out today.

There was one thing in particular she always knew how to find. It was a house. She’d memorized the placement of it from her bedroom window for as long as he’d lived there. Gideon’s house.

Even though he was a few months her junior, he had moved out into his own home before she even thought of doing so. Although, Mrs. Warren’s house was substantially smaller than the Ranez manor.

 She watched as the light from the windows brightened with a smile on her face. Today was Gideon’s birthday. Today she was no longer bedridden. Today she could leave the manor. Today she could see him again.

* * *

  The music playing throughout the building was practically deafening. Different bands played in almost every other rooms, causing all the sounds to clash. “Gideon!” Crispin yelled over the music. “Happy birthday!”

“Thank you!”

“So, you’re not a teenager anymore?!”

 “No!”

 “I remember when you were a baby!”

 “You were like four when I was a baby!”

 “Still.”

The music was the only thing between them now. Crispin sat down in the chair next to Gideon, inching closer to him. Gideon got up off his chair and went to walk away, but Crispin grabbed his hand before he left entirely. “Can we talk about the other day?”

 Gideon pulled his hand away from the Petrov’s grip. It took everything not to stare into the sadness in his green eyes. “No.”

“Gideon please-”

“No! It’s my birthday, let me enjoy it.”

 * * *

     This wasn’t going well. At all. The first second she walked through the door, she regretted it. Amber Lynn ran into the first bathroom she could find and locked herself in it. She sat in the tub, picking at the tool at the bottom of her dress. Her heart raced whenever she heard footsteps near the door. She prayed, every time, that no one would want in the bathroom. She didn’t know what she’d do if someone knocked on the door. Oh gods. What if someone knocked? Her breath shortened and she swore she felt drips of sweat down her arms.

    She looked up at the walls, searching for patterns in the texture on them. She’d do that on occasion to distract herself from her anxieties. It didn’t work. She saw people in the scribbles. People like the ones outside the door enjoying themselves. Why wasn’t she enjoying herself? She should’ve been enjoying herself. Why couldn’t she enjoy herself?

    Some would tell her to just leave, but she couldn’t leave. This was the biggest party of the season. What would people think of her if she just got up and left not even halfway through the night. Gideon was here, too. Gideon…She had to see Gideon at least once, then she could leave, that’s what she told herself.

    Knock knock. No. “I’m not done yet.”

     “Hurry up then!” a man on the other side of the door yelled.

     Amber Lynn took in a deep breath, needing to calm down. This was all too much. Too many people. Too much talking. Too much interacting. Breathe in. Breathe out. She closed her eyes to let herself calm down, but the worst possible thoughts came to her mind. If you walk out there you’ll be shamed. Who locks themself in a bathroom at a party? You’re such a coward Amber Lynn. Listen to everyone, get over it. Get over it. Get over it. Get over it.

    Knock knock knock. She stayed quiet, hoping whoever was on the opposite side of the door would just walk away. Knock knock knock. Stay quiet Amber Lynn, stay quiet. Knock knock knock. “What?!”

    When she ran over to the door and threw it open in a hot rage, the man who stood before her’s eyes went from frustrated to luftful the second they went up and down Amber Lynn. “Oh!” he said in a seductive voice. “I’m sorry.”

    His hand grazed down her curves. It made her want to run away, but she was cornered in the bathroom. “I’ll just make my way out.”

    He ran his fingers through her blond hair, pushing it away from her face as he leaned in closer to her. His breath reeked of alcohol. “There’s no need to do that.”

     She could feel his hand reach at the bottom of her dress, bunching the fabric up until her was touching her bare skin. She felt sick. Her urge to fight was strong, but the voice in her head told her there was no hope. It told her she shouldn’t even try. So as much as she wanted to run and kick him in the crotch, she froze. She gave up fighting years ago. When everyone stopped believing in her, she stopped believing in herself.

    “Amber Lynn!”

     Her eyes looked up to where the sound came from and luckily the man did, too. Crispin pushed the man away with ease, but he was more than a foot taller than Amber Lynn, so he was much more intimidating. “I’ve been looking for you!”

 He picked her up, twirling her in the air and kissing her neck. When he set her on the ground, he turned to the man and said, “Excuse me, could you give us some privacy?”

“Sorry,” he replied in a tone that showed he wasn’t sorry, “I didn’t know you two were a… thing.”

The man walked off and once he was out of sight Amber Lynn sighed in relief. “Thank you, Crispin.”

 “It’s no problem.”

 “I’m glad you’re not like your dad. He would’ve walked by without batting an eye and then told me it was my fault for wearing a ‘revealing dress’.”

“I mean, if I was like him I would’ve had a child bride and three kids by now, but it’s really no problem.”

“Are you sure, because I don’t want to be a hassle to you. I mean, you’re at a party you should be enjoying yourself and not worrying about little old me-”

 “Amber Lynn, it’s fine. I did it with my own free will. You are fine.”

Oh gods she was annoying him wasn’t she? Everybody got annoyed with her eventually. Or at least that’s what her mind told her. It also told her that every nice word said to or about her was a lie so people could go behind her back and laugh at her for believing those things about herself.

Crispin went to walk away, but Amber Lynn stopped him with, “Wait!”

He turned around and stared at her with his bright green eyes. “Yeah?”

“Shouldn’t we make it believable that we’re like… a thing?”

“Amber Lynn, you’re a sweet girl, but I don’t have those types of feelings for you.”

“That’s not what I mean! I mean put on an act now so we both don’t get creepers coming up and harassing us at the party. Then we stage a fake fight and fake break up the fake relationship.”

 “You really are smarter than everyone gives you credit for.” He held out her hand to her, which she reluctantly shook. “It’s a deal.”

 The two of them started off their night on the dancefloor. They had a few drinks beforehand, allowing them to free themselves a bit easier. No one even batted an eye at them because who would be surprised that the two black sheep of the high families of Novak would find solace in each other.

 * * *

    Gideon had always liked Thomas. He was much more reserved and calm than Crispin. You could sit down and have a simple chat with him over a drink, which was what they were doing at the moment. “Oh,” Thomas began, “I don’t know if I’ve told you, but happy birthday.”

     “Thanks.”

     “I made sure Crispin didn’t do this on my birthday. He wanted to throw a big party because I turned twenty-five. I told him I wanted alone time, he listened well enough.”

    There was a tinge of pain in his face when he mentioned his birthday. Gideon didn’t dare ask why. “Well, happy late birthday.”

    Thomas chuckled as he leaned back into his chair. “Thanks.”

     He then turned around and gave out a sigh. “What is it?” Gideon asked.

    “Crispin.”

     “What else should I have expected?”

     “I love him to death, but he does this at every party.”

    “Does what?”

    “Finds a girl, hangs out with her the whole night, then never talks to them ever again.”

     Gideon turned around to see what Thomas was referring to. He expected to see a girl he’d never seen before with Crispin, but instead he turned around and was mortified when his eyes landed on Amber Lynn Ranez on Crispin Petrov’s lap, locked in a hot embrace, lips tied together. Rage filled him and he ran over to them, putting his hands onto Crispin’s shoulders. “Get your hands off her.”

    Amber Lynn’s face peeked up over Crispin’s shoulder and her eyes filled with joy when she looked up at him. “Gideon!”

     “Amber Lynn, can I talk to Crispin… alone?”

     She seemed disappointed at the request, but she followed through, saying, “Yeah, of course.”

     “What the fuck, Crispin?!”

    Crispin turned around to face Gideon, defensive in his words. “What the fuck me? What the fuck you?”

     “What were you doing?!”

     “Oh, I’m sorry, am I not an adult? Can I not kiss whoever I please? Let me just kiss Blackwing in peace, okay?”

     “Who’s Blackwing?”

    Crispin’s face went blank, realizing the slip up. “Fuck,” he whispered to himself. “I have to go.”

     Gideon grabbed Crispin’s arm but it had seemingly no effect on him as he just pulled it out of the grip. “Crispin! Come on! Crispin! Crispin!”

 Chapter 45

     Blackwing loved the sound of the music playing from the nearby party. She didn’t know what they were celebrating, but it must have been important considering the number of guests. The streets were crowded, making it even more difficult to get to her building. She saw it as a blessing in disguise, because now she wouldn’t have to worry about someone catching her slithering into the building, since they were all distracted by the party.

     When she opened the door, she heard drunken singing, but it was replaced by the sound of running. Blackwing brought her pistol out and had it at her side, ready to protect herself against a possible intruder. She searched through room after room, pointing her gun in front of her as she did.

    She heard the sound of footsteps in a nearby hall and ran as silently as her feet could carry her. “Don’t move,” she said to the person now standing in front of her.

     “Blackwing!”

    Crispin drunkenly hobbled down the hall, bottle in hand. “Crispin! I almost shot you in the face! You need to be careful!”

    Once he caught a whiff of his alcohol wreaked breath, his strange actions suddenly made sense. “You wouldn’t shoot me, silly. No one would shoot their best friend.”

    “I thought you were an intruder!”

    “Oh.”

    “You almost gave me a heart attack.”

    “I’m… I’m sorry.”

    When she looked up at him, his face was filled with sadness. She reached up and sandwiched his face in her hands. “It’s fine, Crispin. There’s no need to get upset.”

     His face instantly lit up. “You’re right! I need to get some balls. Balls!”

     Oh gods, he was really drunk. “Crispin, why don’t you come and sit down?”

    “Are you gonna sit with me?”

    “Yes Crispin, I’m going to sit with you.”

    They went into a nearby room and Blackwing helped Crispin onto the bed. When he motioned for her to sit next to him, she did. They were so close, and Crispin began to shrink the space even more. “Wow, you’re close,” Blackwing giggled.

     “I love you.”

    “I love you, too. You’re one of my best friends.”

     He laughed. His hand traced over her arm and her face went red. It would’ve been romantic had Crispin not smelled like he’d just walked out of a bar. “No, like love love you.”

    Blackwing sat straight up. She turned back at Crispin, who was still in a daze. “You what?”

    “Huh?”

    Gods, he was too drunk to even remember what he had just said. While we was still in his own little world, Blackwing began to walk out of the room. “Where are you going?” Crispin asked.

    “Don’t worry,” she replied, “I’ll be back.”

* * *

    Anytime you miss a Scilia, you can come to me.

    While Blackwing didn’t necessarily miss a Scilia,she did need the kind of blunt and honest advice only a Scilia could give. She didn’t want to explain this whole mess to Caterina, so Edith Scilia was her last option.

She sat there for hours, waiting for someone to at least come by and direct her to where Edith might be. Finally, a familiar dark skinned woman appeared with a piece of bread in her mouth as she held a few bottles in her hands. “Edith!” Blackwing never thought she’d say that name with as much excitement as she did. It was tainted by the Delikov.

When Edith saw there was someone waiting for her, she frantically set down the bottles, took the bread out of her mouth, and placed it on the table as well. “How may I help you?” she asked as she slid into the seat directly in front of Blackwing.

“Um, I’m Blackwing, remember? From when I knocked down your cart and almost broke all of your belongings.”

“Oh yes! Blackwing…”

“Crow.”

“Ah, I knew it was some sort of bird. Now, what did you come for?”

“I need some advice.”

“And some Scilia bluntness I’m assuming.”

Blackwing nodded. “So there’s this guy I’m best friends with-”

“Oh no.”

“-and he kind of sort of confessed his love for me while he was drunk.”

“Well, first of all, I must ask, do you want it to be the alcohol talking or him.”

“Ummmmm…”

 “You want it to be him.”

“What?!”

“If you just wanted it to be the alcohol you would’ve said that right off the bat, but you didn’t.”

Edith was right. Blackwing did, no matter how much she denied it, want it to really be Crispin’s true feelings. Maybe because she had started to see him in that way, too. “What do I do then?”

 “Kiss him.”

 “What?!”

 “I’ve heard you supposedly just know you really have feelings for someone when you kiss them, so just kiss him.”

“So I just kiss him?”

“Yup.”

“Alright…”

* * *

     Crispin woke up with a piercing headache. He had ran to the apartment complex after stealing a bottle of whiskey when he realized he’d slipped up. But he couldn’t, for the life of him, remember anything after he’d opened the doors. Gods only knew what he’d done.

    He’d thrown up twice now. A hangover set in during his nap. He hoped Blackwing hadn’t come in the time he was intoxicated. Hearing what others told him he’d said when he was drunk, he didn’t want her to hear all of it.

    Suddenly, he heard the sound of doors opening and closing. Panic set in. Blackwing was likely down there and now she’d have to see him like this. He scrambled to get something to make himself more presentable, but it was too late. She was already in the doorframe. “You’re uh,” she started, “not drunk anymore.”

     “Hungover though.”

    She stood there awkwardly, not giving a reply. It left Crispin slightly concerned. “Is everything okay, Blackwing?”

     Next thing he knew, she walked across the room towards him, put his face in her hands, and pulled him down into a kiss. Crispin froze, his hands still at his side, not knowing where to put them. He’d been kissed before, but never with this short of notice. Granted a kiss had also never made him feel this way inside.

    When she finally pulled away, Crispin was half tempted to pull her straight back into another one, but he stopped himself. Blackwing began to speak. “Did you vomit recently?” Oh…

    “Yeah… twice actually.”

    She spat on the floor with a strange, slightly disgusted look on her face. “I could tell.”

    A realization hit Crispin and he tripped, falling onto the bed in shame. “Oh no.”

     “What?”

    “I ruined your first kiss. You’re not a kiss-virgin anymore and I just ruined your first kiss by blowing chunks an hour before. Oh gods…”

    “Oh Crispin, you didn’t ruin it, you just tasted vaguely of bile.”

    “You’ll never want to kiss me again. I’ll always be known as the guy who tasted like throw up.”

    “I mean, I’d maybe consider kissing you again if you cleaned out your mouth.”

    “I’ll never get to- wait what?” He sat straight up on the bed and began to run out the room. “I’ll be back?”

    And he was. In a few minutes time, he came back. He held something in his hand when he walked through the door. “I washed my mouth don’t worry,” he said, “but I brought something for you.”

