Tarnished Embers: A Dark Stepbrother Fairytale Retelling (Dark Retellings)

Beep. Beep. Beep…

The sound infiltrates the dark and drags me away from the blissful nothingness into a world full of aches. My eyelids flutter, but I’m unable to open them fully because they’re just so bloody heavy right now. Though there’s a pressure on my hand that has my fingers twitching.

“Little Sis?” a familiar voice whispers, the note of desperation mixed with relief making my chest feel tight. “Kit, I think she’s waking up.”

Kit…Oct…the twins.

It takes a tremendous effort to force my dry eyes open, but it’s worth it when I’m met with clear blue orbs, the colour of a tropical sea.

“Oct?” The word hurts, and my tongue licks my dry lips before the rim of a plastic cup is pressed against them a moment later. I look away from Oct to drown in stormy blue eyes as Kit holds the cup to my lips.

“Drink, Pretty Thing,” he orders in barely a breath, and I don’t miss the way his hand trembles as he urges me to drink the water.

Cool liquid fills my throat, and before I realise, it’s all gone, my mouth feeling less like a desert.

“Better?” Oct questions as Kit pulls the empty cup away, and I nod.

“Where am I?” I ask, lifting my hand to brush some hair away from my face. I still as the white bandage comes into view, covering me from elbow to wrist, the beeping sound getting faster as my heart thrashes inside my chest.

Tearing my gaze away, I peek up into Oct’s beautiful eyes, but they’re not the happy, carefree light colour that I know. Instead, they’re full of anguish, of terror, and…guilt.

Memories slam into me with the force of a truck and the sound of a keening animal overtakes the beeping. Hands holding me down, a blow to my head… Pain, so much pain that I’m drowning.

“We’re here, baby. You’re safe,” Kit assures me, the bed dipping in the front and back as they sandwich me between them. A summer meadow mixes with lime and mimosa as they engulf me in their arms, and it helps to calm my racing pulse a little.

I scream when the door flies open and a strange man strides in. My entire body goes hot, then ice-cold, tremors making my abused body ache as I bury my face into Oct’s chest.

“Get the fuck out!” Oct roars as I shudder in his arms. “She’s fucking terrified of you!”

“I need to check if she’s okay,” the man says, his voice loud over my whimpers, but I ignore him, gripping the front of Oct’s shirt in my clenched fists tighter as I hyperventilate.

“If you cared, you’d stop denying what happened to her. Now fuck off and send a woman in here,” Kit sneers, his arm around me from behind as he aligns our bodies so close that not a breath of air lies between us.Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org exclusive © material.

My body relaxes slightly, knowing that the twins will keep me safe, that they are not like those other men who hurt me.

“Shhh, Little Sis, we’ve got you,” Oct murmurs, placing a kiss to the top of my trembling head. “He’s gone now, baby.”

As my body relaxes further, the aches from before turn sharp, agony along both forearms and between my legs, my head and around my throat. Hazy memories try to push through again now that the threat has left the room, but I shove them down deep, not ready to face them just yet.

“Ember, sweetheart, the nurse is here. Can she check your vitals?” Kit asks, shifting like he’ll move.

A cry leaves my lips, and then he’s back pressed against me in an instant, his arms wrapping around me once more before his hands smooth down my side.

“Maybe you boys can help?” a soft feminine voice suggests, and I nod into Oct, still not ready to face the room.

“We can do that. What do we need to do?” Oct questions, and they spend the next few moments helping to take my blood pressure and temperature before taking out the wires and the drip that I no longer need.

I keep my face pressed against Oct, taking gulping breaths of his summery scent into my lungs, letting it calm my racing pulse.

“All done now, Ember. I’ll leave you to rest and be back with some food in a bit,” the feminine voice says, and seconds later, there’s the soft sound of the door closing.

“It’s just us now, sweetheart,” Kit whispers as he presses a light kiss on my cheek. My eyelids droop, all the adrenaline leaving me exhausted.

“Rest now, Little Sis. We’ll keep watch,” Oct assures me as my eyes close fully. “We’ll never leave you alone again.”

CAS

Prince and I wait in the cold wet night, the skatepark along the river deserted. Why the fuck does it rain so much in England?

I glance at my watch, noting that it’s nine-fifty-nine and they’re not here yet. I would have thought that they would be early, given their revered reputation.

The sound of footsteps rings out, and I glance up to see three figures emerging from the misty darkness. All the hair stands on end along my arms under my coat when they pass by a streetlamp and I see black masks covering their faces, rendering them completely unrecognisable.

My pulse thuds as they get closer. They look like apparitions, dark demons waiting to take our souls, and that’s exactly what Prince promised them; a favour at some unspecified time in the future. It could be as simple as gathering some intel, or they could ask us to kill someone, you never know with these guys.

They stop a couple of feet in front of us, the guy in the middle stepping forward. It’s funny, I’d always believed there were four Fallen to each sect or group, but rumour has it that this sect, Lucifer’s group, lost one of its members last year and no one knows why or how.

“Prince, Caspian,” a dark voice greets us from the man in front.

“Lucifer.” Prince inclines his head respectfully, and I copy the move. You don’t disrespect the Fallen and expect to come away still breathing. Adrenaline makes my muscles tense, my pulse rapid as I straighten.

Lucifer reaches into a briefcase that I hadn’t realized he was holding before pulling out a black folder.

“This is the information you asked for, but in short, there seems to be several coverups with the deaths of Richard Everly, Brant Johnson, and Michael Scott.” My heart explodes inside my chest, my fingers clenching into fists at his words, at the truth of what that bitch did to my dad, to all our dads. “The autopsy reports all suggest interference of some kind, suggesting they did not die of natural or accidental causes.”

Prince takes the folder, his nostrils flared. There’s a slight tremble in his hand as he pulls the folder close.

“Thank you, Lucifer,” he chokes out, and my brows furrow when I glance at the stoic leader to see him reaching into the briefcase and pulling out several other folders. “What are they?”

“All the evidence of the parties Odette threw, the payments into her accounts, and a USB with videos that she took during the parties,” Lucifer states, his tone completely devoid of emotion as he hands one folder to Prince. Nausea swirls in my stomach, bile burning my throat at the knowledge that there are videos of us fucking all those women. That was not something I knew was happening. Then he holds out another folder. “This is the true and final last Will and Testament of Robert Everly.”

“What?” Prince’s voice is a rasp, and I can barely hear it over the blood rushing past my ears.

“It states that Ember Everly was his sole heir and that his business was, in fact, thriving. Congratulations, she’s a very wealthy young woman.”

“Fuck,” I whisper, and Lucifer’s masked face turns to gaze at me. It’s disconcerting, but the shock at having learned the depth of Odette’s deception makes it seem like it has less impact. Finding out that we didn’t need to go through everything we just did is going to be a bitter pill to swallow. Then he holds out the final folder.

“The names and addresses of the four men who raped your stepsister,” Lucifer states casually as he presents the last black folder to Prince, and for a moment, I can’t breathe, can’t hear past the rushing of the wind in my ears.

“How did you know?” Prince asks, his voice darkness personified as he takes the folder.

The side of Lucifer’s lip quirks up, the only part of his face not covered by his mask. “No charge for that one or the others, just one favour owed as agreed.”

He shuts the case, then turns his back on us and strides away past the other two masked men.

“Make it hurt,” the one on the left says, his hair pitch-black in the dark. His voice is fucking scary, a low rasp like a rattlesnake’s just before it strikes.

“Then fuck her in their blood,” the one on the right suggests, his tone light and playful like his almost grey hair which shines silver in the moonlight before they follow Lucifer and leave us in the dark.