Sewn & Scarred (The Fated Creations Trilogy #3)

Chapter Thirty-SevenMaddox

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Maddox

I t was late, the sun had gone below the horizon and the moon hung over the ocean. I was with Cora and Wyott, just arriving back to the manor from spending another day helping her at the marina. We were silent on our walk, as we always were. We tried to hide from the Vasi on the coast as best we could, and stayed quiet so they couldn’t hear us.

But just as we ascended the steps up to the manor—Cora wanted to give my father an update on the marina—Dean crested the hill beside us, eyes wide.

My stomach fell and my skin blanched, and we all raced through the doors.

Once we were inside the soundproofed walls, and made sure the windows around us were closed, we turned to Dean.

“What is it?” I asked, panic leaching into my voice.

He pursed his lips and handed me the jar of blood in his hands, and a rolled-up scroll.

“A raven, or from Evaline?” I asked, holding the paper up.

“Evaline,” he said. I shoved the blood off to Wyott, and my fingers slid over the scroll, desperate to open it as quickly as I could.

“There’s something you should know first,” Dean said, just as I got it open, but my eyes raised to his.

“What?”

He swallowed. “Sage just told me that Vasier lied, that Evaline is not safe with him.”

My heart faltered in my chest just as Cora’s hand slid over my shoulder.

I shook my head and looked down at the note, and the words—the content—nearly knocked me on my knees.

“Wyott,” I started to read it aloud. It was addressed to my brother, as the last one had been. She didn’t know I was back yet.

“I wanted to warn you that just before I drew this blood, I’d been fed quite a lot of Vasi blood,” my voice grew hoarse the longer I read it aloud because I knew the consequences of that line.

I looked up at Wyott, eyes wide.

“He’s already hurt her,” I choked out.

Wyott nodded, and tried to hide the look of fear on his own face.

“But they healed her after, so clearly they don’t intend for her to die,” Wyott bargained, but I scoffed.

“So torture is fine, then?” I snapped, but immediately felt guilty. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, but then pulled the note back up to read. “I’m not sure if that will taint mine in any way.”

It wouldn’t, but I could understand why she wouldn’t know that. Once a mortal drank a Kova or a Vasi’s blood, the healing magic of the blood healed them so that all at once, their own blood supply was restored. It didn’t change their blood into anything but their own. The blood didn’t mingle, in the same way a mortal’s blood did when drank by a Kova or Vasi.

I took a deep breath and continued.

“Perhaps you should ration my blood as I don’t know what may happen to me.” My hands shook where they held the scroll, but I fought past the panic and continued. “Sometimes I feel that this life I live is cursed and that I have no choice but to accept it, no matter what happens.” The tears were shifting my vision, choking my words, as I read aloud the final two. “Love, Evaline.”

“Oh, no,” Cora whispered, tears of her own filling her voice.

Wyott shook his head and pulled the scroll from my hands. He read it, as if to make sure I didn’t misunderstand, and then cursed under his breath.

“She’s going to try to kill Vasier,” Dean said, realizing what all of us had, too.

Clearly, Evaline wrote this message coded, in fear Vasier would read it before it made it to us. But her message was clear.

Ration her blood, because it was the only blood I could drink.

Because she feared she wouldn’t be alive much longer to send it.

Sometimes I feel that this life I live is cursed and that I have no choice but to accept it.

“She’s going to try to kill Vasier,” I confirmed.

It was why she used the word cursed in her message, to refer to her own. To alert us that she would pursue it until its end.

No matter what happens .

“And she knows she won’t survive it,” I said, my voice raw.

She was going to sacrifice herself to fulfill her curse. To end his reign, and I’m sure she hoped, to end the Vasi’s terror on mortals.

Which meant that she would die alone. By herself. Surrounded by the enemy.

All three of them turned to me at the same time, but I only looked to Dean.

“Sage didn’t say anything else?” I pleaded, but he shook his head.

“She didn’t say much more than that, just that Evaline isn’t safe and that Vasier lied to her. She had to hurry back because she feared they’d realize what she was doing, because she’d just gotten into a massive fight with Vasier and Lauden.”

I felt Cora’s eyes on me before she spoke. “Do you think Sage was telling the truth, that she didn’t know Evaline would be harmed?” she asked, turning to Dean. “How has she seemed to you?”

He set his jaw and a flush broke out over his cheeks. “I think she’s seemed sincere, but I can admit that I’m likely not the most objective person on the subject,” he said, looking between Wyott and I.

Cora furrowed her brows and turned to Wyott and me. “What?”

I only looked back at Dean, and Wyott followed suit, so Cora turned back toward him.

“What aren’t you telling me?” she asked, hesitant.

Dean took a breath. “Sage is my mate,” he admitted, and Cora’s brows shot to her forehead.

A thousand emotions flashed across her face as she looked at Wyott and me. She was surprised by that admission, surprised that it was clear Wyott and I had known, understanding that it wasn’t our secret to tell, but finally, the last emotion that flickered was pity. She turned back to Dean, and put a hand on his elbow. “I’m so sorry, Dean.”

But that reaction, the pain we all had for Dean because of what he was going through with a mate who’d betrayed us by putting my mate in danger, only brought my attention back to what had been relayed to us.

That Vasier was going to hurt Evaline somehow.

That she was going to die, to kill him.

They continued talking, trying to comfort me, but I didn’t hear anything other than the ringing in my ears. I didn’t see anything besides the path in front of me. I didn’t feel anything, apart from my rage.

Rage at myself, for committing the most sacred wrong, and putting myself in the position where Evaline had to flee, to try to save me.

Rage at Wyott, for letting her go, although I knew that was unfair.

