Chapter 71: Chapter 71

It took me a good few minutes to spot him kneeling behind a huge headstone. Wandering over to him, he looked up when my shadow cast over him.

“Ivy, I mean my Queen,” he said, baring his neck to me.

“Ivy is fine,” I tell him, and he lets out a breath.

“So can I help you with something?” he asked, and I shrugged, looking down at what he was doing. He was scrubbing and cleaning the headstones and removing the d**d flowers.

“Want some help?” I asked, and he chewed his lip before peering over the headstone and glancing at the castle. “Are you allowed?” He whispered, and I peered back over at the castle.

“Yes, I don’t see why not,” I shrugged.

“Well, I am nearly done with this row. If you grab another bucket and brush, you’ll also need a polishing rag,” he said, showing me his tucked into his belt. Nodding, I turned and walked back toward the castle.

“In the laundry room, Ivy,” he called, and I nodded, going in search of the cleaning supplies.

Retrieving what I needed, I earned a few strange stares from those working in the laundry, but they said nothing or questioned me as I slipped back out with everything. Making my way back to Peter, he was in the next row and stood up, coming over to me.

“Where do you want me?” I asked him, and he looked around.

“Um, well, you could start in the middle. Those are pretty old though and require more scrubbing, or there is the servant’s cemetery over there,” he said, pointing closest to the forest and castle. “Or the hunters and rebels’ victims are the ones nearest the river.” He says before looking at me.

“Hunters and rebels victims?”

“Yes, most of those k****d by rebel leaders Marrissa and Darclay, Marissa was a rogue werewolf she k****d the King’s sister and that um, the royal family, they live, yeah I don’t know hours out that-away, he said, pointing toward the forest.

“Darclay, was the human head hunter that recruited her,” Peter rambled on to say, yet I was still stuck at the mention of my mother’s name. Did Peter not know why the King kicked me out of the castle?

“How many are there?” I asked, looking out at the spanning field of graves.

“From the hunters? Though most kills came from Marrissa, she would pretend to be a servant and then k**l everyone while they were sleeping. Most of those are from her, about 211 last time I counted,” he shrugged.

211! When I heard that all those lives had been lost, and because my mother was behind it all, I was sick to my stomach.

“Yep, she was the worst Lycan serial k****r in history,” Peter said grimly.

“The King never got over it; he found his sister, and Marrissa cut her unborn child out of her and mutilated her before stuffing her back in her womb. Well, that’s what I heard anyway from Trey; he is one of the guards,” he says, making me feel sick.

He then turned back to the grave he was cleaning and made my way to the back. The first grave l came to belonged to a woman kneeling down. I set to work. When I finished hers, I moved to the next and looked across the rows; the weight of what my mother had done settled heavily on my shoulders.

It was hard to comprehend how she could do such a thing to her own people. After turning back to the grave in front of me, I noticed that it had the same last name as the woman’s grave beside it and that it was a child’s grave. 3 months old, the child was barely given a chance to live. My heart broke as l stared at the picture of the little angelic face on the headstone.

I was the daughter of a serial k****r. I had bad blood. My hands were tainted by the blood of the woman who carried me. I scrubbed the grave and cleaned it before moving on to the next and next. With each one, the pit of my stomach became deeper. The skin on my fingers was bleeding from the wind, and my hands were chapped from it. It was impossible for me to stop. I had to undo what she did to remove the taint she had marked on them. When I finished the row, I moved on to the next and the next when suddenly feet stopped beside me.

I was caught off guard by his growl, and I forgot entirely that I hadn’t checked in with Clarice. Looking around, I noticed it was almost dark outside.

Taking the scrub brush from my hands, he snarled, “D**n it, lvy, look at your hands.”. I snatched it back from turning back to the grave; if I could just clean them all, it would undo it. My mind was consumed with what she had done; I didn’t know what else to do, didn’t know how to take it back.

The King snarled, snatching the scrubbing brush and tossing it in the bucket. The water splashed against me, and I could see guards coming in our direction.

“You didn’t check-in; Clarice is now in trouble for covering for you. Why are you out here? You disobeyed me,” he snapped before bending down and gripping my arms. He shook me. Though my eyes stared blankly. Couldn’t he see the blood on my hands? What she did? How it tainted me, l needed it off.

Needed to erase it, erase her. She didn’t deserve to be remembered, not after what she did. She was an imposter. The woman who raised me was a monster; I was the monster she gave life to.

“You’re sunburned; your skin is blistered,” he hissed. Trying to drag me toward the castle, I thrashed, yanking out of his grip. “Ivy!” he snapped, reaching for me as I grabbed the scrubbing brush. I could take it back; it would go away. I just needed to clean them. His hand gripped my arm, and the growl that left me made him and everyone near me freeze.

“Ivy?” Kyson whispered, and I looked up at him.

“She k****d them. I loved her, and she k****d them. How could she love me and k**l them?” I cried. All the hurt from the years of torture made so much sense now. It was punishment for being hers. Karma came back and took vengeance on Abbie and me. Everything that Abbie endured. I endured was because of what she did because I was the monster created by a serial k****r. And all because I loved her when she deserved love. I loved a monster, and I called her mum.