Valarie and I had fallen silent on our return journey from the Szarvases', but the closer we got to our home, the more my sister was brimming over with something she was desperate to voice.

I couldn't deal with whatever she wanted to say, I knew exactly whom it was going to be about. Everything about me—the tense way I gripped the steering wheel with white knuckles, my sweat-lank hair hanging over my face that was deeply grooved in anger—all said I sure as fuck did not want to talk about it. However, it wasn't going to put Valarie off. She half-twisted around to face me better, bracing an arm on the backrest of the car seat. "Varen—"

"I don't want to hear it," I snapped back, glowering at the road ahead. I was driving way too fast through the copse of trees. The oncoming storm ruffled the scraggly branches to tease leaves free and scatter them across the narrow driveway.

A wild forest, awash with rich autumn colors, encircled my family home. It wasn't as ancient or savage as the Hemmlok Forest but it was just as vast. It stretched as far as the eye could see over rolling hills, with a webbing of rivers and streams that cut through its knotted depth.

During the blistering hot summer months, my siblings and I would hike through its pungent, gloomy shade to a churning river with a waterfall cascading into a deep pool. We'd bask on sunbaked rocks until we needed to cool off by plunging from the cliff edge into the brisk water below. This year, with summer only a few months ago and Gratian's death still new and raw, none of that happened.

"You d-don't even know what I'm about t-to say."

"Irma," I hissed back. My jaw ached with how long I'd been gritting my teeth. "I don't want to talk about her, Val." I pushed the sports car faster through the dense thicket. I itched to lay my hands upon my father and snap his fucking spine right in half for what he'd arranged behind my back with Irma's family. But despite it all, beneath my ire and my sister's desire to speak to me about my ex-girlfriend, both Valarie and I were dreading the impending moment we'd enter our home. It was the sadness that cloaked our home like a pall we both shied away from, yet couldn't avoid.

"Yes, okay, Irma," my sister confessed, tossing up a free hand. "Obviously you d-don't want to m-marry her."

"It's that obvious is it?" I drawled, my tone dripping in sarcasm.

"She m-missed you while you were in Colombia. She v-visited us often while you were away."

I rolled my eyes and tapped the steering wheel with my thumb in irritation.

I fucking bet she did.

"I-I-I know that things hadn't been good between you two b-before you left, but Varen..." She pulled an apologetic face as if she wasn't sure how to say it. "There's no way out of this f-for you. You're going to have to marry her."

"I know!" I roared, slapping my hand across the steering wheel and feeling the bite of pain. "I fucking know it!" But I sure as hells wasn't going to go down without a fight. Nor was there any fucking way I'd let my father get away with how he'd gone behind my back and shafted me.

We finally broke free from the oppressive copse of trees and the car surged out of the murkiness into dim sunlight. The driveway cut through the long stretch of lawn leading to my ancestral home and the sky was a sorrowful shroud that cast wretchedness over the horizon. As I stared ahead, the Bugatti slowed down as my foot unconsciously eased off the accelerator.

The Crowthers' Keep.

Stark. Imposing. Foreboding.

The sun had sunk lower and its golden rays cut through slender gaps in the heavy clouds to gild slices of the Keep in weak sunlight. Grim storm clouds hovered low and it was as if the ramparts and spires held the sky aloft.

My family might have called our ancestral home a 'Keep' but it was in fact a fortress. My family didn't live in a bloated modern mansion like many Houses, or even a much older and traditional castle like the Szarvases. The Keep was as old as the Horned Gods themselves, an enormous and formidable structure with spires and towers and sharp-edged peaked roofs. It was threaded with adamere, the strongest material in our world, and only the fiery wrath of a wyrm could rattle its foundations.

My sister and I reacted to our home in similar ways. My anger faltered the moment I drove from pale sunlight and across the shadowline into gloom. Instead of shade, Valarie and I were both cast in grief and melancholy.

While my sister and I had been at the Deniauds' we'd been granted a reprieve of sorts. A moment to step outside our brother's death and indulge in life. Selfishly, it had been a relief to be away from my mother, and the hopeless way she clung to Gratian, wallowing in his memories.