     Curiosity filled up in Blackwing as he kneeled in front of her sitting on the bed. He pulled out a necklace and put it around her neck. She looked down at the charm that was now around her neck and saw a large, green gem, the same color as Crispin’s eyes. “It’s the Petrov medallion.”

    “The Petrov medallion?! I can’t take this, it’s too important to your family.”

    “No it’s not. My dad hasn’t given a shit about since two others went missing. Please, keep it.”

    She got up and walked to the mirror, looking at herself and her new jewel. It looked nice against her dark red dress. She could see Crispin walking up behind her. He leaned in, kissed her cheek, and whispered, “Why don’t we retry that first kiss?”

    “There’s no need to retry it.”

    “It was bad, though. You said I tasted like vomit.”

“It wasn’t the best, but it was still memorable. We could always just kiss again.”

She turned around to face him and plant another kiss on his lips, but he picked her up off the ground instead. “Crispin!” she let out between laughs.  

He placed kisses on her cheeks as he carried her back to the bed and tossed her onto it. She reached up towards him, grabbing for his face, so he leaned down towards her and kissed her again. He could feel a smile tug on her lips which caused one to form on him as well. Crispin could’ve kissed her forever, but Novak would never let him do it.

[romanoartsless]

Yeah so um I don’t know what to say so here’s an update

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Chapter 42

Thomas was minding his own business when an arm suddenly wrapped itself around his neck from behind. It took him aback at first until he looked to his side and saw a familiar blond. “Do you always have to make such… dramatic entrances?”

“Yes!” Crispin exclaimed. “When you purchase your friendship with Crispin Petrov, be sure to read the fine print. Spontaneous dramatic entrances are sure to be there.”

Thomas rolled his eyes, but smiled at the remark. “Any news about the competition?”

“Oh yeah, I think I heard someone say the king is raising the stakes or something.”

“Raising the stakes? What does that mean?”

“I think he’s making us report to him everyday or something. That’s what I heard my dad say when I was eavesdropping on him.”

This was not good. Only having to meet up with the king every week gave him time to both get what he needed done with Caterina, but also think up a good enough story to fool the king with. Daily meetings would throw this all off. “Do you know why?”

“Nah, I think that’s what he’s gonna talk to us about today.”

A pause in silence grew between them as Thomas pondered how he might sort this all out until- “Do you want to maybe hang out after this whole meetup thing? Go get drinks or something?”

“Huh?”

“Oh I was just thinking, for people who throw the label best friend around so freely, we barely ever spend any one on one time together anymore, you know, ‘cause we’re busy lately and stuff. I dunno… I thought it was a good idea, but if you-.”

“I’d love to go get drinks with you, Crispin.”

His face lit up at the reply. “Great!” he said, skipping a bit in front of Thomas. “And Gideon’s not crashing the party this time, understood?”

“Understood.”

* * *

Thomas didn’t want to interrupt the king to tell him he was here when he first walked in. He seemed distracted at the moment. He sat at his desk, holding a picture frame containing a collage of circular images of his own face. “I’ll find you,” Thomas swore he heard him whisper to himself, “I promise.”

“Sir?”

“Oh!” the king said, placing the frame back on his desk as he turned around. “Captain! Please, come in.”

Thomas sat down before him in on of the chairs set out. “Crispin told me you were… raising the stakes of the competition?”

“Yes! Yes. I imagine he also told you I wanted all of you in the competition to meet me every other day now.”

“Oh. He said it was everyday.”

“No, it’s every other day. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good, good. But yes, the plan is every other day. However I will give all of you a handful of free days, but you must have an excuse.”

“May I ask why you’re raising the stakes?”

“... Personal reasons.”

Thomas didn’t bother to pry any further information out of him. “Now Thomas,” the king began again, “I’ve heard others have been slacking off in their search. You’re not one of those people are you?”

“No sir.” His face stayed blank even when images of Caterina flashed through his mind. Her hair. Her eyes. Her tattoos. Her smile that he wished he could witness one day.

“Captain?”

“Yes?”

“You looked a little distracted there.”

“Oh! Sorry about that.”

“Are you really sure you don’t slack off?”

“One hundred percent sure, sir.”

“Then what have you found so far?”

And Thomas lied straight to the king of Novak’s face. He ate up every line of how he went east and searched and searched to no avail. So much detail he put into these intricate lies that only a select few would think them false. No mention of Caterina. No mention of a search for a murderer.

The king’s deep brown eyes looked like they were on the verge of tears, but before they could spill down his cheeks, he sharply turned around in his seat. “You can go now, captain.”

* * *

About an hour later, Crispin sat at Thomas’s side and they made their way off to a nearby bar. Crispin made his usual snarky remarks as they did their stroll. “I’m just saying,” he joked, “everything in my life would make so much more sense if March Ranez was secretly my dad.”

“Crispin, the chances of you being the secret love child of your mother and March Ranez are just about as slim as the chances of me being the secret love child of my mother and the Wrie prime minister. I mean you have-.”

“I know, I know. I have my dad’s eyes, but like I wish March Ranez was secretly my dad. He’s a cool dude.”

Thomas rolled his eyes and the two of them kept walking. When they finally reached the bar, they sat down at the counter and ordered their drinks. A few hours into chatting, when he was a bit drunk, Crispin said, “You know, the last time I was at a bar, I stabbed a dude’s hand. I mean it was a few months ago, but like yeah, I did that.”

Thomas just about choked on the sip of his drink he was taking. “I’m sorry, you did what?!”

“Just, you know, stabbed some guy’s hand. Like bing bang boom one minute he doesn’t have a knife in his hand, the next he does. That simple.”

“I’m guessing you were blackout drunk when this all happened. Am I right?”

“Nope! I was completely sober!”

Thomas almost choked for a second time. “I know I’ll regret asking this, but why would you stab someone’s hand while you’re sober?”

“He was harassing this girl and, let me tell you, I couldn’t watch that go down so… stab stab stab! I mean it was only one stab, but you get the point. But like Thomas, you don’t understand-”

Crispin began to bang his fists on the table, but Thomas stopped him, saying, “Crispin, you’re drunk. You need to drink some water and calm down.”

“-how hot she was! She was so hot! Truth is, I haven’t been doing jack shit for this competition, I’ve just been hanging out with this girl like every week for the past few months. Like wow, she’s hot. And nice! Fuck, she’s so nice to me. And like sincere, I actually care about you, Crispin, nice and not, I secretly just want to get into your pants, nice. She’s just… wow! Like I kind of want to-.” And in that moment, Crispin took his hand and began to passionately kiss the back of it.

“No! Oh gods no!” Thomas exclaimed, pulling Crispin’s hand away from his face. “We’re in public! Can someone get him a glass of water?”

The bartender set down a glass of water in front of the blond, who chugged it like a shot. “Woo!” Crispin shouted. “You know, brown eyes are soooo beautiful. I could stare into brown eyes forever. Like wow! Hey everyone! I love brown eyes!!!”

“Thank you? But Crispin, you really need to calm down.”

“I’m not talking about your eyes, silly. I’m talking about her.” He was pointing at the wall all the bottles were shelved on.

“Crispin, you’re drunk. You need to drink some water, eat something.”

Thomas pushed the small bowl of nuts on the counter towards Crispin, who promptly poured them in his mouth and on himself. Again, the bartender set down a glass of water in front of Crispin, who took it down with ease. “Another round!”

“No! No. Crispin, I think we’ve had enough for tonight.”

“Noooo! Thomas, you’re no fun! I wanna drink and talk about girls!”

Thomas was practically dragging Crispin out of the bar at this point. “I’ll talk about girls with you if you cooperate with me and just walk to my house with me.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Alrighty!”

Crispin drunkenly skipped beside Thomas as they walked to the captain’s home. Once they got there, Thomas opened the door, Crispin ran in, and crashed onto the couch in the front room. “You said we could talk about girls.”

“Yes I did. Let me go get drinks.” And by drinks he meant water. “Are you ever going to tell me who this mysterious brown eyed girl is?”

“No! It’s a secret.”

“Why?”

“Because.”

“Because why?”

“Because I just don’t feel like telling anyone.”

Thomas sighed and asked, “Well then, how long have you had feelings for her?”

“What?! I don’t have feelings for anyone! Especially not her! We’re just friends!”

“Crispin, you were literally making out with your hand talking about this girl.”

“It was platonically!”

“I don’t think fantasizing about making out with someone is a platonic thing.”

“You just don’t understand the deepness of our bond, Thomas.”

“You must be a sentimental drunk.”

“I’m not drunk!”

“You’re wasted.”

“Fine then, Mr. Sober, tell me something about some girl in your life.”

“Well… um… there isn’t one.”

“I call bullshit. You hesitated.”

“Um…” Thomas couldn’t think of an answer to please Crispin, so, since the latter was intoxicated and would likely forget the entire conversation by morning, Thomas spat out the first name that came to mind. “Caterina.”

“Oh my gods, there really is someone! Tell me about her so I know she isn’t fake.”

Shit. “Well,” he said ad sat down on the couch next to Crispin who sat alert as can be, “her hair reminds me of midnight skies and every time I see the sunset and the sky goes dark it makes me think of her. And the way the moon glows against the sky reminds me of her skin. Her eyes are so dark and I just want them to consume me entirely when I look into them. And she’s so tall and regal and just-.” It scared him how easily this all came off his tongue.

“Thomas Arthur Dubroin. Holy fucking shit. Why isn’t everyone in Novak dropping their panties for you?! If someone said something like that about me, I’d marry them that second.”

“Thank you…?”

There was a pause before Crispin said, “I’m gonna hibernate  so your overly romantic ass better get off the couch unless you want me to use your lap as a pillow.”

Thomas chuckled and said, “No thank you,” before getting off the seat and heading up to his bedroom. But before he left entirely, he set a bucket beside Crispin for when the hangover would surely set in.

Chapter 43

It had been two weeks and Thomas hadn’t come back. Caterina had grown too used to his bi-weekly visits that not seeing him in that amount of time made her anxious. She’d sit by the door all day the days he was supposed to come, waiting. Some days she’d bring her sketchbook, others she’d just stare at the wall. “Dammit Dubroin,” she muffled under her breath, “where are you?”

She wondered if maybe he decided never to come back. He got her all the files she needed, why did she need him to come back? Why did she want him to come back? Why had her mind, for the past two weeks, been entirely clouded by thoughts of Thomas Arthur Dubroin? Is he ever coming back? Is he just going to abandon me without telling me why? Does he secretly hate me? Why do I miss him so much? Oh gods. Her stomach felt sick at any of the possible ideas that came to her mind.

Then, all of a sudden, the door come swinging open. Caterina half expected it to be the Crows, but got a pleasant surprise when she looked up into golden brown eyes. Before she even realized what she was doing, she jumped off the ground and wrapped her arms around Thomas’s neck. “Well hello to you, too, Caterina.”

She immediately pushed herself away from him, realizing what she had done. “Where the hell have you been for the past few weeks?”

“Back west. The king’s tightening our schedules a bunch and-.”

“Why didn’t you at least give me a heads up?”

“I regretted it the moment I realized what I did. Look, I’m sorry. I thought, at first, you’d be fine since you had all the files. Then I remembered… what happened to you and,” he reached out and grabbed her hand, his thumb drawing swirls on the top of her hand, “I’m sorry, Caterina.”

This time when she wrapped her arms around his neck, she was fully aware of what she was doing. When she pulled away from the embrace, it was much more gentle and only a way for her to be able to walk into her room. She turned around when she realized he wasn’t following her. “You coming?”

“Oh! Yeah.”

Thomas sat down onto his usual chair, awkwardly picking at his fingernails. “So,” Caterina said from across the room, on her bed, “do you care if I ask you something… personal?”

“Yeah, what is it?”

“Do you have any… unnatural-.”

“Physical attributes? No Caterina, I don’t think I’m your soul partner.”

“You’re the only explanation.”

“But I’m not. If it’s not me then I’m not the only explanation.”

“Do you think there’s a possible loophole?”

“No. I don’t think you would’ve fainted when you overused on magic a few weeks ago had I been your soul partner.”

“Fuuuuuuuuuuuck!”

Thomas chuckled from across the room. “Why are you laughing, Thomas?”

“Nothing, you just make me laugh.”

Caterina tried to hide it when her face flushed red. “Thank you.”

“Thank you? That’s very polite. Who is this new, more polite Caterina?”

“Friend Caterina. Before, that was acquaintance Caterina.”

“Friend? You consider us friends? I’m so honored.”

“As you should be?”

He laughed again. “And who might top tier Caterina be?”

“Crow Caterina, but you’ll never get to meet her.”

“That’s okay, I just want to meet Thomas Caterina.”

Caterina froze. She couldn’t hide her now ripe red face anymore. What made it worse was somewhere deep down inside her she hoped he’d have his own personal level one day, too. Next thing she knew, her mouth was moving without her thinking about it. “I know you got me all the files I wanted, but like… can you keep coming back?”

“Do you have a crush on me or something?”

“No!”

“There’s no need to get defensive, I’m just kidding. But yeah, I’ll come back.”

“I understand if you don’t want to- wait, you’ll come back?”

“Yeah. I mean I could say I’ll keep coming so the king thinks I haven’t found you, but in reality I just like you.”

“You like me?”

“I like you.”

“That’ll change soon.”

Three times. He’d laughed three times now. She hadn’t even meant to make him laugh, but he still did. The sound was what she wished her dreams consisted of. “Gods Caterina, you’re hilarious, I hope you know that.”

“So now you’re just gonna sit there and compliment me.”

“Yes, yes I am.”

“Please, go on.”

“Alright.”

Whenever he’d say something about her, she’d snark back with a reason why it wasn’t special. “If my grandmother weren’t such a petty bitch, my hair would’ve just been brown. It’s nothing special.”

“How do you know that?”

“How do you think I know that?”

His brown face went as red as it could for its complexion. “Well…”

A cackle fell out of her mouth. “Thomas Dubroin! Oh my god! Get your mind out of the gutter! I know because had brown hair. Sweet little Thomas has a dirty mind now doesn’t?”

“Shut up.”

