Chapter 65: Chapter 65: THE OUTBURST

VALORIA WILDEROSE

“I think we’ll be leaving now.” I rise from the table, make a quick bow, and leave—though not without grabbing Azrael and tugging him away.

He doesn’t budge at first, looking at me with disappointment, like I’m taking his favorite toy away from him, until I throw him a look. Begrudgingly, he gets up, rising to his feet and tagging along.

None of them dare to stop us.

I drag him a good distance away, tugging at his sleeve until we’re at a small fountain that’s quiet and lonely. Only then do I let go of his arm and catch my breath.

I don’t speak immediately, and thankfully he stays silent, waiting for me to gather myself together again.

I pace back and forth for a while, trying to figure him out, until I realize that I can’t.

“Why did you do that?”

“Rescue you from a dire situation? You’re welcome, by the way.”

“Do you think you saved me? Do you think I needed saving in the first place? I thought you loved seeing me suffer.”

He frowns, as if my words have stung him. The smug glint in his eyes fades too fast.

“That’s very different from watching you turn into this mute idiot when any of them are in the room with you. I’d much rather enjoy watching you put up at least a little more fight.”

“You don’t know anything, Azrael. Stay out of it.” I speak sterner than I intend, fully aware of the consequences of standing up to him so freely.

He might kill me right now, cut me down and let me bleed out on the floor, but I’m too overrun with emotions to be logical.

“Here we go again…” He throws his hands in the air with a chuckle that signals his descent into anger. “Acting like a mystery when what’s happening right in front of you is clear as day. Not only are you terrified of your family, you let them scare you. It’s almost boring and pathetic watching you cower in front of them. The actual mystery is how you’ve stared death in the face so many times with me, yet you turn to mush for them.”

“They’re my family,” I whisper bitterly, knowing he’ll never understand.

He wasn’t born and conditioned to love strangers and seek validation from them. He was created to be strong and powerful with everything he needed.

He was wired not to rely on anything, but to destroy everything in his path.

“Bullshit,” he argues, searing my blood on fire.

“Fine, it’s my fault our mother died! Okay?!” I scream into his face, waiting for the familiar cycle of reactions—surprise, confusion, and then pity.

Pity for my family, pity for me, like I’m some lost cause or freak to be pointed at.

“I don’t stand up to them because part of me feels like I deserve it, because I’m the reason our mother died and why her life was miserable leading up to it. She had an affair, and I was the result.”

I hang my head low, recalling my earliest memories.

There was never a time I wasn’t reminded that my existence was a disgrace. I was hated even more than the mysterious man who helped conceive me.

And although she denied it in the end, part of me hated her for letting me live.

Hot tears sting my eyes against my will. I fight the urge to sob in front of him, but it pours out in uncontrollable torrents—blurring my vision, shaking me.

“My family is fucked up, okay? We all blackout the memory, pretend it never happened, and misdirect our rage because if any of us ever dared to look deeper—really search through the layers of anger—we’d find the truth sitting there like a rotting core. It was all Mother’s fault. And by extension, it’s mine. I’m her consequence. Her sin. Her… atonement come to life. We tell everyone—and sometimes lie to ourselves—that our mother died when she birthed me. I’m the unfortunate thing that took her life. But do you want to know the truth, Azrael? She might as well have died the day she laid with another man, because Father punished her night after night after my birth. And it was one of those bitter, endless punishments that led to Marcella being conceived. But of course, no one can know that. So he bedded a highly esteemed woman and lied to the council that she was Marcella’s mother. And yet Marcella became his favorite. Because at least he knows she’s his. At least he forced my mother hard enough, long enough, brutally enough, to wring out a true-born child he could be certain of. At least he got to purge the “filth” of another man’s blood from her womb. I was that filth. And Mother, goddess knows I fucking hate her, because she gave me life and abandoned me to the wolves who would tear me apart for her sins. And I take it. I fucking take it. Because maybe if I stay quiet enough, small enough, invisible enough, they’ll let me live another day in that house. Don’t breathe too loudly or they’ll remember I don’t belong and give me a fate worse than Mother’s dying days. Don’t stand out or Father will remember I’m a bastard child and throw me out. Don’t defend yourself because I’ve seen what happened to the last woman who dared—how he broke the very legs she stood on until she couldn’t draw her next breath. Call me a coward if you want, but this is the only survival I know. The only map I’ve ever had. And before you judge me, understand that I know exactly how much worse it can get.”

I’m heaving, my heart pounding with words I buried so deep inside myself that speaking them now feels like a dam collapsing, everything crashing out at once.

While I got the brunt of their hate, Marcella received the full breadth and depth of their love and adoration. She was their righted wrong… and I was everything wrong.

Yet even with my pulse racing and my voice shaking, Azrael is quiet. Painfully quiet. And for a moment, I feel stupid—stupid enough to spill my entire life to this ruthless, unfeeling monster.

“You’re not saying anything.”

I look up at him and note the blank, emotionless stare he gives me. It’s void of anything I can read, but intense and focused entirely on me.

“I sound more pathetic now that you know, right? Not only am I pathetic, my history is too.” I laugh at myself, trying to dull the pain, trying to fill the silence.

He doesn’t laugh with me. Instead, he steps closer, and when he speaks, his voice is low—dangerous even.

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