Fuck.
13
Briar
After cleaning myself and tending to the aches of my body, I knew I needed to face Cullen. The whole time I soaked in the bath that Bain drew me, I glowered and raged from how he had tricked me. Had Bain not told me of the other secret, I would’ve been irate even more when I did discovered it.
All of this festered into a problem that I couldn’t sleep on, so I sat in his room and waited for his return. Finding his window first, I knew I wanted a view as I waited. Cian’s kingdom was icy and bone chilling to walk through, but it felt magical from up here in a warm room. When the snow wasn’t slamming me in the face, it was like little glimpses of their core magic raining down.
Faerie was so beautiful. The rarities here were leaps and bounds better than Earth’s greenery. While I admired my home for what it had, it did make me question what Philip saw in it. Was it only me that drove him to choose to unite with my kingdom, or was it a ploy from Áine to merge worlds?
Bothered by it, I knew Philip loved me deeply. If he hadn’t his skull wouldn’t have been able to kiss me awake. Toying with the necklace around my throat, I held it harder over my chest as I began to weep. Alone with my thoughts too long, I was now paying the price for it all in one blow.
Quietly, I let my tears cast against the bay of the window as my hands gripped its edge for support. The raw pain between my legs would always be a reminder of how far I had fallen. Life felt a lot less complicated when I only had to wake and do my chores. Now that I had come of age and discovered my true identity, I no longer wanted to grow up. Most kids couldn’t wait to be an adult to make their own choices, but I didn’t want to make the hard calls anymore.
“I’m sorry, my love,” I sobbed into the icy breeze. It made some of the water on my cheek freeze just enough for me to feel it. Philip deserved better, but I was left with no other choice in his absence. “I’ll do whatever it takes to end Morrigan’s reign. Even if that means becoming someone you couldn’t love.”
With that promise in the wind of the cold night, I closed my eyes to no longer see how the moon reflected against the snow for me to see in the distance. It was a sobering experience, standing in the room of the man I planned to lash out at, only to find myself telling my dead love that I’d do the same thing.
Hating myself, I opened my eyes again to stare blankly into the valley. This was the path that I wasn’t going to come back from. And even though I knew that, I still had a bone to pick with Cullen over it.
When the door opened to his room, I knew it would be him. With my back to him, I knew he saw me from how he delayed closing the door. Once he shut it completely, he cleared his throat. “Briar?”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I knew my voice still shook from my grieving not being done. Turning toward him, I let him see what a mess I was over it. I let him see how undone I was from the lie he put me through. “I thought we were a team in this.”
“We are,” he tried to mend the broken bridge on that.
“No,” I had to stop to shake my head as the tears choked my throat. “You’re playing your own game. It’s something I won’t be part of.”
Cullen raised his arms over his head, pulling back his face as he muttered curses. There was a frustration in his stare that told me he came in from a previous argument. It must’ve not gone well for him to stand before me looking haggard and done.
“I was afraid to tell you just in case you backed out,” he admitted.
“It would’ve prepared me to see Philip’s face on another that is more monster than man!” I gritted out, lashing in anger at him. Sealing my eyes, I took several deep breaths before centering myself. Philip used to say that he loved how I could think things through rationally.
As all the spite wanted to spew from my lips, I knew it was his memory that would keep me grounded enough to not turn into another Morrigan. That was the difference between being the hero and villain. We took loss differently. She used it to fuel her warpath for destruction, but I used it as my reminder to save others from what I felt.
This horrible blackhole of endless suffering was my promise to Philip to devote my life to this cause. I’d be a monster by the end of it, but weren’t we all monsters in different ways already?
Cullen had been rambling on with excuses as to why he did what he did, but I hadn’t heard it. He crossed a line, and while we were on the same side for this battle, we were not okay personally. Holding up my hand, I beckoned him to stop his defense.
“Going forward, you will see me as your equal. This includes telling me that I am now mated to only you and the others for the rest of my life.”
His eyes widened in surprise when I outed his little secret. “Yeah, but you get five men to choose between. We only have you.”
Rearing back, he saw what his callous words had done. Hardening myself to leave his room, I walked to the door just passed him.
“Briar, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. I meant we chose you and only you,” he rushed out.
Pausing my hand as I cracked the wooden door, I nodded my head over my shoulder but never looking at him. “And I chose you. I may have five, but I do not have love.”
Leaving him with that, I headed to my room. It was time I rested after the events of today.
~
It was happening to me all over again, the cruelty against my body. Seized by men who I foolishly trusted in the woods to help me get home when I wandered too far away. The memory felt fresh from what had happened today, seeking out my dreams to bleed into.
Past trauma unveiled when triggered by something in my present. It had been a long time since this memory plagued me, but when it did, I was at its mercy, unable to wake myself.