Caterina began to mock him, sitting like he was and imitating his voice. “Shut up, Caterina. You’re calling me out for my dirty ass mind.”

A vulgar gesture came at her from Thomas. She returned the favor. “You’re what Novak needs, Caterina,” he said between chuckles.

“Ah yes, Novak needs the most wanted person in the whole country.”

“That’s not what I mean. I mean someone who doesn’t just sit around and mope around all day.”

The tone in her voice went serious. “But that is me. I do sit and mope. I cry myself to sleep at night and I hold grudges that’ll stick with me until the day I die. I am that person. I am weak.”

“No you’re not and quit telling yourself you are. A weak person doesn’t fight like you do. You wake up everyday and you fight through the day, trying to win. And some days you lose, but you tried. A weak person doesn’t try like you do.”

Her black eyes watered up, but she refused to let the tears fall, so they stayed in her eyes, blurring her vision. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why don’t you just turn me in, get the throne? Why are you like this? Why are you nice to me? I’m practically blackmailing you so why are you nice to me?”

“A lot of reasons, Caterina. But the main one is I see myself in you, and when I was like you, I would’ve wanted a me.”

She didn’t hold back the tears anymore. When the flood ran down her cheeks, Thomas ran from the chair to the edge of the bed next to Caterina. As she cried into his shoulder, he petted the top of her head, letting out comforting hushes as he gently rocked her. “I don’t deserve you,” she mumbled through cries. “I really don’t.”

[romanoartsless]

Like I've said before, school started up for me a few weeks ago so I've been very busy but here's the next update! Again the one after this will take a while for me to get done due to school, sorry about that.

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Chapter 40

Very few people ever got the pleasure to see Gideon Victor Warren cry. Serephina was one of those people. Serephina was one of those people. She sat on the floor, in front of him, wiping his now ruined makeup off his face. He looked dead with the subtle grey tone to his complexion. “Don’t cry over him, Gideon.”

“He’s been missing for three days, Sere! You know your brother! You know he has suicidal tendencies! He could be dead, he could’ve killed himself-.”

 “Gideon!” She ran her fingers through his long, dark brown hair as she stared straight into his eyes. “Gideon. This is why you can’t be leaving me . You get close to people who are mentally unstable. Crispin, Amber Lynn, look at what it does to you. Those lunatics are making you cry. Listen to me, Gideon. I know what’s best for you- for us.”

“But-.”

“No buts. I know what’s good for us. I’m a Petrov, listen to me. Say it after me, Sere knows best.”

 “No, Sere listen-.”

 “Sere knows best.”

 “Sere knows best.”

And he meant it. He was sick of the pain others cause him. He should’ve listened to Sere. Gods, why didn’t he listen to Sere?! But he’d crawl back to them eventually, he always did. They’d manipulate him into leaving Sere just like always. Sere loved him. Sere would never do that to him.

“Gideon, I was worried sick about you. You were out for a whole day straight looking for Crispin. I was terrified! I don’t know what I’d do without you.” Tears began to well up in her Petrov green eyes. “I would kill myself if I didn’t have you. I love you, Gideon.”

He knelt down onto the floor next to Serephina, wiping the tears from her eyes like she had done for him only minutes before. The two of them now sat on the floor, mascara running down their faces. A smile cracked across Gideon’s face. “I love you, too, Sere.”

“Of course you do, Gideon. Of course you do.”

 * * *

    Crispin repeated his sisters’ names as his fingers ran through her dark hair. Anything to keep his mind off the fact he was this close to Blackwing Crow. If he imagined the long raven hair belonged to any of the nine of them, his face wouldn’t turn into a bright red orb. “So tell me,” she began, “how do you know how to braid hair?”

     “Blackwing, I have nine sisters.”

    “Touché!”

     Crispin wanted to milk spending his time with Blackwing as long as he could. He knew she’d make him go back eventually, and he knew it was the right thing to do, but he wanted to simmer in her presence.

     Once he had finished braiding her hair, the two of them decided it would be a good idea to go put on makeup. Just another excuse for Crispin to waste time with her. They found a drawer full of likely decades old makeup and played with it like children. No mention of fathers or abuse or self loathing, just two people sitting on a bed, acting like the world around them didn’t exist.

    “Oh gods,” Blackwing said as she looked in the mirror, “this lipstick is awful. If I were to kiss someone it’d look like I just punched them in the mouth.”

    “And who has had the pleasure of having Blackwing Crow punch them in the mouth?”

     “Wait, kiss them or literally punch them? Because if it’s the latter, it’s a larger number.”

     “Kiss.”

    “Oh. Well, about that…”

     “Come on. I’ve shared my shit. Nothing can be worse than what I’ve been through.”

     And it was true, but she couldn’t help but mumble what she was saying.

“I’ll tell you about my first kiss then. I was eleven. You want to know who it was? Saturday fucking Ranez. As much as she hates me now, she had the biggest crush on me when we were kids. She came in and-.”

 “I’ve never kissed anyone!”

“You’ve never kissed anyone?!”

Blackwing blushed intensely. It wasn’t something to be embarrassed about, but in Novak, people did everything young. A typical Novan her age would be married with a kid or two. “No.”

 “We all start off as kiss-virgins. Someday you’ll-.”

 “Wait wait wait. A kiss-virgin? What in the world is a kiss-virgin?”

 “A kiss-virgin. Someone who’s never been kissed. It’s really quite simple.”

 “I’ve never heard anyone say that before.”

 “Well, now you have. Blackwing Crow is a certified kiss-virgin.”

 “What if I don’t want to be a certified not kiss-virgin?”

 “Lay one on someone, then you’ll be a certified not-kiss-virgin. Take it from me, a real life not-kiss-virgin.”

 “Wow, revolutionary advice, kiss someone and you’ll have kissed someone. I would’ve never thought of that,” she said in a sarcastic manner.

 Crispin laughed at her comment and Blackwing couldn’t help but notice how his laugh sounded like a cry for help, like years of pain being pushed down so far the only time they came up was disguised by a chuckle. She wanted to know what his real one sounded like. One that wasn’t marinated in sorrow. One that truly came from immense happiness.

When a few minutes in silence passed, Blackwing broke it by saying, “You should head home.”

“But-.”

 Your friends and family are probably worried sick. Especially with what you’ve done in the past…”

 It was obvious she was talking about his attempted suicides. If he was being honest, he hadn’t even been thinking about what other people might’ve been thinking when he ran. He didn’t care what his father or sisters might think- they would never care if he was dead or not- but he did care about his mother or Thomas or Gideon might think. What if they thought he was dead? What if they thought he would never come back? Oh gods.

He began to lean in closer to her, but stopped when he noticed her body going stiff. They were so close Blackwing could feel his breath on her face. “Shit sorry, I should’ve asked,” he whispered into her ear. “Can I kiss your cheek?”

Her face was dark ruby at this point. His voice in her ear sent chills down her spine and a strange indescribable feeling filled her stomach. She nodded and seconds later his lips were on her cheek. The feeling in her stomach suddenly intensified. Now she understood why people in romance novels wanted to vomit.

Crispin buttoned up his purple guard’s jacket over his white shirt. Blackwing made herself not look, no matter how much her eyes wanted to peak. “Goodbye my dearest love,” he said in a mockingly romantic tone, kissing the top of her hand.

The red in her face went two shades darker. She placed her hand onto the spot where his lips were on her cheek, waving him goodbye with the other. “Bye,” was all she could mutter before he made his way out to go back home.

* * *

     Gideon left Serephina back in the living room when he went to open the door. The last person he expected to see was Crispin, but nonetheless, he stood there in the doorframe. He was slammed the door behind him, not wanting Serephina to catch on that her brother was here. “Crispin!”

     Without a second thought, he pulled Crispin down to his level and passionately kissed him. Crispin pulled away, yelling, “Gideon!”

     “I was worried sick about you, I thought you might’ve tried to kill yourself again-.”

    “Then why the fuck did you kiss me?!”

    “Crispin, I realized I still love you. Take me back. I’m in love with you.”

     “We broke up! We’re done! Do you remember what you said to me?! Why we broke up?! Because I do!”

     “I’m sorry, Crispin!”

     “You know what else you said? You said you wouldn’t pressure me into sex, but what did you have to go and fucking do?” His emerald eyes flooded with tears. Gideon reached his hand out to Crispin’s, trying to comfort him, but he pulled it away to wipe his own tears. “You got drunk one night and tried to fuck me! Remember what you said to me? Remember?!”

     Gideon mumbled, still riddled with guilt for the words Crispin was referring to.

     “Well do you?!”

     “If you loved me you’d have sex with me. That’s what I said!”

     “Exactly! When you said you still wanted to be with me despite my lack of sexual attraction, you don’t understand how much that meant to me. You took the time to to understand me and listen to me- I thought you could’ve been the one.”

    The words hit Gideon like knives to his heart. He wanted to go back in time and slap his past self across the face. Tell him Crispin loves- loved him.

    “I loved you,” Crispin continued, “and I thought you loved me and everything about me, but I guess you didn’t. And I still care about you, but I don’t know if we can do that again- if I can do that again. We just weren’t made for that kind of relationship. I’m sorry.”

Gideon wanted to reach out to Crispin as his back turned to him, walking away from him. “Crispin,” he cried. “Crispin, I’m sorry. Please.”

But he didn’t turn around. He didn’t even glance at him. Never in his life had he wanted to look into Petrov eyes more. His. Crispin’s. Her’s. Not her’s. Not her. Not Sere. Sere.

“Gideon.” He whipped around and saw Serephina’s face peeking through the door. “Gideon honey, are you alright?”

The tears that formed in his baby blue eyes couldn’t trickle down his cheeks. Serephina came all the way out of the house and wrapped her arms around him. “Don’t let them get to you, my Gideon. Sere knows best.”

 “Sere knows best.”

 Chapter 41

    Caterina wanted to focus, but that one sentence kept replaying in her mind. I remember so vividly his red eyes just staring at me sitting there.

    She couldn’t keep her mind on her files. All that ever came to mind was that one sentence had said. He was right about the genetics of it- coincidences were more common in twins, but she couldn’t help but wonder if it maybe it wasn’t a coincidence. Maybe he was her soul partner. Maybe, just maybe. But her magic wasn’t stronger around him. There were always loopholes to keep her hopes up.

    They weren’t close- yet. The bond might have set in. Recently she had felt strange whenever she thought of him. She’d think of him and feel nauseous. The feelings only started in the days before when Thomas had told her about his past. This must’ve been the closeness of the soul partner bond sinking in. There was no other explanation.

The sudden thought to search through his file hit her. She knew it was somewhere in her growing stack and felt euphoria when her eyes landed on the words Dubroin, Thomas. Searching for a sign of any unnatural physical ability, she scanned through the file. Nothing. There was nothing. Frustration fueled her in the moment.

 She walked out of her room, going to the mantelpiece, resting her head on her arms as she stared into her mother’s eyes from the photo before her. “Give me an explanation, mom. Give me a clue. It can be anything. Anything. I don’t want to be alone. I don’t want to be stranded anymore.”

* * *

     Blood. So much blood. It ran down every wall. But was it even blood? It was black. The room did reach of metal and decomposition though. When Caterina turned her head to the left, she was met with her mother, with infected black eyes and the same black liquid from the walls dripping from her mouth, so close to her she could feel her animalistic breathing on her face. “You wanted an explanation.”

    The infection in the form of her mother disappeared into a black mist and a hand fell on Caterina’s shoulder. Her head whipped around and met with wholly black eyes again. “Here’s your explanation.”

    Caterina suddenly felt a warm liquid pouring from her eyes. When she lifted her hand and wiped it away, she looked down and saw whatever was on her hand and came out of her eyes was pitch black. “What does this mean?”

     Her head was pulled back so far she was surprised her neck didn’t just snap in half. Black liquid dripped on her face from her mother’s mouth. “Come with me and find out,” she said in an inhuman, echoing voice that wasn’t her own.

    Something pulled Caterina’s arm harder than any human could. She screamed in pain, her eyes closing as tight as they could. When her eyes opened, she wasn’t even sure she had really opened them since where she was now was pitch black. “Hello,” she called out.

No. No. She looked up and saw emerald eyes that made her wish she was never born. “Infect yourself, Caterina. Find him. Find me.”

Caterina woke up in a hot sweat on the couch with the photo of her mother on her stomach. She threw the picture onto the nearby table and ran into the kitchen. She took a knife off the counter and, as she fell on the floor, cut open the palm of her hand. When the blood ran red, she laughed, staring as it dripped down her arm.

 She felt like she was just watching herself from across the room instead of actually existing in her own body. She just sat on the floor, knife in her left hand while her right one was left bleeding. While the puddle of crimson liquid formed beside her, Caterina laughed as though her favorite joke had just been told.

Her fingers played in the puddle of blood and smeared it all over her face. She wasn’t even thinking anymore. Infection dreams always did this to her. She sometimes wondered if infecting herself would answer all of the questions she had in life.

She took the knife in her hand again, blade side up, and squeezed it as hard as she could. No screams of pain came out of her mouth, only sadistic laughs. “No!” she screamed as the door opened and a bright flash of light hit her face.

Terrified brown eyes landed on her, running to her in the corner, not caring about the blood that would surely stain her dress. “Jackie! Caterina’s having one of her moments!”

 Jackie stormed through the door, digging through her bag as she did. When she pulled out the vial of blue liquid, Caterina began kicking and screaming. But Blackwing, soon after her Caterina’s fit began, put her into a headlock so tight that any wrong movement by Caterina might cause her neck to break. Jackie knelt beside her sister and Caterina and popped the cap of the vial off, trying to force the liquid into Caterina’s mouth. Her mouth stayed locked shut when Jackie brought the vial close to it. “Drink it!” she shouted in her face.

Caterina went to yell, “No!” back at her, but, with a smile on her face, Jackie forced the the liquid into her mouth. She wanted to spit it out, but Blackwing held her jaw shut, forcing her to swallow. In only seconds, Caterina’s black eyes rolled back in her head as she fell into unconsciousness.