And now all the misery came rushing back tenfold.

I heard the small sound of anguish before Valarie's sorrow vibrated down the twin-link and submerged my soul beneath her despair. The leather car seat groaned as she turned to face forward once more, anxiously kneading her hands in her lap. A moment later she whispered, her voice cracking, "I m-miss him... I miss him so much..."

I gripped the steering wheel tight as heartache washed over me. It hurt to even breathe looking upon my home. Gratian had carved himself upon every single block of stone: from the ramparts where as adults we'd sit, dangling our legs over the edge of the fortress, shooting the breeze while we finished a bottle of whiskey; as unruly teenagers, we'd race each other down the terrace's weather-worn steps to disappear into the forest beyond to hunt for the day; and as young children we'd slink up and down the spiral staircase in the ancient tower, pretending our family home was under siege while aiming our crossbows through arrow slits to bring down an imaginary enemy.

In the corner of my eye, I watched Valarie rub her thumb over the other so hard the skin pulled tight. Her voice was barely discernible over the sound of the car engine, yet it rang as loud as a tolling bell in my ears. "I know the g-guilt you carry over Gratian." I instantly tensed, dreading what she was going to say next. "But it wasn't your f-f-fault, Varen. It was a hunting accident. It c-could have happened to anyone of us."

My gaze shot straight ahead. My breath caught tight in my throat. I wanted to tell her to shut the hells up—but I couldn't get my vocal cords to work.

Her armor whispered against the car seat as she bodily shifted to face me better. "I loved Gratian." The ardor in her tone pulled my gaze back to hers in time to see her violet eyes shimmer like gems with the threat of tears. "But you know how f-foolhardy he was. He sh-shouldn't have been out there hunting a wraith-wolf."

It was there, right there, begging to leave my lips—He wasn't hunting a wraith-wolf.

Valarie's mouth pulled into a thin line. A flash of anger scored over her features and made her black eyebrows slash above fierce eyes. She clenched her fingers into a fist. "He was only d-doing it to get a rise out of you. He knew you w-wanted to track a wraith-wolf and he'd been k-keen on hunting one d-down before you got back from South America to rub it in your face." She kicked the floor of the car with a combat-booted foot. "Gratian was always doing shit like that," she snarked, crossing her arms over her chest and pushing back into her car seat. But there was deep pain twisting her tone. "He was always c-competing against you or me or even Sander."

Gratian always had been, but then so too had I.

Part of me held tight to the ideal of brotherly loyalty, that he would never have initiated this affair with Irma if she hadn't pursued him because she was after what he held, but there always had been a competitive streak within Gratian. And deep down, in a dark place I didn't like to unearth too often, I knew he hadn't stopped the affair any time soon either. It had started before I'd even left for South America and had continued all the time I'd been away.

My sister's voice roused me from my bleak thoughts and what she said next stirred my guilt. "He'd been hunting f-for years Varen. It wasn't as if this was new to him... He j-just went too deep and too close to the Heart of the Forest."

He went there because I led him there.

The car rattled over the slatted drawbridge. We had no need for a moat. Instead, the gently sloping ground was filled with bushes and shrubs. I drove the length of the gatehouse with an iron portcullis hanging at each end, right into the inner courtyard, the tires rumbling over cobblestones. I parked near the tower that was as ancient as the Heart of the Keep, killed the engine, and opened my door, scissoring it upward. Shoving a foot outside the car, the sole of my boot grinding against old stone, I heard my sister ask, "Are you h-holding it against her?"

I paused, my hand on the car door, and half-twisted around to face my sister with a confused frown. "Holding what against who?"

"Gratian's death."

I blinked, astounded.

Valarie carried on speaking quietly and studied my face intently. "Do you blame Irma for n-not stopping Gratian g-going into the forest to hunt that night?"

"Why would you think that?"

"Irma's grandfather—"

"Kiran?" I interrupted with a frown.