Rage at my father, for not sending her with forces, with protection.

But mostly, rage at Vasier. Hate for the man who so resembled my father, myself, but was the farthest thing from. Anger that he manipulated so many people, to get exactly what he wanted. Fury, that he had the person I’d prayed for, the reason my heart beat in my chest, the motivation I had to fight back for my control, in his grasp.

That he was going to hurt her, that he already had.

That she was going to die, for all of us, a world away, without me.

But all of that rage, and anger, and fury fueled itself and every one of my steps through my home. Until I was stomping through the halls and slamming the door to the war room open.

My mother’s surprised gasp filled the room, and for a moment I felt guilty for startling her, but my eyes landed on my father as I stood in the door frame.

I didn’t bother shutting the door, I knew Wyott, Cora, and Dean were on my heels.

“Maddox,” was all my father said.

My mother rounded the table from where she stood at the head furthest from me, beside him.

“Dear, what’s wrong?”

My eyes didn’t waver from my father as she spoke, and he didn’t break the gaze.

“Evaline’s in danger. Vasier isn’t going to keep her safe. He needs her for something, and that something isn’t to only use her magic. But what’s worse is that she plans to do what you refused. She’s going to kill Vasier, even if it kills her.”

My mother folded her hands on her chest and shook her head. My father was silent for a moment as he processed the information. And then he spoke.

“I’m sorry to hear that, son. But she knew the risks when she left this kingdom. She knew what she was gambling when she walked outside of these wards.”

I scoffed and walked past my mother as I heard Wyott, Cora, and Dean enter behind me, heard the door shut.

“As if she had a choice. You’d given up on me. You weren’t doing anything to help!” I roared. “A funeral?” My voice was gritty as I tried to shove the words past the emotions, but I could feel the tension rise in the room as my father winced.

“We didn’t think it was possible to come back. We were only doing what we thought you’d want, to give your mother, to give Evaline, peace.”

“What I wanted was a father who’d fight for me! A father who wouldn’t let some petty fight with his own brother interfere with the safety of his family!” I screamed and the pictures on the wall shook. “I wanted a father who didn’t give up.”

My father straightened in his chair, then stood but remained behind the table, and I watched as he swallowed away the emotion in his eyes, in his throat.

“I am the First before I am ever your father. My allegiance is to the kingdom, to these people, before it is to any one person. Before it is to, even, you.”

I felt the air shift as my mother whirled on him.

“Kovarrin!” she gasped, and I was surprised when his words, when his confession, didn’t have any effect on me.

My father and I had always had a strain in our relationship. We loved each other, and I had a good childhood. But there was always something there, looming below the surface. A sense of superiority he had, and I’d always wondered if it was because he didn’t want me to take over his station one day, although he’d trained me for it.

But maybe this had been it.

He chose the kingdom before he chose family.

Maybe that was what a good leader did, maybe I didn’t deserve to be a leader, because I’d forsake my station to save those I loved. Maybe you couldn’t love this fiercely, and rule.

Maybe he’d seen that in me far before I did.

“You have to understand, there are hundreds of thousands of lives that I’m the protector of. Throughout this reign, I’ve had to make some horrible decisions to protect my people. Like I couldn’t go after Vasier for killing Rick,” he said, and I felt Wyott tense behind me at the mention of his father. “Like I couldn’t start a war when Vasier turned you,” he said, his voice solemn. “Like I couldn’t send Evaline with a force to go on what I thought at the time a fruitless endeavor, and why I cannot start a war with Vasier now, to get her back.”

Every person in the room jolted at that, heads raising to look at him in confusion.

“What do you mean, you will not wage war?” Cora asked, stepping forward to stand beside me.

Kovarrin lowered his gaze to her. “I know you’ve been preparing for it, but just because they are out there on our horizon, does not mean that it justifies a war.”

Cora’s head flung back as if she’d been dealt a blow.

“They’re draining humans out there, every night,” she said, her voice aghast.

I looked to my father and waved my hand away from me.

“Leave mine and Evaline’s bond out of it,” I started, taking a step closer to my father. “Leave your history with Vasier out of it. And only see the people he’s killed. People he’s killing. I know you don’t want to wage war because you don’t want to lose any Kova, and Gods, I understand that every death is a loss for our kingdom, for our community. But the only Kova who go to fight, are the ones who’ve volunteered.” I took another step toward him. “They volunteer to fight for humanity, for those who are too weak to stand against the Vasi on their own. They volunteer to fight for the people he’s harmed, that he’s killed. How many centuries have we known that he enslaves humans and takes them to their deaths in Mortithev, and not done anything to stop it? How many more people must die father? And now, when he has Evaline—”

My father rolled his eyes and threw his arms out, before letting them fall back down and collapse against his sides.

“This is why you can’t be objective about this, Maddox,” he hissed. “You only see her as your mate, and you can’t make decisions based on that.”

I ground my teeth but continued.

“If you’d let me finish, you would’ve heard me say that when he has Evaline, he has her magic. Gods know what he can force her to do with it, how he can manipulate it. Her magic could level kingdoms, kill far more humans and Kova than he was capable of before. Now that he has taken this step, now is the time that we can no longer justify staying out of it. How many more people must die, or live in fear, before you understand that it is our duty to step in, to protect those who cannot protect themselves?”

There was silence in the room for a moment, before Wyott spoke. “Maddox is right.”

Cora nodded. “We can’t leave them out there on their own.”

Kovarrin shook his head. “Well, it’s a good thing that none of you are the leaders of Rominia,” he said, aiming for the door, but just before he left, he turned back. “Or have you forgotten that we are locked in here, with no way of getting past those wards?”