 * * *

When she opened her eyes and tried to stand up off the floor, Caterina was stopped by Blackwing’s sleeping body draped over her. She shot up out of her sleep when she realized she was awake. “Caterina!” she said, throwing her arms around her neck.

 “Hi Blackwing,” she said back, returning the embrace.

Blackwing pulled her away and she met her with her now crying chocolate eyes. “I think you had another one of your infection dreams.” She pushed Caterina’s violet hair out of her face as she spoke. “You tend to disassociate after those.” Blackwing picked up the hand Caterina had cut open and left bleeding. “Jackie stitched this up. We don’t need you bleeding out, do we?”

Caterina always swore if any smile could bring world peace it would be Blackwing’s. The smile she held now was no different. She had it on her face to bring up Caterina’s spirits. And it worked. It always worked.

It all ended when the door swung open. Bright blue eyes landed, not on Caterina, but Blackwing. Rage. More rage that humanly possible filled Edith’s eyes. She ran towards her, her mallet in hand, and Caterina froze.

When Edith pulled Blackwing off of her by her hair and yelled, “Why aren’t you dead?!” at her, Caterina couldn’t do anything. Her mind screamed at her to use her magic to stop Edith, but her body froze. Blackwing. Blackwing.

“Get your hands off my sister.”

Jackie.

“What are you going to do with me if I don’t?”

“Kill you.”

“You will? How will you explain that Edith Delikov, technical head of the Delikov family, is missing? They’ll come looking for me. They’ll find your little cabin and me dead in it. You can’t do anything to me without your cover being blown. It’d be a suicide mission. I, on the other hand, can do whatever I want to you three and face absolutely zero consequences. Zero!”

 The Crows, especially Jackie, would always interrogate her as to why she never stood up to Edith. That was why. No matter how much she wanted to, Caterina could never lay a finger on her. Edith would always have power over her. She had status. She was a member of a high family. Caterina was a weed to Edith’s rose.

Jackie kept her pistol at her side, but Caterina knew she’d bring it back into play if she wanted to. Edith bent down back to Blackwing, blocking out the other two in the room. “You’re the mystery girl, aren’t you?”

“What do you mean?” Blackwing whimpered.

“You’re the one who killed Vladimir. I didn’t mean for Amber Lynn Ranez to get into this mess. I told him what you look like: not really ugly, but not really pretty, long black hair, big brown eyes oblivious to all the misery in the world. But I guess they aren’t, because you killed him to protect that sorry excuse for a high lady.”

The Crow’s eyebrows furrowed as an anger Caterina had never seen on her face grew. “Are you trying to vilify me? If you are, it won’t work. They already know I did. And I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”

 “You know, I’ve never killed anyone in my entire life.”

“And yet I’m still a better person than you.”

“Blackwing!” Caterina finally chimed in. “Don’t provoke her,” she mouthed.

Fury was in her dark eyes when she turned to her. “Let me fend for myself,” Blackwing mouthed back at her.

Caterina couldn’t tell if the emotion boiling in herself was pride or horror. Blackwing was fighting for herself, but it was against Edith. One wrong word and Edith wouldn’t hesitate to take out her mallet and beat her until her life flashed before her eyes.

The mallet went into the air and, without a second thought, Caterina threw herself in front of its aim. When it collided into her the Crows screamed. “Caterina!” Blackwing yelled as she went to cradle Caterina’s body.

“I’m sorry,” she coughed out. “I know you wanted to protect yourself, but I can’t let you hurt yourself.”

The sound of clapping began behind them. Caterina managed to maneuver over enough to see it came from Edith. “Look at you,” she said. “A happy little family. Being there for your kin.” But there was something in her face and tone that was off. She held a tinge of pain- of jealousy.

As much as Caterina despised Edith for the suffering she caused her, she empathized with her desire for love. But she would never excuse her bringing the Crows into this. This was her and Edith’s feud, their fight because of Victor. The Crows never even met him. The Crows did nothing to spite Edith.

With a smirk on her face, Caterina lifted her hand in the air and cut off the air going into Edith’s lungs. Her freckled face began to turn the same color as her family color. Caterina brought back the air right before the lady could go unconscious. Completely taking everyone off guard by changing the subject Caterina asked, “So how’s Silvertongue?”

 Confused but furious blue eyes looked down at her, still in Blackwing’s arms. Pushing a strand of her red hair out of her face, she simply replied, “Fine.”

    The simple word hurt in different ways. Not only was it confirmation that Silvertongue had run to Edith, but that she was going on with ease without Caterina. She knew it wasn’t a lie because with how little time it took her to reply, she couldn’t have conjured up a false story. “You should’ve never brought the Crows into our… our relationship.”

    “They got brought into it the moment you made them, witch.”

    Edith turned around, her red hair flowing behind her as she walked out the door, it slamming behind her. “I’m going to fucking killed her,” Jackie finally cut in.

    “Jackie!” Caterina yelled as loud as she could in her pain. “Leave her be.”

     “Why?! Why should we?! Look at what she does to you! To us! She’s been doing this for years!”

    “Don’t you remember what she said? She’s right. If we kill her the court will come hunting. They’ll find us. They’ll kill us.”

    “Then I’ll kill her when I’m out in the town.”

    “You’re not in Novan records! They’ll investigate. They’ll still find us. There’s a clear power dynamic with Edith no matter what we do. Killing her is a suicide mission.”

    “But-.”

    “No buts. We can’t do anything to her.”

     Blackwing came back in. “She does everything to us, though.”

    “Trust me, Blackwing,” Caterina said, “I know.”

[romanoartsless]

So school is starting up next week for me so updates will become fewer and far between again soon, but hopefully another longer update will make that up to you.

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Chapter 38

    This was too many Caterinas to be anything but a dream. Silvertongue stood in the middle of a ballroom, surrounded by dozens of Caterinas on the dance floor. Some of them wore suits and some wore dresses. Silvertongue’s dress was the same maroon and gold as everything else in the room. The bodice was was sleeveless, maroon, and printed with intricate gold designs that trailed down to the ruffled bottom that was twice as big as Silvertongue herself. “Silvertongue!” one of the Caterinas, one in a flashy suit that shared the same design as her dress and her hair half pulled up into a braid, called out to her from a table outside the dance floor.

     She walked over to the table and sat at the chair across from the Caterina who called her over. “Silvertongue, eat, make yourself comfortable.”

     Silvertongue sipped on the glass of wine in front of her, but didn’t dare pick at the food. She wasn’t hungry in the slightest and didn’t want to make herself sick. “We miss you.”

     “We who?”

     “Your sisters and I.”

     “Don’t call them my sisters.”

     “But they-.”

     “They came out of the same nest as me? You were so selfish that you used your magic to create little friends for yourself out of birds. They never loved me, they only ever cared for you!”

    The Caterina took a vial of blue liquid out of her breast pocket and poured it into her wine. She held her glass up and before gulping it down said, “Just because someone doesn’t love you the way you want to be loved doesn’t mean they don’t love you, Silvertongue.”

     Her coal eyes rolled in the back of her head and her glass fell out of her now limp hand, crashing into the ground, shattering at the collision. She now lied still in her seat, face down on the table. “Caterina?”

     There was no reply. She was dead. “So tell me,” another Caterina came up to her and started, “what did we ever do to deserve to be stabbed in the back?”

     “You-.”

     “Don’t you dare say it’s because we didn’t love you. We loved you, you were our family. Just because I didn’t want to fuck you doesn’t mean I didn’t love you.”

     Out of the ruffles in her dress, the Caterina pulled out a knife and impaled it into her own neck. Blood splattered everywhere, collecting in a puddle around her now dead body. Silvertongue stepped over it and tried to run to the door, tried to get out until-

    “Why Edith? Of all the people you could turn to, why her? You’ve seen what she does to me.”

    This one stood in front of her, blocking her path. Her dress was skin tight and maroon and she wore a gold jacket over top it. Silvertongue was afraid of the things she might be able to pull out of her pockets. “I hate you Caterina! You deserve everything she does to you! She’s the only person who understands how I feel about you!”

     “I thought you loved me. Or do you only love me when it’s convenient then hate me the rest of the time?”

     She tore off the jacket and Silvertongue caught a glimpse of her slit wrists as she fell to the ground. The constant thought of dread and the need to escape boiled inside of her. She tried to run to the other side of the room, hopping over bodies, until the spotlight landed on her in the middle of the dancefloor. She wanted to run out of it, but she was surrounded by a circle of Caterinas.

     They all faced the band on the raised stage, and even though the thought of doing so made her want to vomit, Silvertongue did so as well. Even the band was all Caterina in different attire. The singer approached the edge of the stage and pointed her pale finger towards Silvertongue. “DId you really think I was in love with Thomas or were you just grasping at strings? Thinking of excuses to abandon us?”

    “You treated him with such kindness! I’ve read Blackwing’s romance novels, I know that’s the first step!”

    A noose fell from the ceiling and landed in front of the singer Caterina. “I was nice to him because I didn’t want to get turned into the king, Silvertongue,” she said before putting her head into the noose and jumping off the stage.

    Three more nooses fell next to the Caterina’s now hanging body and the band began to follow their singer. “No!” Silvertongue cried out. But they didn’t listen. Four bodies of Caterinas now hung in front of the stage.

    She tried to reach out to the bodies between the Caterinas in front of her, but an arrow flew from across the room into one of the shoulders of a Caterina in front of her. Silvertongue crawled onto the floor and cradled the body in her arms. The Caterina didn’t even seem to be in any pain. She looked into her dark blue eyes and said in the most monotone voice, “Apologize.”

    “Apologize,” echoed the rest of the Caterinas above her.

    Arrows flew like birds above her, taking out Caterinas one by one. Silvertongue stayed clinging to the body in her arms. A Caterina hopped off one of the balconies in the ballroom and, stepping over bodies, walked over to Silvertongue, her crossbow still in hand. “I can’t hear you!”

    “Because I didn’t say anything, bitch!”

    “Did you not hear them? They said apologize.”

     “For what?”

     “For everything.”

    Her tattooed arm raised into the air and only seconds later an arrow flew into her chest and her cold, limp body collided into the ground next to Silvertongue, her face falling into Silvertongue’s lap. She screamed louder than she’d ever screamed before.

    She pushed the body off her lap and tears flooded her eyes. Midnight blue searched around the room searching for an escape. She saw a door, smaller than the grand entrance, but she knew it would be easier to get to, even when she didn’t know where it’d lead to.

    Her legs pushed up off the floor and carried her to the door, arrows flying above her head as she ran, each taking out the Caterinas on the opposite side of the room. Silvertongue never appreciated how good it would feel to have her hand turn on a door knob. She entered the small side room and sighed in relief. When she opened her eyes, she wanted to yell in frustration. On the velvet couch sat another Caterina.

    Jackie and Blackwing stood behind her as she stretched out on the seat. Jackie wore a similar maroon suit as the Caterina whereas Blackwing wore an almost identical dress to Silvertongue. “Dearest Silvertongue,” Caterina began, “look at your sisters, your flesh and blood, and tell them you hate them-”

    “I hate you two.”

     “- and mean it.”

    Silvertongue hesitated this time, stuttering when she spoke. “I hate you two.”

     “I said mean it.”

     “I hate you two!”

    “I said mean it!”

    “I hate you two!”

     “Mean it!”

     “I hate you!”

     Caterina and her sisters each pulled a pistol out from their clothes and put it to their own heads. “You’ll never mean it, you coward,” Caterina said before the three of them pulled the trigger in unison.

    Silvertongue shot up on the couch, still sweating from the dream. “Silvia!” Shaw said from the kitchen, “You’re up from your nap.”

    Silvertongue looked over to where his voice came from and saw Natasha, grinning ear to ear, wrapped up in Shaw’s arms as he whispered sweet nothings into her ear. They looked happy. She didn’t understand how people like March or Crispin would want to tear them apart.

     Shaw had called her into the Petrov manor to see Crispin. “You two are getting married,” he had told her, “you need to spend more time together.”

    Apparently Crisping came back to the manor after every head of the high families meeting to check on his mother. He wanted to make sure she was fine and that his father hadn’t hurt her. Silvertongue didn’t understand why he thought she would need to be protected because from what she could see his parents were happily married.

     Crispin suddenly bust through the door, trying to hide an obvious smile on his face. When he saw his parents in the kitchen, any trace of that smile disappeared. “Mom, can I talk to you for a second?”

Natasha went to go walk towards her son, but Shaw’s grip tightened on her. “Anything you can say to her you can say to me.”

 “I guess. Mom, I got a girl pregnant.”

The emotion on Shaw’s face was the most indescribable rage. Crispin saw it and tried to halt it with, “Don’t worry, I’m kidding. I’m actually having a secret affair with Gideon Warren.”

“Crispin Petrov!”

“All those competition meetings? Just excuses for us to sneak out and have hot sex.”

“What about Thomas?” SIlvertongue butted in, wanting to stump him, not expecting him to come back so quickly with, “He joins in sometimes.”

Everyone in the room but Crispin turned bright red. Shaw pushed Natasha towards their son and Silvertongue finally understood what was occurring before her. It made even more sense when she heard Crispin mutter, “Me?! Actually have a threesome?! You guys are so easy to fuck with,” under his breath.

Shaw sat himself onto the chair across from her when Crispin and Natasha went into the other room, closing the door behind them. “Is he always like this?” Silvertongue asked.

 “The sex jokes? Oh yes,” he replied, lighting a cigarette as he spoke. “Spent too much time with March Ranez as a kid if you ask me. Don’t you find it funny how he’s constantly making sexual innuendos but claims the thought of sexual intimacy repulses him.”

“I guess so.”

“I do. He’s 24, he needs to grow up. Silvia.”

“Yes, sir?”

 “Don’t listen when he says no. It’ll be better for him in the long run. It worked with Natasha, it’ll work with him.”

* * *

    “What the fuck, mom?!”

    “What?!”

    “I leave and he’s beating the shit out of you and I come back to you two being all lovey dovey?!”

    “He said he’s sorry! He said he wouldn’t do it again!”

    “He said that the last time, the time before that, the time before that, the time before that, and the-.”