"Shortly after Gratian's..." She winced. Her slender shoulders rounded as she glanced down at her lap to rub her thighs. His death, I guess she wanted to say, but couldn't bring herself to. "I overheard Kiran sp-speaking with Dad. Kiran was w-worried about you both, especially because you were so d-distant from Irma after the funeral." She glanced up, looking at me askance beneath thick eyelashes. "Irma believes you blame her for Gratian's d-death."

Of all the twisted and fucked up things I'd ever heard. I was stunned silent, my voice paralyzed, as my sister blundered on with whatever fucked up reasoning Irma had given Kiran, begged him, I assumed, to plead on her behalf. "She thinks you bl-blame her, her family too, for not st-stopping him from going into the Hemmlok Forest."

It took a minute or so for me to process how fucking crazy Irma had become. Instead, I focused on her grandfather, because there was something else I needed to know. Why my father had never spoken to me about Kiran's visit?

"I didn't know Kiran had spoken to Dad."

She shrugged, a resigned gesture. "There was n-no reason for Dad to tell you. You'd closed yourself off t-to all of us. Also, it suited him that you t-two were estranged."

I frowned, puzzled.

"You th-think at the time, Dad would let you marry Irma?" She shook her head and the loose locks of hair at her temple wavered with the movement. "Not after you w-were j-just named heir. Even if you were willing to speak to Kiran, to f-forgive Irma, Dad would never have a-allowed you two to marry."

"Because back then Irma didn't bring any advantage to our House," I breathed, rubbing my face with the flat of my palm.

Valarie's mouth pursed into a grim line. "But now sh-she does."

"Yeah. Now she does."

Valarie drummed her fingers against her thigh in a business-like manner that matched her tone. "So, d-do you blame her for that?" she asked pointedly, and there was a challenge to her gaze that spoke of something else.

I pulled in a sharp breath.

My sister wasn't stupid. Valarie doubted Kiran's reason.

"Or..." Valarie continued, crossing her arms over her chest, tilting her head, and narrowing hard eyes on me, "...did s-something else happen between you b-both, some other truth?"

I couldn't answer because ire whiplashed through my blood with Irma's continued deceit.

When I remained silent too long, my nostrils flaring as I choked on anger, Valarie clicked her tongue, softening a little, before saying, "Either way you have to deal with it because you two are g-going to...marry..." Her words drifted apart when I furiously twisted away and ducked out of the Bugatti. "Varen?"

"Fuck Jeroen and what he wants. I'm not marrying her," I shot back.

Irma was a chain around my neck and my fucking father was the one tossing me into the mire with her heavy-ass weight dragging me down into its muddy bowels.

Fury bit hard.

I tossed the car keys to one of the servants that quickly approached us. She'd park it in the garage, amongst the line of numerous luxurious cars, and then deliver my weapons, pack, and phone to my personal rooms.

"Shit," I heard my sister hiss. "Varen—"

But I was gone before she finished whatever she was going to say.

Wind scattered shriveled leaves between my pounding feet and blew them ahead of me to dance up the porch steps that led to a back door. Inside the Keep, it was dim and not much warmer than outside with twilight descending and a storm approaching.

Centuries ago the Keep had been carefully taken apart stone by stone, and been transported in a flotilla of Caravel and Carracks armed with weapons and magic. Along with all the other Houses in our Chapter, we had sailed across the blustery Atlantic to the New World, and mortals enthralled to us, painstakingly rebuilt the Keep amongst an expansive wild forest.

I ran through the many vast and empty rooms, heading toward my family's private rooms. My rapid footsteps echoed against the stone walls. I was exhausted. I'd been up for two days straight and I'd physically pushed my body to the limit. I should have been keeling over asleep. I was surviving on adrenaline and fury and a burning desire to punch the ever-living-shit out of my father, and very little else.

I glanced around with new eyes that Tabitha had opened, seeing my home for what it was for the first time. Our home had grown over the millennia, with additions made to the Keep to house more of my extended family, but there were so many rooms inside the fortification that remained empty but for the treasure trove on display. The Keep was a showhome like all the other Houses, apart from one simple and ridiculous fact: we hardly let any other House inside the Keep. So what the fuck was the point of having all these empty rooms exhibiting all our treasures if we weren't even going to show them off?

