First Debt

My eyes snapped to Bonnie Hawk as she licked residual cream from her fingertip. Tilting her head, she quirked her lips into a secretive smile.

My muscles locked. Being the head of the family, she continued to hold the last say—the last piece of power over anything we did. She knew more about me than even my father. I might crave my father’s respect, but I would never get over knowing I would never earn Bonnie’s.

She would die and never grant me absolution of being satisfied with what I’d done.

I was the firstborn son.

I’d bowed to conformity and rules all my fucking life.

Yet, it was never enough.

Nodding stiffly, I muttered, “I won’t let you down, Grandmamma. I won’t let anyone down.”

I’ll make you see that your frailty only increases my power. I’ll make you see that fire is better than ice, and I’ll fucking show you how youth comes before wisdom.

I’ll make you see.

Just you watch.

That night, I retreated to my wing at Hawksridge Hall.

I turned off the lights.

I sat in the dark and welcomed the shadows to claim me.

Before me rested my arsenal to ‘fix’ the things wrong inside me.

And just like my father had taught me—just like I’d done countless of times before—I found the frost deep inside and permitted it to chill me, calm me…

…

make me impenetrable.

I KNEW IT was too good to be true.

The last three nights and two days of being Jethro-free screeched to a bitter end when he came for me at daybreak.

I wasn’t asleep but mid-text with Vaughn.

The early morning sun had a horrible habit of highlighting the stuffed birds around the room, sparkling on death and reminding me that my future only held carnage—no matter how alive I felt. No matter how strong I’d become from taking power from Jethro, in the end, it would all finish the same way.

With my head in a bloody basket.

I should’ve been petrified—wallowing in misery at the thought of how a successful career and life in the limelight had suddenly become so limited with options. But…strangely…I wasn’t.

If anything, I was more focused now than I’d ever been. More aware of consequences of choice and the brutality of the world that’d been hidden from me. I’d been raised to believe in fairy tales—my father deliberately kept me naïve. Why? I hadn’t figured that out yet, but now my eyes were open, and it was…refreshing to know the world wasn’t pristine and taintless.

All my life, I’d pretended to be perfect. And all my life, I’d nursed the truth inside that I was far from it. The Hawks were crazy—there was no other explanation for their fixation on something so far in the past—but they were passionate about it.

Passion had trickled from my world as if every dress and collection had been vampiric—sucking my will to keep striving for greatness in my designs.

If you felt this strongly about it, maybe you should’ve gone on holiday. Had a break from being a Weaver.

But that was the thing. I would never have admitted it to myself, because I would never have recognised it. My vertigo spells, my lacklustre acquiescence of my father’s wishes—I couldn’t see how lost I was from my true self. I’d never been given the time to figure out who I was—only what was expected of a daughter born into the Weaver empire.

The beauty of distance meant I saw my life without being immersed in it. It all boiled down to the fact I’d never had anything of my own. I’d shared my life with a twin, who I positively adored, but who outshone me in every way. I’d been drowning with self-doubt and nervousness. I’d crippled my instincts and skills, terrified of letting others down.

Oh, my God.

I clutched the phone harder.

I’m a better person away from the people who love me most.

That meant I excelled while living with people who hated me.

It was fucked up.

It didn’t make sense.

But how could I argue against something that was true?

VtheMan: I know everything, Threads, and I’m coming for you. I’ll bring the army. I’ll kidnap the fucking Queen if it means I’ll get you free. Just stay alive, sister. I’m coming.

My attention reverted back to the current issue.

Vaughn.

Father must’ve told him what happened. I didn’t know how much he shared—hell, I didn’t really know how much he even knew himself—but I feared for my brother. I feared for myself.

Vaughn was volatile and likely to do anything to get me back. Every day since I was born, I let him baby me, protect me from life experiences I really should’ve faced rather than hide from. That protectiveness sometimes came across as too much, and before, I secretly loved it. I loved being so significant to someone—their entire reason for living.

But everything had changed.

I’m not the same person I was a few days ago.

If I was bluntly honest, our relationship seemed a little much now. Blurring lines that had kept me firmly in my place as daughter and sister with no need to spread my wings and hurl myself from the nest.

“Get up.” Jethro paced to the huge windows, wrenching open a sash pane letting the pretty English morning into the stuffy room. I breathed deeply as sunshine bounced around, merrily painting corpses of winged creatures.

Yesterday, I’d named some of the prettier ones. Snowdrop, Iceberg, and Glacier were all addressed in honour of their tormentor and mine.

I needed to reply to Vaughn, but I tucked the phone beneath the quilt, eyeing up my nemesis. “Nice to see you, too.”

His nostrils flared. “Don’t get uppity, Ms. Weaver. I don’t have time for nonsense.”

I stretched, deliberately taunting him. “Nonsense? You can’t talk. All of this Weaver and Hawk charade is utter nonsense.”

Jethro stomped over. Dressed in beige corduroys and black shirt, he looked as if he had a meeting with his local backgammon club. The requisite diamond pin glinted on his lapel. “Shut up and get out of bed. Now.”

My heart thundered. His golden eyes were icy and steadfast.

The intensity and raw visceral desire I’d seen in the forest was gone. Hope fizzled into dirty bubbles in my chest. I’d thought we’d climbed to a new dimension with what happened in the woods. I thought I’d showed him that he couldn’t undermine me without undermining himself.