    “You don’t get it, Crispin!” He’d never seen his mother this angry before. Sure he’d seen her frustrated or annoyed, but never full blown rage. “He does it because he loves me!”

    “If that’s love then I don’t want it.”

    “I deserve it!”

    “What could you ever do to deserve what he does to you?!”

    She mumbled something under her breath, twirling at the dirty blond hair she passed down to her son. What she had said was inaudible to Crispin so he asked, “What?”

    “I cheated on him! I cheated on him.”

    “He’s cheated on you for decades!”

    “It’s different.”

    “How?!”

    “He’s just slept with other women, I loved someone else.”

    “You deserve so much better than us,” Crispin said before slipping out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

* * *

    Silvertongue had never sat this close to a man before in her life. She didn’t like it at all. She couldn’t imagine marrying him, but she remembered what Edith would do for her when they were husband and wife. Crispin sat stiff beside her, obviously uncomfortable. “Crispin,” Shaw spoke, “why don’t you talk to Silvia?”

    “Why don’t you stay out of my life and not marry me off to someone I don’t know?”

    “And what do you propose we do with you?”

    “Oh I don’t know, maybe let me live my own life.”

    “What about the Petrov line?”

     “Don’t you have nine other kids?”

    “I only have one son.”

     Crispin groaned as he leaned back into the couch. Silvertongue saw his Petrov green eyes glance towards her and land on her hand. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

    “What, Crispin?”

    “You gave her the fucking Petrov family ring?”

    “Yes.”

     “I haven’t even consented to this arrangement and you’re giving her the ring?!”

    “You are the future head of my family.”

    “I am my own goddamn person! I am not a pawn in your little game!” Tears were rolling down Crispin’s face now. He took the cuff of his shirt and wiped off the snot coming out of his nose. Silvertongue swore she saw white scar lines on the exposed part of his wrist. “Why can’t you just let me live?!”

     “Boys don’t cry, Crispin.”

    Crispin laughed as he got up off the couch. “You know what,” he said as he walked to the door, “I’d rather cry everyday than be anything like you, Shaw Petrov- you coward.”

     The door slammed so hard that a picture came crashing down, shattering when it hit the ground. The tension was so strong it might as well have been a person in the room. Natasha stood in the middle of the kitchen, her own tears beginning to well up. “Silvia,” Shaw spoke up, “go follow him. Make sure he doesn’t try to kill himself again.”

 Chapter 39

    Panic was the only thing Blackwing could feel when she heard the people gossiping. All they said was variations of, “Crispin Petrov has been missing for three days.”

    The people said it like they were reciting how they liked their coffee. Did they not understand the severity of the situation or were they just stupid? But Blackwing suddenly remembered, Crispin Petrov was the butt over every Novan’s jokes. Novak’s local heartbreaker, the boy who didn’t feel sexual attraction. Why did the country have to be so superficial that they valued someone less because of their sexuality?

    Blackwing Crow swore, if she found Crispin dead, she’d personally bring down any person who did so much as giggle at a joke about him and play in their blood afterwards. She was normally kind and calm, but those who dared to hurt the people she cared about would not feel her wrath and escape unscathed. She’d make them watch her pluck every one of their toes off if it made them understand the severity of the damage they’d done to Crispin Petrov.  

    She’d been so blinded by her rage that she hadn’t noticed the cart until she hadn’t already ran into it. Under her breath she cursed as she fell to the ground with bottles and vials, which luckily, didn’t break. A dark skinned woman appeared above her and Blackwing began to let apologies fall out of her mouth. The woman seemingly ignored her, just picking up the things she’d knocked over until she turned to Blackwing and asked, “Are you okay?”

     Something about the woman looked all too familiar. It wasn’t her dark brown eyes or curly black hair, it was more so the way her face was built. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

    “You seemed a bit distracted there.”

    “I was.”

    “I’m Edith, Edith Scilia.”

    “Scilia?”

    That’s what it was. The woman’s face had reminded her of the photos of Esther Caterina had hanging around the cabin. Caterina only vaguely shared that face, her’s was much more sharp and angular. “Aren’t you a bit too young to know the Scilias?”

    She wanted so desperately to ask her if she knew about Esther or Caterina, but she couldn’t risk it if the name was just a way to pry information out of others. Nonetheless, Blackwing was elated to tell Caterina she might not be the last of her line. “A Scilia was an old family friend before the whole, you know, incident.”

    Even the mention of it seemed to pain Edith. To distract herself from that pain she asked, “And your name is?”

    “Blackwing Crow!”

    “I don’t recognize that name.”

    “Oh, uh, it was a family friend on my mother’s side. That’s why my name might not sound familiar.”

    My mother. The words tasted foreign in Blackwing’s mouth. One of the reasons achieving all the abilities was taboo was the magic user’s new ability to use all the magic together and turn non human creatures into humans. It was draining to do it once, let alone the three times Caterina did it. Caterina’s lack of a soul partner only made it more confusing.

    They weren’t really creative with their name. Caterina made them out of three crow chicks she’d been taking care of after she’d killed the mother in a sudden burst of rage. That was who the life she’d taken was, the single tattoo under her right eye.

    “Why don’t you get back to where you were going.”

    “Thank you, Edith.”

     “Anytime you miss a Scilia, you can come to me.”

    Blackwing went back to running in search, but she turned back and yelled, “Will do!” to Edith.

* * *

    When Blackwing got to the steps of the hotel, she heard the sound of a piano playing. She hadn’t even realized there was a piano, but it must’ve been in a room she hadn’t gone in. She followed the noise up multiple flights of stairs until it got louder and she faced the door where the sound came from. Her hand turned on the knob and when the door opened, she saw a shirtless man sitting, playing the piano, his blond hair messy. Crispin.

    She ran across the room and threw her arms around Crispin, kissing the top of his head. She sat next down beside him and began to say, “Crispin, why did you-,” before she noticed the white lines running up his arms. “Crispin.”

    Her fingers ran across the raised scars and rage filled her, her fists clenching so hard it almost hurt. She would burn whoever did this to him. “Who did this to you?”

     “Blackwing-.”

    “Who did this to you?!”

    “I did! I did.”

    She paused. This was the last thing she’d expected. No. No. “You did?”

    Blackwing’s heart fell to the floor and was kicked and stepped on until it gave way. When she ran her fingers on his arm this time, she was much more gentle. It made sense that it was him. Presuming he was right handed like most, it’d make sense that the majority of the scars were on his left arm. “Why?”

    “I hate it, I really do. I hate that I feel the need to do it to myself, but I have no control over anything. Other people have control over my life, but this, I have control over this. It’s the only thing I have control over.”

    She wanted so desperately to tell him that he didn’t deserve the pain he caused himself, but she knew he wasn’t okay and no amount of sympathy would bring him completely back. It was like Caterina, she could love them, but no amount of love alone would ever cure them. Instead she asked, “When did you learn to play the piano?”

    He seemed confused for a second, but finally understood how she was trying to change the subject. “Victor Delikov taught me when I was fourteen. He asked the other high family members if their kids wanted to learn how to play. Out of the the thirteen high family kids- and Gideon- only Gideon, Amber Lynn and I accepted. Gideon was nine and Amber Lynn was ten, but the four of us had so much fun. It was probably the highlight of my teenage years.”

    There was some mix of sorrow and joy in his face as his fingers glided along the keys. The song he played reminded her of the facade he put up; beautiful, charming, and happy on the outside, but when the walls fell down, it was a terribly depressing cry for help.

    His playing suddenly stopped as he turned to her and asked, “Is there a room I can just- destroy?”

    She held out her hand towards him and he took it, getting up off the seat. Blackwing had read hundreds of romance novels and every time the guy held the girl’s hand, she’d feel sick. She never understood why. If you cared for someone wouldn’t you have the most pleasant feeling when you held their hand? Granted, in those novels, they were saying, “I love you,” five minutes after they met. If Blackwing and Crispin were in one they would’ve had sex twice by now, and that was not happening anytime soon- or ever.

 Taking all of this into account, Blackwing’s stomach felt like a wasp’s nest when she held Crispin’s hand. It didn’t help that his thumb traced circles on the back of her hand as they walked. After climbing up a few more flights of stairs and walking down many halls, they got to the room Blackwing was looking for. “I barely use this room,” she said, “everything I want in it I’ve already taken. Go nuts.”

 And he did. Not even seconds after the door closed, she could hear him screaming into a pillow. Crashing and even more screaming followed. She heard the walls get torn from their frame and bookshelves fall to the ground only to get kicked mercilessly. She couldn’t make out the exact things he was yelling, but she could tell every curse went out to Shaw Petrov.

 The door swung open and Crispin came out of the room, fists bloody and beginning to bruise. Before Crispin could stop her, Blackwing slithered into the room and was mortified at the sight before her. She’d expected flipped tables and books scattered everywhere, and there were, but the last thing she expected was the word, “Die,” carved into every wall. “Blackwing, let me explain.”

She walked back towards him and pulled his face to her level, kissing his forehead. “You don’t need to explain anything,” she whispered into his ear as she pulled him into a hug.

 He held her so tightly, almost as if he were not to she’d slowly dissolve away. She could feel his tears began to soak into the shoulder of her dress and began to cry.

[romanoartsless]

These two chapters are on the longer side so that’s why it’s a little late but you get more content, so I guess the pros out way the cons I guess.

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Chapter 36

    This area of town was rarely busy, Blackwing of all people knew this firsthand, but with the previous night’s events anyone and everyone gathered to gawk at the scene of the attack. The girl and the body were gone, but there were still dry puddles of blood and plenty of gossip going around. She’d heard people spreading rumors that the last magic user was the one who killed the man. Oh how these people were so ignorant to the killer in the crowd.

Throughout the day she tried to think more like Jackie might think. Right now she thought about how her gentle exterior made her seem so unassuming to everyone around her. No one would ever guess this innocent little girl would even think to step on a bug, let alone kill a man. Blackwing grinned at the thought. Maybe she was more like her sister than people assumed.

 Blackwing sat and people-watched for a few minutes before she had to take a second to look at something she saw. Long onyx hair, too familiar to be a coincidence, walked by, flowing gracefully on the dark green jacket and gold dress. The dress shimmered when the light hit it and held stark contrast to the jacket it accompanied. She swore it was Silvertongue.

 She wanted to reach out and touch her, talk to her, see if she really was her other sister. Blackwing missed her sister in a similar way as Caterina did. She wanted Silvertongue to come back, come back and be part of their quartet like nothing ever happened. No one understood how lonely a trio could feel.

“Funny seeing you here. It’s not like I came here expecting to run into you.”

Blackwing jumped at the sound of his voice. “Oh my gods, Crispin! You scared the shit out of me!”

“Were you busy staring at hot guys or something? Did I interrupt your man hunting?”

“Crispin!”

“Don’t worry, sweet little Blackwing, I’ve done my fair share of man hunting.”

She chuckled at his comment; both the part she was expected to laugh at and the fact he called her “sweet little Blackwing”. It wasn’t meant to be condescending and she didn’t take it that way. She just found it funny how ignorant he was to what she had done last night. And she was still sweet little Blackwing, just sweet little Blackwing who happened to have a body count.

She noticed Crispin watching her as they walked together. It hadn’t even crossed her mind why he might be until- “Blackwing, are you limping?”

“Oh!” Blackwing had almost forgotten about her limp until he brought it up. “I had an accident last night. It’s just more comfortable to walk like this.”

 “Can I carry you?”

“What?”

His face turned as bright red as a magic user’s eyes might be and a stutter was every other thing to come out of his mouth. “I’m sorry- I just thought you might want to take pressure off your foot. And like you’re small- well, not really, it’s more so that I’m big, you’re closer to average- so I could just pick you up and like-.”

He stopped in the middle of his statement when she answered his question by opening her arms in front of him. It took her aback when he did pick her up because she expected him to just throw her over his shoulder, but instead he picked her up bridal style.

Her face flushed and she thought maybe by hiding in the nook between his neck and shoulder, but the contact between their skin only made it worse. “Do you want me to-.”

“Yeah.”

Shit. She hadn’t been paying attention to anything he was saying, so now Crispin could be taking her to the castle and she wouldn’t even know, since she still had her face in his neck. She wondered if he could feel the heat from her cheeks on his skin. Dammit! She should stop thinking about this all together. Crispin probably didn’t even notice the contact. She shouldn’t be making as much of a big deal out of it in her head.

* * *

Crispin wanted to scream. She was touching him. Her nose ever so slightly nudged itself into his neck. It was the sort of nonsexual, intimate contact he always craved- the kind he questioned if he was even worthy of when he sat in the bathtub with a razor blade in his hand. The touch was barely there, but it was so comforting just to feel that small bit of affection.

“Crispin.”

The way her mouth moved on his neck sent chills down his spine. Was this what sexual people felt? Was this attraction? Was he attracted to Blackwing? No. He shoved that thought so far down in his mind. He didn’t want to undress her or have sex with her, and the thought of doing so almost made him sick, but he did smile whenever he thought about talking to her again. That wasn’t attraction, that was friendship.

“Crispin!”

     Her face was no longer in his neck and her big brown eyes looked up at him. “Huh?”

    “You just walked past our building. At least that’s where I think you were going. If it’s not then you can just keep going where you’re going. Sorry if I-.”

    “Oh shit you’re right. I was- uh- distracted. Sorry.”

    The two of them might as well have had cherries for heads with how red they were. He finally set her down and she limply walked to the door, opening it for him, but avoiding contact between their eyes. Tension had grown between them and the room turned awkward.

    Blackwing plopped on the ground only a few feet from the door. Crisping followed suit, but sat a good distance away from her. “So… what happened to make you limp?”

    “I uh… fell. Yeah, I fell.”

     “Ah, yes, and all those bruises on my mother’s arms are there because she’s clumsy.”

    “Well, about last night… that was me.”

    “Wait what?”

    “I, you know…” She drifted off, charading a stab with her right hand. “... that was me.”

    “That dude who attacked Amber Lynn? You’re  the one who killed him?” He paused then fell into laughter. “Gods, you’re hilarious. You?! You couldn’t hurt a fly!”

