A Beast's Tale

Chapter 49

'Awkward' was a wholly insufficient word to describe the events that followed.

Ivetta insisted our wounds needed attention before we left for the palace. I had none save the cut on my left forearm, but I'd inflicted many lacerations of varying depths on Luke's torso, arms, and legs, and I had to tend to myself while she cleaned and dressed my shirtless, muscular younger brother's injuries. She had no untoward thoughts, of course, nor had he—to start. There was a change in the way he looked at Ivetta as she worked. I, too, knew the appeal of a woman who expressed such caring behavior, and I knew he wasn't equating her with his sister anymore.

Fortunately, she was uncomfortable with him removing his pants, and he refused to allow anybody else to touch him. Since the afternoon was wearing thin and she'd addressed the worst of his injuries, she consented to our leaving on the condition he permitted a physician at the palace to see to the remaining gashes upon our arrival. Thus, Clavis and Nokto stayed behind to finish cleaning up, and Lucien and Cyril escorted the carriage on horseback. Nobody pointed out how ludicrous it was for my maid to be giving the orders.

I sat across from Luke and Ivetta and wished I were anywhere else. I couldn't leave them alone, of course, but it felt as though I were invading their privacy. He looked miserable, his shoulders slumped in defeat and his eyes still red from crying, and she sat beside him, close enough for their thighs to touch, keeping a hand on him at all times. She meant to comfort him, I knew, and her gestures were innocent. The sight of her hand on his arm or her fingers intertwining with his irritated me, nonetheless.

Under her gentle prompting, he unraveled the sordid tale, beginning with his return home from working in another village to finding his hometown under attack and his sister half buried in the rubble of his house. He had dug her out, only to catch the eye of a few Obsidianite soldiers who took pleasure in torturing helpless children. Jin and the Rhodolitian army had arrived in time for Jin to swoop in and remove Luke's sister from harm's way, but then Luke, on the verge of consciousness, saw Jin slit his sister's throat. The rest of the house had collapsed on him before Jin could reach him.

He stopped there, and I kept my mouth shut. The questions I had could wait until later, when Ivetta was no longer present, and I knew he wouldn't listen to my explanation about Jin granting his mortally wounded sister a mercy. Ivetta made a careful suggestion to that effect, and his anger rose as he insisted she might have survived with appropriate medical care. He calmed down again with Ivetta's light touch and soothing words.

I was uncertain how I would contain him after she left for the day. It would have been easier if I could throw him into the dungeons where he belonged, but neither she nor Jin would allow that. I would have to settle for placing him under house arrest and assigning competent guards to monitor his every move while my brothers and I deliberated his fate at a round table, which would undoubtedly last late into the night.

The carriage jostled to a stop. A muscle in Luke's jaw flexed as he looked out the window at the palace, the hatred he felt for it now undisguised. "So, what now? Ya gonna lock me up?"

"Yes." I opened the carriage door and called to Lucien and Cyril as I stepped down to the courtyard. "Escort him to his room and ensure he stays there. You," I continued, directing my command to a nearby guard, "send for a physician."

When I turned back to the carriage, Ivetta and Luke were still inside. She was saying something to him, her voice too quiet for me to hear. He nodded and climbed out, then offered her a hand.

"Oh, my—what happened?" a feminine voice exclaimed. I glanced back at the main entrance, where Belle stood, pale-faced and wide-eyed. She hesitated only a moment before running to Ivetta, with Rio on her heels, of course. "Are you hurt? Why are you covered in blood? Why are... you're all..." Her wide brown eyes drifted to me and then to Luke. I'd discarded the brown cloak, which had served well to conceal me and take most of the blood spatter, and the single bloody tear in my left sleeve was of little consequence when compared with Luke's bloodstained, tattered clothing. "Luke..."