“Grayson,” the duke began, but then he stopped.
Gray scoffed at him. What was there this man before him could say? Son, forgive me. Gray scoffed at himself.
“Grayson,” the duke began again, “who is this woman you seek to protect?”
Gray couldn’t help the snarl that wrinkled his nose and scrunched up his lips. “What right do you have to know?”
The duke didn’t answer. His stepson did.
“Your Grace,” he said, addressing the duke, “allow me to drag this ungrateful sot to the prison tower for speaking to you with such disrespect.”
Gray smiled and turned to aim it at Aria. She was deeply intuitive and seemed as if she could understand him without him speaking any words, like the animals did. If she could, in that moment he wanted her to know that nothing was about to happen. No one wanted to die.
In the next instant, he drew his sword and slashed the air with the sharp edge, coming to a stop over a hair rising off the pulse at his stepbrother’s throat. He turned the smile he wore like a mask on Cavendish.
“You were saying?” he asked.
No one breathed. No one dared. It was one of those times when being believed to be mad proved helpful. He knew he could kill Cavendish, but he wouldn’t do it in Dartmouth. No reason to stain the floors with a rat’s blood.
Gray could have demanded that Cavendish take back his accusation. He knew with a sword at his throat, Cavendish would have complied. But then he would have used the excuse that he only withdrew his accusation because he feared for his life.
“Cavendish, if her name ever leaves your mouth, I will hear of it, and I’ll come and kill you.”
“Fa—” the worm tried to call out to his father for help.
Gray’s blade drew a thin line of blood from Cavendish’s neck. The guards surrounding Aria left her and drew their swords, aiming them at Gray.
“Am I not your lord?” he asked them with a mixture of curiosity and anger staining his words.
Lucky for them, they nodded and withdrew. “Step away from the lady,” he warned them, keeping his blade completely still while a droplet of blood fell from the gleaming steel. They obeyed.
“Grayson,” his father shouted, “drop your sword! Have you gone completely mad?”
“Long ago,” Gray answered him. For a moment, even he believed it. Madness had eaten away his brain, so why not kill the boy who had broken his ribs three times and was responsible for almost as many bloody noses and sliced lips Harry Gable had inflicted on him?
“Grayson.”
His thoughts faltered at the sound of his grandmother’s voice. He had never forgotten it.
“Put down your sword this instant,” she warned calmly. “Or I’ll send her back right before your eyes.”
He blinked. What did she just say? He turned to look at her standing near Aria.
He dropped his sword as she commanded, but his eyes burned with blue fire when he set them on her. She hadn’t changed, save for the first time he saw tears in her eyes. He didn’t care how she looked. Trembling anger coursed through him. The first thing she did when she returned after fifteen years was to threaten him.
“If you disturb a hair on her head without her consent again, I’ll never forgive you,” he promised just as calmly. “I’ll figure out how to use my gifts and I’ll find her—if it takes me a lifetime, I’ll search—disturbing every moment of time I get my hands on—until I find her, and then I’ll send us back to this moment when I cut my strings from you once and for all.”
She looked horrified, with tears misting her eyes. Aria too, looked heartbroken with tears streaming down her cheeks. The sight enraged him more. Why would she ever want to stay in this miserable place?
“Why did you return, Grandmother?”
“It was time. Come, you’ve already said too much. Let’s go speak in private.”
“I’m not going anywhere without Aria.”
“Have you been in contact with my family?” Aria pleaded the instant his grandmother’s eyes met hers.
“They are well, dear girl,” Aria’s Mrs. B. assured her. “They think you went on a trip to Germany for the school.”