    She was almost offended at the sentiment that she could not be kind when she needed to be and fight back when she needed to. It was bittersweet. The things she needed to take down went easy on her but when she won, her credit was given elsewhere. “I couldn’t hurt a fly? Hmm. Are you sure?”

    “Hundred percent.”

    “Give me your gun.”

    “Okay okay okay, so I’m not going to lie, some days I want to die, but today is not necessarily one of those days. So like, I’m just going to keep it to myself.”

    Blackwing slid closer to him, batting her dark eyelashes as he hand began to caress Crispin’s face. He wanted to melt into her touch. That touch was so warm and welcoming. His stomach like fireworks. He put his hand on top of her’s and linked his green eyes with her brown.

    Oh gods, her eyes were gorgeous this close up. Most would say they were boring, average brown. They didn’t glow amber in the sun or shimmer gold when the light hit them. They were brown. But why didn’t the gods let people romanticize brown eyes? Her’s were beautiful and comforting and-

    “Ha ha!”

    She was already on the other side of the room when he snapped back into reality, twirling something around in her hand. “Jackie really was right. You men are so easily distracted by romantic tension. You probably thought I was going to kiss you.”

    Shit. It was his gun in her hands. She aimed it around aimlessly, causing anxiety to fill Crispin. “Blackwing! Be careful with that!”

    "You act like I’ve never wielded a gun.”

    “Have you?!”

    “Get some cans.”

    “Blackwing!”

    “Let’s go shooting!”

* * *

    “If you accidentally end up murdering me, please carve, ‘Fuck Shaw Petrov,’ into my forehead.”

    “I won’t accidentally murder you.”

    “You sure?”

    “I swear it on my life.”

    They had set up six cans on top of a bookshelf in one of the rooms. Crispin was hesitant, but when a girl has a gun, you don’t ignore what she tells you to do. He gave her six so she’s have the odds to shoot at least one done.

    Blackwing took around five minutes to shoot and aim. Crispin laughed. The gun was probably alien in her hands. But when she finally fired, it took her only a few seconds to shoot the first five down. She turned around and smirked back at Crispin. With her back to the last can, she stretched her right arm back and shot it down. All were down with perfect accuracy. “Blackwing Crow couldn’t hurt a fly my ass.”

    Crispin was utterly speechless. He never thought a sweet girl from east Novak would know how to shoot, let alone shoot that well. He wasn’t even going to lie, he found it sort of attractive. She now stood right in front of him and handed him back his gun. “We’re speaking in hypotheticals though. I wouldn’t want to hurt a fly, but if I needed to, I could.”

She waited a second for him put the gun in his holster before hopping onto his lap. He grunted. “There goes the Petrov line.”

“Oh my gods! I’m so sorry! Did I-.”

“Crush my dick? Yes.” She went to stand up but he grabbed her to stay. Crispin so rarely received affection and he wanted to savor every bit he got. “You’re fine, though. You can stay.”

He wondered if his voice always sounded this desperate. If maybe Blackwing secretly hated him and was only friendly towards him because she felt as though she had to. He knew it probably wasn’t true, but his mind always told him he was a burden. “Are you sure? I don’t want to hurt you-.”

“You’re fine. I swear.”

The two of them had only been hanging out together for a month or so, but he’d grown quite attached to her in that time. It wasn’t a romantic attachment; it was closer to two souls who had been lifelong friends in a past life meeting again. He didn’t want to say she was his best friend because she still cared for Thomas, but Blackwing understood him in a way no one else did. He wanted to keep her as close as he could before his father found out about her. She’d be dead in 24 hours if Shaw knew about her.

This time it was Crispin who had his head in the nook of her neck and she ran her fingers fingers through his sandy blond hair. “I’m glad you killed him, Blackwing.”

“You’re glad?”

“I’m assuming it was a kill or be killed situation. I’m glad you’re here and not him.”

“But he was a Petrov man, he worked for you.”

“He’s not one of my best friends though.”

He felt her fingers stop and he realized what he just said. It wasn’t like he said he was in love with her, but it was still significant. “Oh shit- I’m sorry I- I didn’t mean-.”

Blackwing took his face into her hands and his face went burgundy. She pulled him closer and planted a kiss onto his cheek, then put his head back back into her neck and her hands went back to playing in his hair. “You’re one of my best friends, too, Crispin.”

As Crispin thought about it, he realized no one had called him their best friend out loud, to his face. It warmed his heart to hear it come out of someone’s mouth, in a genuine way.

The boy who thought he wasn’t worthy of love and the girl who loved too much; on paper they seemed incompatible, but the world worked in strange ways and sometimes knew what you needed even more that you did.

Chapter 37

    Even though, in the end, their meeting ended much sooner than he wanted and they got practically nothing done, Thomas was still elated to finally get his hands on the files. After Crispin left to visit his mother, Thomas headed out to the forest. Now knowing where to go much better than the months before, it only took him a few hours to reach the cabin. Through the window near the door he saw a head of purple hair walking around aimlessly. He tapped on the glass and Caterina jumped in surprise. He could see her mouth moving and anger on her face; he imagined she was cursing him out.

     Her black eyes looked straight at him through the glass. She walked closer and he began to hear the muffled sounds of her swearing. He awkwardly smiled and held the two files up to the glass which halted her yelling. Her eyes lit up and she ran out of view to where he assumed was the door.

    He was right. The door swung open and Caterina walked out in what looked like pajamas. She wore a pair of baggy pants and shirt and half her hair was pulled up into a ponytail. “You have my files?”

“Yep!”

He held out the papers for her and she grabbed them out of his hands like a child might take candy from their mother’s hands. She walked back into her house and Thomas to walk back out of the forest before he heard, “You coming in or what?”

As he walked behind her, he noticed the scars on the back of her neck that looked like they spelled out something. He didn’t dare to ask what it said, not wanting to open that can of worms. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you with your hair up.”

“Because I don’t wear it up.”

“Why though?”

She rubbed the back of her neck where he assumed the scars were. “They don’t make purple hair ties.”

“What?”

“Hair ties come in normal hair colors and, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I don’t have a normal hair color. All my hair ties are brown and shit. I don’t like that.”

Thomas knew it was only partially true. He never thought about how simple things like hair ties might be a struggle for Caterina. It seemed like a superficial curse, to make someone look unnatural so they weren’t desireable, but it was a constant annoyance that couldn’t be covered without intense work.

Caterina sat down at the desk in her room and spread out the papers next to a large stack of files already there. She laid out maybe five or so next to the new ones to do what he assumed was compare them. Thomas stood back a few feet to give Caterina her space in case she found anything.

* * *

     No. No. Why couldn’t she just recognize his face? Why did her mind have to block out the things that mattered and only remembered a meaningless color? She was so frustrated, she wanted to take the table in front of her and flip it over. Her eyes began to wet and blurred her vision. “No,” she mumbled in her cries. “No! No!” She clenched her fists and a little bit of magic seeped out. “No! I just want to find him! I just want mother,” she was full blown crying at this point, “to be proud of me!”

She heard Thomas talking behind her, but couldn’t understand what exactly he was saying since she was still in her bubble of anger and frustration. Her fingernails cut into her palms and her hands hurt through the magic she didn’t mean to use. “I just want to make you proud! Will I ever make you proud?”

 Thud.  

“Thomas?”

Caterina turned around to see the captain’s unconscious body on the floor, his face as purple as his uniform. Shit. The magic she accidentally used must have sucked the air out of his lungs. This couldn’t be happening. Not another person. Not another life.

“Thomas!”

She crawled onto the floor next to his body and cradled it in her arms. Even with her weak magic, she knew she had to use it to save her friend- acquaintance.

 Her hand rose and fell over his chest in breathing like patterns. She tried to control the air around them and transfer some of it into his lungs. Sometimes she’d mix healing into the energy she put into him. “Please,” she’d occasionally whisper into the wind.

His breathing wasn’t quite steady yet, but it eventually came. She slowed down her magic so she wouldn’t overuse and now that he was breathing again she felt more comfortable doing so. She didn’t even notice when her fingers ran through his curly brown hair. It was a way she’d cope with stress if others were around. Jackie, Silvertongue, and Blackwing didn’t mind it at all, and sometimes found comfort in it as well.

A caramel hand went up on top of her pale one. “Is my hair soft?”

Caterina couldn’t help but have the corners of her lips curl up into a smile. She didn’t want to do it too hard, but she pushed him a bit and a laugh came out of him between coughs. “This isn’t something to joke about!”

“Then why are you smiling?”

“Fuck you!”

He couldn’t help but chuckle. “But is my hair soft? You didn’t answer my question. It’d be embarrassing if a pretty girl was petting my hair and it felt like straw.”

Her inked face turned bright ruby. He was probably just trying to butter her up, but she took that compliment and sent it off to the girl who broke every mirror in sight because she couldn’t stand the person who looked back at her. “Yes, it was soft.”

* * *

    It took Thomas a while to recover, but when he did, he headed to the door of the cabin. “Are you sure I’ll be fine?”

    “The magic has settled in by now, you’ll be fine.”

    “You sure?”

    “Thomas Arthur Dubroin, I am absolutely positive you’ll be fine.”

* * *

    He was not fine. It wasn’t the magic that was the problem, more so the pack of wolves that had him surrounded. He tried to pull out his gun, but with every inch he moved they would hover in closer. They growled every time he’d look around to collect his surroundings.

    He was trapped. He didn’t know what to do. He wanted to shoot at them but he couldn’t- he couldn’t. “Caterina!” he cried. “Caterina!”

    The wolves were angered at his yells. They moved in closer, their growls louder. Thomas could see the drool hanging off their teeth. This was when true panic set in. He couldn’t do anything to save himself. Even if he could grab his gun and shoot some of them because the rest would go in for the kill. He could give up or die trying, until-

    A rock came flying and crushed the head of the leader of the pack. The others went to sniff the dead body and turned their rage to something behind him when they realized their leader was dead. Half of them had shards of stone thrown into their eyes when they ran which stopped them so they could scratch them out. The others were drowned out of water, choking on nothing. When all of them were stopped in their tracks, the tree closest to them began to fall directly onto them.

    Some of them tried to run, but a force kept them still as it fell onto them, blood spilling everywhere. “Thomas!”

    His head spun around to see Caterina who seemed like she was about to faint. There was something in her eyes that drew him to them. He wanted to stare into them forever and listen to every word that came off her lips. He had to listen. He had to obey. When she did speak, he voice oozed of magic and he couldn’t not obey. “Thomas, take me back to the cabin. Make sure I don’t smash my head when I fall-.”

    He flew over to where she was and caught her now unconscious body before it crashed into the ground. Something in his body wouldn’t let him not do it. Without a thought, he picked her body up and carried it back to the cabin. When he got there, he opened up the door to her room and set her down on her bed.

    There was no force telling him to do so, but he felt the need to care for her. He didn’t know if she could get infected through this and he didn’t want to risk it. She was lying on the bed and he took the blankets and covered her with them. His hand pushed away her purple bangs and checked her temperature on her forehead. It was burning hot. He took out a cold pack, put it on her head, and sat in the nearby chair, waiting.

* * *

    When Caterina woke up, she felt the cold burn of ice on her head. She reached up to where it came from and landed on a cold pack. “What the hell?” she mumbled to herself.

    Thomas practically jumped out of his seat, waking from his nap when he heard her voice. “You’re up.”

    “Yeah?”

    “You overused on magic and passed out. I carried you in.”

    “Oh I know.”

    “Wait- how?”

    “I used compulsion on you, Thomas.”

    “Oh.” He sat rocking in the chair for a second before he asked, “How do the Crows get around if there are rabid wolves running around in the forest?”

     “Victor taught me to shoot when I was ten. When they came into my life, I taught them. After a while the wolves and other animals began to fear them and leave them alone.”

    He nodded in the chair and before the environment grew awkward he moved closer to her to aid her, but Caterina felt herself leaning away, uncomfortable with the closeness. It didn’t make her uneasy when she held him or when he held her because one was unconscious in each situation. Now they were awake and close- too close. “Let me ask you a question.”

    “Yes?”

    “Tell me how you, a Wrie boy with a Nell name, are the captain of the Novan guard.”

A nervous laugh came out of him. “You want long story short or long story long?”

“How about long story long.”

He went back to the chair and began. “Obviously, I’m Wrie, but how how it all began was with my sweet little Nell father making a business trip to Wrieland. While there he met Marianni Campirano and, to put it nicely, got her pregnant. Months after he went back to Arnell, a set of twin boys was born. And my mother just gave us Nell names to keep up with Nell tradition- hence Thomas and William Dubroin.

“When my brother and I were five, he came back to Wrieland, not expecting to be the father of twins. I was sitting at the counter watching my mom cook when he busted through the door. I remember so vividly his red eyes just staring at me sitting there.”

“Wait. Red eyes?”

“Oh yeah, my father and my brother are magic users- healers. Since William and I are twins, and it’s fairly common for twins born to a magic user and a mortal to have one mortal and the other magic user, so I’m mortal.

“He took all three of us and shipped us out to Arnell. We hated it. William was put into extensive magic training and my mother and I were not as lucky. We weren’t given an ounce of respect- not that William was, but he had it slightly easier. He had magic, he got respect, that’s how it worked in Arnell. Polar opposite of Novak.

 “We were all abused by my father- William for different reasons. On our sixteenth birthday I was just done. I found a body that looked like me and faked my death. Before I fled I killed my father. Made the whole ordeal look like a murder-suicide.

“I came to Novak to escape magic. When I got here, I met Victor and he took me under his wing, that’s how I got in the guard. A few months he- you know- and that’s why I’m captain.

“So there, that is why I, a Wrie boy with a Nell name, am the captain of the Novan guard.”

 Caterina didn’t know how to react. She had used the question as a way to keep him from getting close, but he ended up doing so in a different way. An indistinguishable feeling sunk in her stomach. Thomas had said everything so casually as if he wasn’t abused for his lack of magic for more than a decade in his life. “Do you hate me?”

“What are you talking about, Caterina?”

