The Vampire & Her Witch

”They’re treating her like a prize mare,” Virve said, narrowing her eyes as her fur raised at the notion of someone offering her to whichever man was chosen to sit on the Lothian Throne. ”Do those men see her as anything more than a field to plow and plant their seeds in?”

”No, they don’t,” Ashlynn said bitterly. ”But Owain is very good at pretending otherwise. ’Prize mare’ is exactly the way he thinks of women. He’ll treat them gently so he doesn’t spook them, but...”

”Owain is already ’breaking’ your sister the way you’d break a horse,” Isabell said, wincing slightly when her expression of disgust tugged at flesh that was still tender from the brief kiss of the hearth’s heat. ”He hasn’t struck her, but Jocelynn says he’s come close. Ever since he returned from Blackwell County, and even a bit before he left, she’s been doing everything she can to keep him pacified and content with her.”

When Isabell thought back on the list of things the young lady had admitted to doing in order to keep Owain’s attention, her stomach churned and her hands shook with the desire to find a weapon. Confessor Eleanor’s presence had been enough to keep Owain from deflowering the young lady before they could be married, but he’d been far too free with his hands and Jocelynn had been too afraid of his anger to deny his advances.

”Ashlynn, I won’t pretend that Jocelynn’s circumstances come close to what you have suffered,” Isabell said. ”But... She’s all but alone in Lothian Manor and she’s being schemed against on all sides.”

”Bors is treating her like a set piece who’s destined to marry whoever he chooses to give his throne to,” Isabell said, holding up one finger, then adding another finger as she continued to speak, ticking off her points as she went. ”Owain is treating her like she’s already his property, and you know very well how little he cares for things he owns completely.”

”Loman is actively contending for the throne,” Isabell continued, holding up a third and final finger. ”But he’s keeping his distance from Jocelynn. When I spoke to Confessor Eleanor, she implied that the Church won’t do much if anything to support your sister in Lothian City. In fact, the Church seems to be taking a step back while they wait to see the dust settle between the two brothers.”

Isabell had hoped that the Church could at least become a place of refuge for Jocelynn, much like it had been for Jocelynn’s mother. But aside from Confessor Jocelynn who was acting as a chaperone for a member of her own family and the four Templars who had come with them, the Church intended to offer no support.

Publicly they didn’t want to be seen as taking sides, but privately, Isabell wondered if the Church wasn’t as unified in the matter of the Lothian Succession as they claimed to be. The whole situation reeked of compromise between factions that each wanted something different, whether they supported the pious and compassionate Loman or the aggressive demon-slaying Owain and it left Jocelynn stuck in the middle without support of the only other power in Lothian City who could protect her from the Lothians themselves.

”You’re saying that she’s already suffering for betraying me,” Ashlynn said, frowning at her friend as hot anger flared within her chest again. ”So I should forgive her for what she’s done? Accept that she’s suffered enough?”

Once again, Ashlynn found her heart at war with itself. Part of her wanted to rush to Lothian Manor and pull her sister away from the men who were treating her so callously while another part all but cackled in a twisted form of glee. Her sister’s suffering was entirely the result of her choice to betray Ashlynn and now that it wasn’t working out... wasn’t that a form of the world giving vent to her feelings?

”I’m saying that, whether you want revenge on her for what she did or not,” Isabell said, looking directly into Ashlynn’s emerald eyes. ”Now that she understands the man she ’sacrificed’ her sister to be with and the way the Lothian family would treat her, she may not survive long enough for you to reach her.”

”I’ve stopped her from taking her own life for now,” Isabell said flatly. ”She was convinced that the only way she could make up for what she had done to you was to use up her own life to help you reach the Heavenly Shores, and if she was lucky, she might have taken Owain down with her. But even if she doesn’t try something as foolish as using her closeness with Owain to try to kill him, if he realizes that she’s no longer besotted with him...”

”He won’t let her go,” Ashlynn said, slumping in exhaustion as she came to fully understand her sister’s circumstances. Any joy she might have tasted at her sister’s suffering turned to bitter ashes when Isabell explained that Jocelynn’s guilt had consumed her enough that she would throw away her life for a chance to kill Owain.

”He’d never let his prize go,” Ashlynn said flatly. ”Just because she doesn’t love him anymore, that doesn’t mean he won’t force himself on her... If both his father and mine support their marriage after the sham of my ’death in childbirth’, what’s to stop him from doing whatever he pleases with her?”

The other possibilities that occurred to Ashlynn were even worse. If Bors Lothian selected Loman as his heir and tried to take Jocelynn away from Owain, who knew what the eldest son would do? Ashlynn was certain that Owain would feel compelled to deny his brother the chance to claim the woman who ’should be his’, but killing Jocelynn or running away with her were both far too tame for the kind of man Owain was.

No, Ashlynn thought, if Bors tried to give the throne and Jocelynn to Loman, then Owain was certain to ’ruin’ Jocelynn in every way he could. Especially if he realized she no longer adored him the way he once had. He would break Jocelynn so badly that Loman would be left with a living, constant reminder of what happened when he took something that ’belonged’ to his brother.

”I know she’s hurt you, very badly,” Isabell said. ”And I don’t know if you can ever forgive her for that. I don’t know if you should,” she added, raising a hand weakly to forestall any argument on the topic. ”But... Whatever fate she suffers, I don’t think it should be men like Owain and Bors Lothian who get to decide.”