Chapter Ninety-Two: The Cold and the Cruel
The strangest thing happened then. A calm descended—not peace, not acceptance, but a strange, hollow stillness. The guilt they had poured over me like tar began to solidify, to become something I could almost accept.
They were right. I was a Grace. My blood was tainted with their sin—Lyanna's murder, my father's cruelty, Lucas's cold ambition. I had brought this beautiful, wounded family nothing but fresh pain. They had loved me, against all reason, and I had—in their eyes—repaid them with the ultimate betrayal.
Rowan had promised to find me.
But Rowan wasn't here.
And the women who had been my family had just cast me out into the cold.
I didn't wait. I didn't look back. I turned and walked down the drive, onto the empty road, my thin slippers no protection against the frozen ground.
The road stretched ahead, cold and endless. I had nothing to live for. No child. No love. No home. No hope.
But Rowan had promised.
He would find the truth.
He would come for me.
I had to believe that.
Because if I didn't—if I let myself accept that this was the end—then the cold would take me long before he ever had the chance to look.
I walked toward the distant hum of the highway, the sound a siren song of silence. But beneath my feet, with each step, I whispered his promise like a prayer.
Find me. Find the truth. Come for me.
Please, Rowan. Don't let this be the end.
---
The road was a black river swallowing me whole. I walked without direction, each step a mechanical effort against the crushing gravity of loss. My hand stayed pressed to my stomach, cradling a ghost, an emptiness that screamed louder than any pain. My own family. My flesh and blood. They hadn't just rejected me; they had carved out the future from my body and framed me for the murder.
It had to be them. Lucas's cold ambition, my father's ruthless calculus. Or Julian, with his polished vengeance, seeing a way to finally erase Rowan's claim. They had orchestrated a theft so complete it felt like a surgical removal of my soul.
Tears were frozen tracks on my cheeks, my sobs silent huffs of steam in the frigid air. My child. They didn't even let you see the light. The injustice of it was a live wire in my chest, sparking against the numbness.
I turned into a narrow alley, a shortcut through darkness, drawn by the promise of being even more unseen. The headlights pinned me like a moth the moment I stepped into the lane.
A beat-up sedan idled at the alley's mouth. Doors opened. Two men got out, their laughter rough and too loud for the quiet night. The light from the car haloed them, casting long, predatory shadows that stretched toward me.
"Well, look what the night dropped off," one sneered, his voice slurred.
"Lost, little dove?" the other cooed, stepping closer. The scent of cheap beer and stale smoke hit me first, then the look in their eyes—a hungry, impersonal lust that stripped me of my name, my pain, everything. I was just a woman. Alone. An opportunity.
"Stay away," I rasped, taking a stumbling step back, my back hitting the cold brick wall.
They just laughed. The bigger one lunged, his hand clamping around my wrist like a manacle. I fought then. A wild, feral struggle born of pure survival instinct. I kicked, scratched, screamed a raw, ragged sound into the night. My fingernails tore at his face, drawing a line of red. He cursed, backhanding me across the mouth. The metallic taste of blood bloomed on my tongue.
The other man grabbed my flailing legs. "Feisty one! Hold her still!"
I was overpowered in seconds, my strength spent by grief and betrayal. As they dragged me toward the open car door, the smaller one pulled a rag from his pocket. A sickly-sweet chemical smell filled my nostrils.
Chloroform.
Panic gave me one last burst of strength. I thrashed my head, but the soaked cloth smothered my mouth and nose. The world didn't go black. It dissolved into a swirling, chemical gray. The sounds of their laughter, the feel of the cold metal of the car, the biting fear—all of it melted into a thick, suffocating nothing.
---
In the warm, lamplit living room of the Royce mansion, the television was a low hum of evening news. Charles sat in his armchair, reading a report, a gentle frown on his face. He didn't know. He thought his son's wife was recovering in the guest room, that the family was weathering a private, horrific storm.
Aurora and Sophia sat rigidly on the sofa, their knitting and books forgotten in their laps. They were staring at the screen, but not seeing the anchor's polished face. They were listening, their blood turning to ice.
"...breaking news tonight," the anchor's voice was grave. "City police are investigating what appears to be a series of connected abductions and murders. Three young women have been reported missing in the last 72 hours, their bodies discovered shortly after in remote locations—the riverbanks and wooded areas on the city's outskirts. The victims, sources say, show signs of severe assault. Authorities are warning women not to travel alone after dark as they hunt for what they are calling a pair of highly dangerous, opportunistic killers..."
The air in the room crystallized. Aurora's hand flew to her mouth. Sophia's face drained of all color.
Young women. Alone. Abducted. Assaulted. Dumped.
The unspoken name hung between them like a guillotine blade: Aira.
They had thrown her out. Alone. At night. Dressed in nothing but a thin dress, half-mad with grief, with nowhere to go.
Sophia's eyes, wide with dawning horror, met her mother's. Aurora's usually steady gaze was fractured with a terror so profound it looked like guilt. They had acted in righteous anger, believing they were purging a traitor. They had sent a lamb into a forest they now knew was full of wolves.
Neither spoke. They couldn't. To voice the fear would be to admit their role in it. Charles, sensing the shift, looked up. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing, Papa," Sophia whispered, her voice a strained thread. "Just… terrible news."
Aurora simply shook her head, her eyes glued back to the screen where a police sketch—two generic, menacing male faces—now flashed.
What if? The question was a scream in the silent room. What if the broken girl they'd cast out was now lying broken in a ditch, another faceless casualty on the news?
But another, quieter, more selfish thought slithered in, offering a frail branch of hope: What if she's safe? What if she went back to the Graces? To Julian? It was a terrible hope, born of their new hatred for her, but it was preferable to the alternative.
So they stayed quiet. They let the terror choke them, a secret shared between a mother and daughter who had just realized they might have signed a death sentence. The warm, safe house now felt like a gilded cage around a chilling secret, and the night outside had never seemed darker.