“Your father, he was a magic user. You came to Novak to escape magic. I’m a magic user.”

“The man who killed your mother had green eyes, but you don’t hate Jackie.”

He was right. She didn’t hate Jackie, nor her eyes. In fact she envied them, the freedom the Crows were given in their mortal eyes. She wanted to tell Thomas how he was lucky to have his brown eyes, but she couldn’t. He was abused in the same way she was. All because of something he couldn’t change. “I’m sorry he did that to you.”

“Don’t be sorry. He told me I would amount to nothing and I became captain of the Novan guard. I’ve gotten my revenge, it’s time for you to get yours.”

[romanoartsless]

Wow this stupid book I'm writing is having some actual conflict and not just characters being emo???? Shocking, I know.

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Chapter 32 

    Caterina’s pencil was rough against the paper. She enjoyed it when the paper she drew on had grit to it, it made it easier for her to smudge the graphite for more defined shading. She was drawing birds again; an eagle this time.

    The door to the cabin swung open, shocking Caterina, causing her pencil to scratch against her work in progress. “Shit! Could you not fucking knock?! I’m-.”

    She trailed off when she turned around and saw Jackie grunting and groaning while dragging Blackwing’s unconscious body in. “Jackie! What the hell happened?!”

    Jackie’s short raven hair was roughed up, but enough was out of her face for Caterina to see the confusion, shock, and fear in her eyes. “Caterina, you need to heal her!”

    “Wait, what happened?”

    “We don’t have time to explain! You need to heal her! Now!”

    She lifted her sister up onto the table in the middle of the cabin with ease. Her hand brushed away the hair from Blackwing’s face, making the bruises and cuts and blood more visible to Caterina. “You have to heal her, Caterina,” she pleaded, “heal my sister, heal our family.”

    “You know my magic is weak, Jackie. Without a soul partner- without one near me- my magic is weak. I can’t use it in large amounts, I can’t completely heal her, you know that.”

    “Then don’t!” Her green eyes were beginning to wet. “Just heal her enough so she doesn’t die! Don’t let her become just another body, just another tattoo on your face.”

    Caterina knew was she was referencing, the dots she’d tattooed at the edges under her eyes. Two under her left, one under her right. Each represented something. The left was the people she lost, the right the lives she’d taken. She never wanted to add another to the left. “Move.”

    She almost thought she saw a grin form on Jackie’s face when she pushed her away to get closer to the table. Caterina turned off her emotions, not wanting them to get in the way of her magic. She gripped Blackwing’s delicate hand tightly as she crouched at the edge of the table. The contact allowed for the magic to pulse through her skin. An almost inaudible whimper of pain came out of Blackwing. Caterina gave her a comforting hush, only letting that small bit of emotion seep through.

    She could barely feel the magic leaving her body at first, but once the amount she was using raised her body began to ache. She worked to her limit, maybe even going about it. The more time passed and the more magic she used the more her body hurt. It started in her hands then went up to her arms and her head. The pain was excruciating but she went on until she believed the Crow stable.

As the grip Caterina had on Blackwing’s hand loosened Blackwing’s grip on Caterina’s hand tightened. It made Caterina’s head perk up, ignoring her pain altogether. “Blackwing!” both the magic user and Jackie shouted.

The Crow sat up on the table, still visibly shaken up by the previous events. “I’m sorry,” she cried, rocking on the table in the fetal position. “I didn’t want to hurt him. I didn’t want to kill him. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

Caterina turned to face the girl’s sister. “What does she mean?”

Jackie was clearly relieved by her sister’s now stable condition, but was still alert. “I just assumed the blood she was covered in was her’s, but I guess there’s a possibility it could’ve been someone else’s.”

She went back the the other Crow, putting a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Blackwing, do you think you could tell me what happened?”

The girl turned to face her, her chocolate eyes flooded with tears. “I was minding my own business when this man came and attacked me. I managed to get away…”

“Is that when you- when you killed him?”

“No! No no no. I managed to get away, but I heard him attacking another person and I couldn’t let him hurt her.”

“You killed him to save someone else?”

She nodded.

“That’s an incredibly noble and brave thing to do, Blackwing; risk your life in order to save another. I would have never done something like that, I would’ve let them deal with it themselves. You have a heart bigger than everyone’s in the entire court of Novak. Be proud of that heart.”

* * *

    Jackie had fallen asleep on the couch as usual. She had always been a light sleeper so she shot right up when she heard the floorboard creaking. It was Blackwing still limping from the previous events in the day. “Jackie,” she whispered, crouching down to level with her sister, “Jackie.”

    “What?”

    “Caterina’s crying again.”

    Without hesitation, Jackie ran to the magic user’s room and threw open the door. Looking back at her was a pair of black eyes, red from tears. A few sniffles came from her nose until Jackie said, in all her bluntness, “Let it out.”

    There was a small pause before she cried, “We almost lost Blackwing and it just made me think of all the people I’ve lost. I’ve lost too many people and I’m sick of it- sick of it! When Silvertongue abandoned us I tried to convince myself it didn’t, but it did, it did affect me. No amount of mental repetition of, ‘Silvertongue is doing what’s making her happy. Deal with it,’ will ever change that effect. I didn’t want to lose SIlvertongue and I don’t want to lose you or Blackwing.

    “And I don’t want to say- I don’t want to force you two to stay, and I don’t want to guilt you into staying, but it hurt. It hurts when some of the few people who you care about leave you in the dust. It hurts more than a knife to the stomach, because at least you saw that coming.

    “Silvertongue hurt in a different way than my mom or Victor hurt. Those two didn’t choose to leave me, Silvertongue did.”

    Out of nowhere Blackwing came limply running into the room and squeezed Caterina tightly in her arms. The magic user seemed confused at first, but returned the affection soon after. Jackie swore she had heard her sister whisper, “We’d never leave you, Caterina. We love you,” into her hair.

    Jackie walked over to the edge of the bed and joined in on the hug going on between Blackwing and Caterina. “We love you,” she echoed from her sister.

 Chapter 33

    The three of them hadn’t met together in a few weeks. They hadn’t felt it necessary as they had all gone off and done their own thing. “Did you hear about Amber Lynn?” Crispin asked.

    “Crispin,” Thomas cut in, “we’re not here to gossip.”

    “What happened to her?” Gideon’s attention was peaked. He hissed when his head shot up too quickly and put the icepack back onto it to aid his sudden headache.

    “Guys! We have to focus.”

    “They found her bloody and battered out east.”

    “They what?!”

    “Yeah, someone beat the shit out of her-”

    “Guys! Focus!”

    “- and they found the body of the dude who did it next to her. It was Vladimir. Crazy shit, right?”

    Gideon practically fell out of his seat in anger. He didn’t care about the pain anymore, he cared about the condition of his friend a million times more. “Where is she now?”

    Thomas sat in his seat, frustrated at the situation. “Please, we need to focus.”

    “In some nursing room in the Ranez manor.”

    “Crispin, quit fueling him.”

    “I’m sorry Thomas,” Gideon said, “I have to go see her.” Before running outside, he sifted through a pile of papers next to him, grabbed a few of them, and threw them at Thomas. “There are your files.”

* * *

    He slammed his fist against the door, desperately trying to get someone’s attention, ignoring the ringing pain that still lingered in his head. He knew March and Lorelei wouldn’t be in the house, they’d be at the heads of the high families meeting. But he knew someone else would be there. “Why hello there Gideon.” The door opened and Gideon met with the woman’s one hazel eye and one blue one. Her mismatched irises were immediately recognizable as Saturday Ranez. “I haven’t seen you in forever.”

    “Let me see her, Saturday.”

    A laugh came off her pink lips and pushed her long brown bangs out of her face. Her choice in hairstyle always confused the true tailor inside of Gideon. She kept her bangs long, a little more than breast length, but kept the rest in a choppy bob. “Why should I?”

    “Saturday, just let me see her.”

    Saturday held out her hand, as if she was waiting for him to put something in it.

    “You have to be kidding me! You’re a Ranez, you don’t need my money.”

    “It really would be a shame if Serephina found out that you were visiting Amber Lynn. Doesn’t she hate it when you go out and see people- especially Amber Lynn- without her permission?”

    “Please Saturday,” he was practically begging her at this point, “don’t tell Sere. I just want to make sure she’s okay.”

    Saturday’s only reply was to point to her still open hand. Gideon groaned but dug into his back pocket and threw six gold coins into her palm. She moved out of the doorway and said, “Second room to the left, third story,” before he charged up the stairs.

* * *

    Amber Lynn knew she had heard her sister talking to someone downstairs, but she couldn’t entirely make out who it was. It couldn’t be their parents since they were at a meeting, but the nurses left a few hours ago so it couldn’t have been them either. She swore it was Gideon, but she told herself it was just her mind hearing what it wanted to.

    She couldn’t get up and go look for herself, the nurses told her to stay in bed for the next few weeks in order to heal properly. Amber Lynn hated it. She wanted to go out to parties with her friends, even if she’d be miserable, it was better than being locked up in this room.

    The door suddenly shot open and Amber Lynn’s face lit up when she saw Gideon’s sky blue eyes. “Gideon!”

    He crouched down next to the bed, concern shown all across his face. “Amber Lynn,” he said, stroking her blond hair, “are you okay?”

    “I guess.”

    “What happened? Who did this to you?”

    “I really don’t want to talk about it, I’m sorry.”

    “Don’t be sorry, it’s okay.”

    Amber Lynn began to zone out, not hearing the rest of what Gideon was saying. She simply got lost in watching him talk. He was so beautiful. Why did no one ever appreciate his beauty the way it should be? She loved him so much.

    Next thing she knew she was kissing him. When they were young, she had kissed him before. It felt so good to have his lips on her’s again. She prayed to the gods it could stay like this forever.

 * * *

    Gideon didn’t know how to react when Amber Lynn started kissing him. He never held any romantic feelings towards her and he assumed she didn’t have any for him either. Turns out he was wrong.

    He had to pull away he couldn’t stay in this kiss anymore. When he did, he saw the dread in her eyes. He felt sort of bad when he saw her expression, but he would much rather let her know his feelings than lead her on. “Amber Lynn, I’m sorry.”

    “Please just leave.”

    “I hope you know I still love you-”

    “Leave.”

    “- as a friend.”

    “Leave Gideon!”

    His heart sank to the floor. He had come to comfort her, he had never intended for any of this to happen, he desperately wanted to reach out and hug her, but he had to do what she wanted. “I’m sorry,” Gideon whispered before getting up and exciting the room.

[romanoartsless]

I'm writing a lot more since it's getting to a more fast passed part of the book so hope for the next update sooner rather than later

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Chapter 34

Edith had been going to the head of the high family meetings in the place of her mother for about a year now. With her father dead and her mother sickly, she was technically the Delikov head. She sat alone at the side of the table designated for Delikov’s and marked with the family’s blue. Across from her sat the Petrovs.

Shaw leaned across his wife to the purple section of the table to speak to the king. “The meeting was supposed to start half an hour ago,” he said, his voice carrying around the room, “and your fucking cousin is taking his sweet time to get here.”

“Shaw,” said the king, “March is probably just running a little late. You do remember what happened to his daughter yesterday?”

The Petrov head groaned and leaned back into his seat.

There seemed to be a ruckus stirring up outside the room because everyone could hear footsteps and guards yelling. Every member of the high families turned around to the doors when they swung open to March Ranez. His hazel eyes filled with rage when they landed on Shaw Petrov. He walked over to the man and without hesitation threw his fist into his face.

Edith sometimes wondered if Shaw enjoyed pain because when he snapped his nose back into place, he held a wicked grin and didn’t even wince. March seemed to be in more pain when he saw saw pure horror in Natasha Petrov’s blue-green eyes. “Tash,” he faintly whispered.

It was obvious to anyone with eyes that March Ranez was in love with Natasha Petrov. Edith had heard he’d been in love with her long before she even met her husband. Shaw Petrov and Lorelei Ranez knew about March’s unrequited love, but ignored it like the rest of the court of Novak.

“March!” It was the king.

The Ranez head snapped back into the situation he was in and resorted back to his rage towards Shaw. “Did you know it was a Petrov man who attacked Amber Lynn?! You had had my daughter attacked! You could’ve gotten my baby girl killed!” Tears began to well up behind his glasses. “You tried to get my baby girl killed.”

A sick laugh came out of Shaw’s mouth as he said, “At least if she died she’s not the future head.”

March was about to punch Shaw again, his fist already in the air, until Natasha threw her frame over her frame. He froze for a second then eventually went back to his side, sitting down at the orange side of the table, acting as though he hadn’t just punched and attempted to punch a second time the head of the Petrov family.

Now that March and Lorelei sat next next to each other it made Edith think about how little the Ranez daughters looked like one particular one of their parents. If anything, they looked more like perfect a combination of the two. March had dark chocolate hair he kept short and slightly messy and hazel eyes behind the glasses on his freckled face whereas Lorelei had a bob of midnight black hair and the palest of pale blue eyes. The main consistency, she thought, throughout the Ranez bloodline was their sharp, angular faces. Even the king had it, his mother being Anya Ranez.

“Go back to your speaking, cousin,” March said while pushing his glasses farther up his face.

“We need to tighten the competition. These boys are running around and getting distracted when they should be searching. I need them to be searching.”

“And what do you propose, Bartholomew?” Shaw cut in, his voice full of sarcasm. “We can’t send guards out to watch them because all the good ones are in your stupid competition. Even that little fucking nice guy of a captain your darling love Victor promoted is in it. We need to think of a logical option-.”

“I swear to the gods,” March, “if your ‘logical option’ is to give the throne to Crispin, I will throw my glasses across the room into your pretty little face. We’ve been hearing it since he was six.”

“I don’t see the problem with that. You won’t be able to see and I’ll have your glasses. Where is my con in this?”

“I’m nearsighted, Shaw, not blind.”

“We are keeping the competition in play, I just plan on tightening the rules. Crispin will get the throne if he wins.”

“I expect no less. He is my son. Son of a witch hunter.”

March laughed from across the table. “Who grew up in a generation without witches.”