Surely the space could be put to better use? It wasn't as if we had a need for all these sculptures, paintings, and artifacts either. All they were doing was gathering dust. Well, they would have, if not for the efforts of our servants, polishing and dusting every single day. When I considered the servants' living space, I realized shamefully that their quarters were cramped, and the soldiers' barracks were only a little better off.

Valarie was still on my tail. "V-Varen, wait!" she called out. "I know you're pissed off b-but—"

Her voice cut away when I pivoted and disappeared through one of the archways into my family's gallery. My footfall was muffled by the long running rug, stretching the length of the enormous room. The walls were covered in endless generations of Crowthers hanging in ornate gold frames. Some oil paintings were of my ancestors and their immediate family, and others were only of the Head of the House of that particular generation, all of them male with cold, ruthless eyes.

As I approached the end of the gallery, my gaze was drawn to my family's portrait. Seeing it up there, us up there, what life used to be like, had hot needles pricking the back of my throat, made all the more painful when I saw the unrestrained smile rounding my mother's soft pink cheeks and the life sparkling in her storm-gray eyes. She was so much like my twin, with an artist's soul. While Val loved painting, my mother's passion was cooking. She insisted on teaching us all how to cook, and while she teased my cumbersome efforts, she shared family stories as I spooned dough for pão de queijo onto baking sheets, or massaged marinades into meat for a churrasco, the kitchen hot and filled with laughter.

My sister Valarie painted us a year ago. My mother, Isobel, stood beside my father, her slender fingers clasped around his arm and her long, bell-shaped sleeve draping open. Isobel Teixeira was the favored daughter of Iban Novak's lieutenant who oversaw the stronghold we held in north Brazil. After losing her mother, she often stayed with the ruling family in Ascendria, quickly becoming much loved by Iban and his wife. That's when she met my father. With my parents' marriage, the alliance nudged our family up the pecking order with Upper House Novak to whom we were in liege.

Valarie had added little touches of who we were to the family portrait. My father's glacial gaze reflected his one mission in life, one that was imposed on all of us: gain back the mantle of power. Yet, perhaps it was only obvious to us who knew him well enough, but Valarie had captured a touch of softness with the way his hand gently looped over my mother's flour-dusted fingers. And my sister had even added a little smear of tapioca flour on our mother's temple.

My youngest sister Addison, 'Addie', ten years old with bobbed black hair and a short fringe she'd hacked into a widow's peak, stood in front of Gratian, who had his big hands on her shoulders. The fierce adoration Addie had for Gratian was mirrored in the way she stood like him with both feet braced apart, chin tipped up with a hint of a lazy smirk and a mischievous glint in her violet eyes.

Sander, with the same eyes and smile as our mother, stood beside Val, who had paint-speckled fingers and a streak of white paint through her hair. And me... It was like looking at a stranger when I looked, really looked at myself, clean-shaven with short black hair, in a crisp suit, the end of a cigar poking out the jacket pocket. And arrogance. As far as I was concerned there wasn't anything deeper in my bored gaze, just pure arrogance and self-entitlement.

Tension rushed through my shoulders and down my arms to lock my fingers into fists.

If Irma had gotten away with her fucking devious plan, if she'd ensnared my brother with her fake pregnancy and quickly married him, I'd be looking up at her face in an oil painting on the wall. Irma would be living here in the Keep and I would have had to see her every single day with Gratian. Even worse, she'd have ruled over me as Matriarch.

I knew with certainty that Gratian wouldn't have kept Irma's interest for very long. She wanted the role and the power of being married to a Head of House, but she was clearly obsessed with me. She wouldn't have let me go. She'd have tried to find some way to have me warming her bed.

And now, she'd actually gotten away with it. She was going to have everything she ever wanted. Marriage to me and ruling over my family as Matriarch.

If I allowed her to.

Fuck that.