4. Cove

Chapter 4

Cove

She was as beautiful as any Dawnchaser, I thought idly, looking at the lovely pink-cheeked cherub of a woman who was crying on Florian Dawnchaser’s chest. She looked twenty, at least, and she’d called Florian her brother. That had to make her Huxley’s child. I hated to imagine what a monster he’d been to her.

Worse yet, Delta probably would have been nearly as bad if any of the children had been born with a similar disability.

The treatment I’d let my sister get away with had been awful enough, especially with Winter. I’d been so determined to keep my promise and stay out of it, I’d...I’d done him a disservice, and the shame of it still burned inside me.

I hated to imagine how she’d have acted toward a child like this young woman.

Given the way Florian kept trying to scoot her body behind himself or convince her to leave with the other man, he was trying to protect her. It would have been obvious and expected, were they not both Dawnchasers. Any decent person would try to protect their younger sibling, but...they were Dawnchasers.

There could be no doubt that they were that. They both had that pale, spun-gold hair and those distinctive green eyes, even if his were paler and hers brighter than average. They couldn’t be mistaken for scions of any other family.

And yet, there they both were, trying to put their bodies between each other and me, the threat.

Dawnchasers, two of them, both thinking of something other than themselves. Literally a moment earlier I’d have declared such a thing impossible, but there I was looking at it. It couldn’t be denied.

In a handful of seconds, the two of them had upturned my entire worldview.

Still, it couldn’t change my plans. I was here for Huxley, and his children couldn’t change that.

“I’ll be staying here at the house,” I told them, meeting Florian’s eye. When I looked at her, she wasn’t interested in me, only him. I could understand that. He was beautiful, slender and slight, with a pretty pink cupid’s bow mouth and soft bedroom eyes.

I’d once been enamored of the entire family, before I’d known them. They were beautiful, every last Dawnchaser. Soft smiles and gold hair and bright mischievous eyes that promised fun.

Though...Florian Dawnchaser didn’t much look like fun. He looked like a man heading to meet a firing squad. Like he was trying desperately to hold himself together, to not collapse in a heap and sob, and barely succeeding.

It gave me a stab of conscience, and that wasn’t something I’d expected to feel toward any Dawnchaser, ever.

It almost made me more annoyed with him, but I swallowed it down. He was young, dealing with more than any person should, and here I was telling him that his legacy was gone.

Frost was annoyed with me. He was still standing at my side, his loyalty never in question, but he wasn’t one to hide his emotions either. He had his arms over his chest, and he was glaring at me like he could put holes in my head with the power of his mind.

How odd. Frost did try to see the best in everyone—not from some misplaced belief that all people were good, but simply because he himself was good, and couldn’t understand why anyone would think so fundamentally differently from how he did. The Dawnchaser “every person for themselves” creed didn’t make logical sense, after all. It meant that everyone suffered, and no one had the support they needed. And Frost could never truly understand when people did things that weren’t logical.

If Frost doesn’t like things that don’t make sense, and he’s mad at us, maybe we need to give that some further consideration , Iri pointed out, annoyingly echoing the fleeting concern that I’d already started pushing down and away.

Frost cleared his throat, and I realized how long everyone had remained silent. Odd. Usually, if I stayed quiet, other people would speak. It had proven an excellent technique to get people to talk, usually to their detriment, over my years of holding court in Moonstriker Tower. This time, none of the Dawnchasers had so much as moved a muscle. Like they were waiting for me to continue and would wait as long as I let them.

I blinked, cocking my head to one side and scanning the three of them again. The older man was clearly a family vassal, like Coral was to me, but the Dawnchasers themselves seemed just as content to stand there waiting on me as he was.

Like they had no say in anything, and they were used to that.

I met Huxley at Gloombringer Castle , Iri whispered in my mind, and there was something hesitant in her at the subject. Something frightened. He killed the Gloombringer with no provocation. He’s a madman, Cove. Do you really think his children were exempt from that?

I swallowed, watching them in the continued silence. They were definitely waiting for me. Waiting for an axe to fall. Expecting the worst. And me, I’d just told them I was here to take their lands. They didn’t think that was the worst thing that I could do to them?

Somehow, for one of the first times in my life, I was the first one to speak. “You’re welcome to stay in the house, both of you.” The vassal’s shoulders slumped, and when I looked over at him, there was nothing but relief on his face. That was when I realized I hadn’t explicitly included him. And yet, he was relieved. Loyalty again? “I see no reason for anything to change in the house for the moment. I need to take stock before we decide anything.”

“And...” Frost prompted, but I only turned to look at him, one eyebrow raised. I had no idea what the hell he wanted me to say, and he knew full well if there was something important, I’d be happy to accept his word and judgment, so he needed to spit it out. I wasn’t a toddler, to be prompted into proper communication. “No one will be kicking Florian or Fawn out of their home or their rooms. Their father’s crimes aren’t theirs.”

Oh, that.

I looked back at the children of Huxley Dawnchaser, clinging to each other there in the enormous, paved drive of the luxurious estate they’d grown up in, both looking as though this disaster wasn’t the worst thing they’d ever faced and...

“Of course not,” I agreed, even though I shouldn’t. If the situation were reversed and Huxley Dawnchaser came to kill me, I suspected both of my nephews and my niece would challenge him. Challenge his right to even be there in our lands, let alone take control of my estate and give them orders. They would cut him down before he even had a chance to look for me.

But there were Huxley’s children, one crying and the other looking pale and tragic and ready to be killed more than to kill someone else. I knew better than anyone that Dawnchaser beauty hid an ugly truth, but I couldn’t imagine what Huxley Dawnchaser’s children hoped to win from me by seeming harmless and miserable.

They hadn’t even asked for clemency or their home. They hadn’t asked for anything.

Just waited for my pronouncement.

Nausea bloomed in my belly, and I wondered, for the first time since I was fifteen, if perhaps Dawnchasers weren’t all born monsters. If they started out just like any other children, and the horror of their lives turned them into something awful. And most of all, if somehow, Huxley Dawnchaser’s own children had, as yet, managed to avoid turning into the same sort of creature their father was.

Afton had only been about Florian’s age, but in retrospect, she’d also never looked nearly as...exhausted. He looked like he was already dead and simply waiting for the universe to catch up with the reality of that, so he could collapse and not have to continue on with the ruse of life any longer.

He’d tried to send them both away, his sister and his vassal. The same as I’d have done with Frost and Coral if I’d expected danger.

I braced myself, took a deep breath, and looked once more into the eyes of Florian Dawnchaser. “I would appreciate it if you could show us around the estate. I haven’t been here in many years. Perhaps...things have changed.”