Shaw threw himself out of his seat, his chair flying practically halfway across the room. His fist slammed into the table as he leaned in closer to the Ranez section. March looked like a child compared to Shaw. Shaw towered over anyone and anything and he knew it and used it to his advantage. He was even taller than his son who likely stood taller than three quarters of the men in Novak.

March, however, was not as easily intimidated by the Petrov. He knew Shaw used his size to scare people into his manipulation, he’d learned this years and years ago. Shaw almost expected everyone to fear his presence so March learned not to give him the bait to latch onto.

March sat still and emotionless, hazel eyes locked onto those strangely bright green eyes as Shaw yelled at him. “What is your fucking problem with me, Ranez?!”

He still sat like a statue in his seat as he pushed up his glasses before directly pointing at Natasha who sat trembling in her seat, aimlessly playing with her dirty blond hair, and on the verge of tears.

Edith wouldn’t call it rage, the emotion on Shaw Petrov’s face, she’d compare it more to the look a man would have right before he was about to snap someone’s neck. “Last time I checked she was my wife, not yours.”

“Yeah, because you raped her and got her pregnant when she was sixteen.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Edith could see Natasha now crying in her chair, seated in the fetal position. Behind the tears in those teal eyes you could see the contemplation whether to crawl under the table to cry in privacy. In the end she chose not to, instead using her hands and short hair to muffle out the sound of yelling.

“She is my wife, therefore I can do whatever I please with her.”

“She’s a person, not a piece of property, Shaw!”

The king and Lorelei alike sat in silence as the fighting continued. It was normal for those two to bicker or fight, but it rarely ever got this bad. The common denominator in every confrontation was Natasha. They could’ve started off talking about breakfast foods and March would find a way to confront Shaw on his alleged abuse and rape of his wife.

With Shaw distracted Edith saw a small folded piece of paper glide across the the wood from March’s hand to right in front of Natasha. Her fragile and slightly bruised hand reached out to grab it as the other one swiped away her tears. She read the words on the paper then looked up at March with the most sorrow and longing Edith had ever seen in her life. She wondered what it read. It was probably one of March’s cheesy, romantic poems.

“March! Shaw!”

The two men and everyone at the table shot their attention towards the king. He was sitting calmly in his seat even though he had just yelled as loud- if not louder- than the others. “If you wish to continue fighting, go outside. The meeting is over.”

Shaw sighed and held his hand out for his wife who had just finished stuffing the note into her dress. She took it and hopped out of her chair. Natasha Petrov wasn’t a short woman, but she looked like a child who hadn’t gone through puberty yet compared to her husband.

Shaw, Natasha, March, Lorelei, and Edith now sat waiting for the guards to open up the doors so they could make their way back home. Edith felt eyes glued onto her and turned over her shoulder to see bright green eyes locked on her body. “Shaw.”

“You didn’t talk much in the meeting today.”

“You did, so how could I?”

She still felt his stare and realized he was staring at the dress she wore. It was blue, like her high family’s color, but it was skin tight, strapless, and multiple cut outs around the waist. “Shouldn’t you have worn something more modest to the meeting, Edith? You look like a whore.”

She chuckled at the comment. “Oh Shaw, you wouldn’t be complaining about my dress if it was on your bedroom floor.

The last thing she heard before the guards opened the doors and walked out was March’s laughs.

 Chapter 35

Tash.

Her heart fluttered at that one word alone. When she was young, her mother used to call her Tasha, along with many other friends and family members, but only one person ever called her Tash. It was March.

Tash Merenkov.

Natasha never thought she’d heard March ever call her by anything that wasn’t her maiden name. It always made her smile and reminisce on her younger days, since she’d been referred to as a Petrov for twenty-four years.

I wanted to write you something about how beautiful you are using metaphors, but what do I compare you to? I’ve thought about this for hours. I thought about whether your hair was closer to the color of corn or wheat. Or whether your eyes were more like water when it gets a green tinge or the most expensive turquoise gems. The thing is, I can’t compare your beauty in a metaphor because you’re beautiful because you’re Tash, not because your hair looks like wheat and your eyes look like gems.

Every word he had written was more cliche than the last, but Natasha would choose cliche love letters over beatings and fighting and yelling and yelling and yelling and yelling-.

“Natasha.”

As soon as his hand touched her shoulder, she tossed the paper into the fireplace. The less evidence he had, the less hits she’d receive. “Yes Shaw?”

“What was that paper?”

“Nothing, dear.”

His grip tightened and he pushed her to the ground so he now stood like a tower above her. “Paper does not equal nothing.”

“I swear it was just paper. It was nothing to me, it means nothing.”

“Paper can change a fate, paper can tear a family apart, paper can kill a man, so don’t tell me paper means nothing.”

Natasha didn’t cry anymore when he hit her. She’d suffered through the pain for over two decades, she’d learned to become numb to it. Tears only came when the children saw it go down. No child, even if they were technically an adult, should have to watch their mother take pain like she’d been dealt it at the hands of their father for forever.

She thought her ears were lying to her when she heard clapping. It couldn’t have been Shaw and it couldn’t have been one of the girls. There was only one other viable option.

“Dearest father, I don’t think beating your wife senselessly sends the best message to your children. Aren’t you supposed to be a role model?”

“Go to your house, Crispin. This is none of your business, stay out of this.”

“None of my business? Last time I checked that woman created me.”

“How many times has she told you that you’re a useless heir to the Petrov name? How many times has she told you your little phase of not wanting to fuck people is just an attention grab and a con to get out of your role? Tell me that Crispin.”

The words cut like knives through Crispin. Natasha wanted to reach up to him and take him into her arms, but he might as well push her away the moment she did it. “How many times have you manipulated and abused her into saying those things? Tell me that Shaw.”

Crispin then crouched down to his mother’s level, completely ignoring his father as he walked away from him. “I’m heading out again,” he kissed into her forehead. “I’m not going out with Thomas or Gideon, but I’ll be back to see you before the sun goes down.” He glared up in a passive aggressive manor. “I promise.”

Natasha empathized with her son on a level she didn’t empathize with anyone else. Crispin was too much like her for comfort. It sometimes crossed her mind if it was so easy for the attacks to roll out of her mouth because in her mind she was saying these things to herself. If someone tells you something enough times they’ll start to believe it. Natasha began to believe those things, there was no other way to survive in the world.

This world was cruel to people like Crispin- people like her.

[romanoartsless]

You might think because it's summer I would make more time to write and post updates. Jokes on you, summer just gives me more time to procrastinate.

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Chapter 30

    She was four. Even after fourteen years she couldn’t unhear his crying and screaming. She’d never be able to erase the pain oozing out of his voice when he screamed her name. Esther. “Mommy,” she called out over the cries, “when will the noises stop? It hurts my ears.”

    “Shut up Edith!” her mother yelled, her hazel eyes red, bags beginning to form under them. “I’m trying to deal with your father!”

    Cecelia’s fist slammed into the wood of the door. It was obvious her eyes wanted to release a stream of tears, but she held up a dam that kept them trapped. “Victor please,” she cried, “I’m still here for you. I’ll always be here for you.”

    “She’s gone!” His wife’s words went in one ear and out the other. “Esther is gone.”

    Dread- that’s what was slapped onto Cecelia’s face, because in that moment moment she realized Victor would never be in love with his own wife, but instead the the witch who went up in flames.

* * *

    It was her eighth birthday. “Mommy,” she pleaded, “didn’t daddy say he was going to be here for my birthday?”

    Her mother only took another chug out of her glass. She was already intoxicated and would likely be unconscious by the end of the day. That’s how it always was, everyday- a never ending cycle. “Edith! Stop acting surprised when your father doesn’t come home.”

    She tugged at the fabric of her mother’s dress. “But mommy, where is he?”

    Cecelia turned at high speed towards her daughter, startling Edith so much to the point that she lost her balance and fell to the floor. “Where do you think he is?!” she yelled at the small child, her breath reeking of numerous alcoholic beverages. “He’s with the witch!” Cecelia trailed off when she began to mock her husband. “She’s like the daughter I wish I had, Cecelia.”

    She finally stood up out of her chair, giving Edith a false sense of hope. Instead of acknowledging her and her birthday, her mother hobbled off to her bedroom, nearly kicking Edith on her way there. “Mommy-.” she cried out before being interrupted by her mother’s groggy voice.

“Go play with your cousin or something.”

* * *

She had woken up in the middle of the night in a puddle. Even at age eleven she had never been able to quit her habit of wetting the bed. Edith crawled out of bed to go to her parent's room to fall asleep next to them in their bed. When she opened the door, she saw something in the bed that no child should ever have to lay their eyes on.

Her mother and father sat tangled in blood soaked sheets. “Edith!” It was her mother’s voice.

“What’s going on? Is daddy okay?”

She ran to the confused child, her hazel eyes wide, and began to walk her back to her bedroom. Her hands were covered in crimson blood and it gave Edith a slice of panic.

“Edith honey, mommy had to do something to fulfill a bargain.”

“What does that mean?”

“I’ll tell you when you’re older, but when the big men ask you what happen you say you were asleep and you don’t remember anything. Understand?” She didn’t reply, still sitting neck deep in a pool of confusion. “Edith Delikov do you understand me?” Cecelia repeated.

“I was asleep and I don’t remember anything,” she spat back in the most monotone voice.

“Good.”

She took the sheets, laid them over the child, and kissed her forehead before going back to the door of Edith’s bedroom. “Wait mommy.”

“Yes Edith?”

“What about daddy?”

“We don’t have to worry about daddy anymore, honey.”

Cecelia closed the door and Edith sat again in her still wet bed. The last thing she was able to remember before drifting back to sleep was blood curdling screams of, “Victor!” coming out of her mother.

* * *

    “Hello father.” She sat down onto the grass in front of the headstone. Victor Delikov: Beloved husband, father, brother, son, and friend. It made her laugh every time she saw it. If only they’d seen the Victor who neglected his own child for a whore’s daughter and her offspring; they wouldn’t call him beloved then.

    Edith never once brought gifts to her father’s grave. He didn’t deserve them. The closest thing he ever got was her spit on the grass. Resentment only lightly described her feelings towards her father. She would likely loathe him until her last breath.

    “How long has it been? Seven years? Almost eight? Best years of my life if you care to know. I haven’t visited you in years, you have any questions for me?” She paused. “Caterina? Oh- the witch. She’s… fine I guess. Mother and I have a great deal of fun with her.

    “Would you approve of the things we’ve done to her? Oh gods no, but that’s the fun part. It’s like my own special way of getting back at you- hurting her is. Trust me when I say I have something special planned.

    “I’ve found the best way to hurt her is through her darling Crows. Taking one from her hasn’t done much, but I have more ideas, one should be playing out tonight tonight if my plans work.

    “You’d hate me for it if you were still alive, but you already hated me when you were so it wouldn’t have been too hard to keep that going. I was never your daughter in your eyes- the witch was- I was just a way to save a marriage you clearly didn’t want to be in. And I’m sorry Victor Delikov, but you grossly underestimated the capabilities of your baby girl.”

Chapter 31

    Hours had passed and the sky was beginning to grow dark. Blackwing assumed the time was right to head back home. Before finally leaving the building, she made sure she had everything she wanted with her.

    She skipped out, humming along the way, simply minding her own business when she felt an overwhelming presence around her. “Hello?” she said into the abyss.

    Nothing called back but she still felt as though something was there. Eventually she began to ignore it and continued strolling. She’d blocked it out until she started to hear heaving breathing. “Hello?” she said once more.

    She would’ve asked it out again if she hadn’t had the wind knocked out of her by a boot in her back. Her body slammed against the rough ground and let out a grunt of pain. She tried to balance herself up on her arm to get a look at her attacker and see if she could take them on if necessary.

    Blackwing couldn’t even do that as the same boot came colliding into her stomach. Blood trickled out of her mouth paired with fear rising in her body. She was finally able to look up at the body connected to the boot and saw a glistening pin on the lapel of his coat. It was green- Petrov green. “Crispin?”

    “I’m flattered you think I’m master Petrov, but-.”

    With conformation it wasn’t her friend, she kicked him in his member so hard that she hoped he wouldn’t be able to spread his seed anymore. He groaned, and while he was distracted Blackwing grabbed the knife she saw he had at his side and impaled it into his leg.

    Now that he was distracted by his pain she ran, the knife still in her hand. “You bitch!” she heard him yell, but what made her stop in her tracks was the yelp of a girl she thought she heard.

    Even with the unignorable pain she was in, she knew she had to go back and save the girl or else she’d live in unending guilt for not doing what was right. She stayed light on her feet so the man wouldn’t hear her as she hobbled back towards him. In the darkness of the night, he must’ve just assumed the girl was still Blackwing.

    Over the shoulder of the man she finally saw the girl’s face; freckled and filled with fear. Her hazel eyes met Blackwing’s brown ones and welded up with pure horror when Blackwing raised the blade in her hands and impaled it into the man’s neck.

* * *

    The scream that came out of Amber Lynn was almost deafening. One minute she was back to her nightly strolling and the next she was being attacked by a Petrov man.

    She knew him. His name was Vladimir. He started working for the Petrovs when she was nine or so. Now she sat on the ground in east Novak in a puddle of his blood and his body on top of her. She didn’t know why he had began to punch and kick her and even break her left arm.

    The same girl who had killed Vladimir pulled his now limp body off her and he flopped onto the ground. “Thank… thank you?” Amber Lynn whimpered.

    She didn’t even say anything back to her, she just glanced down at Amber Lynn, her waist length black hair covering her face. The knife slipped out of the girl’s hand and walked away as if all the life had been sucked out of her.

    Amber Lynn tried to yell out at her and thank her for saving her, but she didn’t even look back at her.

* * *

    All of it was an out of body experience. It was almost like she watched it all happen from a bird's eye view. From the initial attack to the pin to the blood- the blood. She pushed the thoughts so far back in her head, desperately trying to go back to her naive innocence.

    The last thing she remembered was turning over her left shoulder and meeting a pair of terrified, evergreen eyes. “Blackwing!”