Beautiful Torture *Book Two of the Beautiful series*

12) Lilith

Yanking her arm away, Lucy opened her mouth, ready to defend herself, but an exasperated groan from Quinn cut her off. She watched him roll back slightly, in his strange wheeled chair, before slamming a hand down on the table top. His eyes clouded white, a thing Lucy had seen before in both the old woman in the alley and from Lord Ossis himself. Quinn shuttered and groaned again, lifting his hand from the table to clutch his temples until his brown eyes returned. Lilith rushed to his side as he breathed heavily, but he waved her off.

"I see that the plan will work, almost. We could trick our father into thinking Lucy completed his given task. Our spells around our home shield us from his prying Sight. He does not know what goes on within these walls. Lucy could go to him, feigning success at immobilizing us. She could get close enough to splash his body with the potion he intended for us...but..." he hesitated slowly, drawing the word out as he looked to each of those around him.

"But?" Alexander pressed, bordering on impatience.

"But we are betrayed. One of the servants here...the vision was not clear which...will go to him, warn him before the trap can be set."

Lilith laughed then, the sound low and enticing rose goose bumps on Lucy's arms. Somehow, she could sense the gathering corruption in the air like the change that strikes before a powerful storm. "That is simple enough to work with," she sneered, and then set her jaw determinedly. Her hand rose above her before anyone could question what exactly she was doing. Her fingers were splayed wide at first, and then flicking shut. Clenching into a fist.

Short screams echoed in eerie unison down the halls of the manor. Lucy jumped at the sound. She jumped again when the servant who had pulled out her chair took a sudden gasping breath before turning pale as the sea foam that gathered along the rocky shores. He clutched his chest and fell into a great heap, twitching once, his eyes wide like a fish pulled out of water, and then blank. Dead.

Distant crashes in the kitchens and floors above them signaled that the other servants in the house had met a similar end. Lilith stumbled forward then, her knees giving out, and a stream of crimson blood dripped from her nose. Lucy's natural impulse was to go to her, to try to help. The shock, the understanding, had not quite settled in. The pieces of the puzzle were not fitting just right. It was not until she knelt close, ready to help Lilith stand again, that she saw the wicked grin, the blood pooling to stain her gleaming white teeth.

And Lucy thought, in horror, that perhaps Lilith looked more like her father, after all.

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Lucy paced back and forth, the length of their bedchamber, its solid oak floorboards creaking under the pressure of each step.

"She killed them. All of them! All because they believed one might betray us."

She could not wrap her mind around it. The servant man's gaping, dead eyes were burned into the back of her skull. She would never forget them. They would haunt her dreams into eternity.

Alexander and Hunter sat quietly, the king perched on the bed, expression cloaked in deep thought. Her familiar in the corner chair, stared absently into space. "And her brother, he did not even try to stop her. He just nodded and wheeled that bloody chair out of the room like nothing happened! Why does a child of a god sit in such a thing, anyway?" Lucy spat, feeling half unhinged. It did not really matter, the chair, but she needed it to make sense–if nothing else would. She hated to think that she shared the same corrupted blood as these creatures.

"It was a curse of the gods. They feared his power and crippled him. It is rumored he was given the choice between his gifts and his legs...he chose his gifts," Alexander murmured quietly, though his eyes still looked deep in thought. Distracted. Lucy could not believe how calm he was. Did the line between hero and villain no longer exist? What good was helping these two against their father if they were monsters themselves?