Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
ROMULUS
Come back to me, my love.
Her soft voice whispering those words—to my twin brother, of all creatures—haunts me as I take the stairs two at a time.
All Remus knows is war. He was never skilled in the art of sweet words or manipulation. That was our father’s domain and, on occasion, mine. I could manipulate for tactical advantage like no one else in our family.
Remus was only ever chaos. Pure, distilled chaos.
He could burn fury and contention in men’s hearts until they lusted for blood.
He could turn kinsmen against kinsmen, lighting up some personal quibble that had nothing to do with the battle at large and stoking their bloodlust until they’d slay one another on the spot—though the actual battlefield was two leagues away.
So there’s only one true reason he’s brought this beautiful woman to our castle.
He’s done it to torment me.
To allow me to feel the touch and embrace of the most stunning woman I’ve ever encountered, then have her turn away in disgust right after the climax of my first-ever sexual encounter. Because he’s a sadistic fuck and always will be.
He is no one’s love, and the sooner this woman realizes it, the better for everyone involved.
Abaddon will be my ally in this. He’ll see the danger in Remus’s reckless actions—betraying our presence to the humans after two centuries of careful hiding. If I’m fortunate, he’ll agree to another two-hundred-year sentence in the dungeon.
Yes, it means I’ll also be caged. But at least I know my family will come speak to me when I’m awake.
I’ll still have my studies. Layden’s been showing us all sorts of devices that connect the entire world through computers with little screens.
He insists the whole world can be held within the palm of one’s hand now.
I’ll have time to study this new world of his while Remus rots in silence.
Order will be restored.
And Remus will be punished.
I allow myself a small smile at this and breathe out as I pull the phone from the library desk on the second floor. The library was an addition Hannah requested, and we’ve been slowly filling it with tomes and comfortable furniture.
Hannah likes to read in here while Raven plays.
It was a somewhat hairy week while they taught Raven not to fly up, rip books off the shelves, and tear into them with her sharp little fangs.
But Abaddon was patient with his small daughter.
I’ve been quite impressed with my eldest brother’s transformation into an understanding father.
I punch in the phone number Abaddon insisted I memorize before leaving. Did he intuit there would inevitably be an emergency with only Remus and me left behind?
I promised I could keep my brother in check for their weeklong vacation.
I couldn’t even manage three days.
I lift the phone to my ear and listen to it ring. Perhaps he won’t answer. Do I want him to? I’m never pleased to discuss failure, but we can only begin to fix a problem once everyone knows about it.
It rings and rings. I sigh, about to set it down, when it’s answered with a gruff, “What?”
“Abaddon.”
“What’s wrong? What’s happened?” His voice sharpens immediately.
“It’s Remus.”
A heavy sigh comes across the line. “Of course it is. What’s he done?”
“He’s taken a consort.”
“What?” Abaddon roars. “Why didn’t you stop him?”
“I wasn’t awake in time.” The admission tastes bitter. “You need to come home. He also made a spectacle in front of humans. Multiple humans.”
“A spectacle—In front of—Where?” Abaddon demands.
“I’m not certain. I forgot to ask.”
Then I hear voices in the background and some shuffling. Finally, a couple minutes later, Abaddon comes back on the line. “Dammit. Layden’s already found the video. It’s all over the human internet. We’re on our way back.”
“Good.”
I head back upstairs to inform the woman of the good news—that my brothers are returning to handle this disaster properly.
Except right when I reach the landing, my nose lifts and my ears attune to sound below.
There’s activity in the kitchen.
She’s left her room. Hmm. I suppose she does have two functioning legs. I’m just surprised she knows her way around the castle already. How much did Remus show her?
I descend the stairs and pause in the kitchen doorway.
She’s bustling around, hair pulled back from that lovely face, grabbing ingredients and tossing them into a bowl with the ease of someone who’s cooked a thousand meals.
Seeing her, I feel a strange tightness in my chest.
She’s so beautiful. Moves with such sure grace. I can’t help remembering the way fire flashed in her eyes when we sparred upstairs. The defiance. The spirit.
As if feeling my eyes on her, she suddenly looks my way. “Oh.” A surprised little puff of air. “You.”
I swallow hard, forcing my wits to cooperate as I stride into the room. “Me,” I say, relieved when my voice comes out normal instead of strangled.
“I’ve informed my eldest brother of Remus’s latest catastrophe. You’ll be pleased to know they’re all returning from vacation early.”
She surprises me when her eyes light up. Actually light up. “So I’ll get to meet Hannah and the baby?”
I frown. “Uh. Yes. The entire family will be coming.”
She smiles—genuinely smiles—and drops her hands into the bowl, beginning to knead. “Excellent. Remus told me so much about them. I can’t wait to meet them. I assume Kharon and Ksenia will be coming too?”
“Just how much did my brother tell you about our family?” I ask, disconcerted as I move closer despite myself.
Her eyes flash my way briefly. “Everything.” She focuses back on whatever’s in the bowl. “Well, he didn’t tell me very much about you. So now that you’re here, you might as well fill in the gaps.”
My mouth actually drops open.
Then I recover. “I think it would be better if you told me about yourself. Where are you from?”
Her eyes narrow as she pulls yeasty dough from the bowl and slaps it on the counter with unnecessary force. “I’m not telling you that. You’ll just try to take me back there.”
Clever girl.
“It doesn’t matter whether you tell me or not. Layden said the humans have video of Remus descending on your town. He’ll be able to determine the location.”
She hisses in a breath, eyes flashing up at me. Then she glares back at the dough and begins kneading it furiously. “It doesn’t matter. Remus will come for me again.”
Though by the uncertain look that enters her eyes after she says it, I can see doubt taking root.
It’s my job to water that seed until it grows into a forest between them.
“Whatever my brother told you,” I say, making my voice softer, almost gentle, “was a lie. He is not who he presented himself as.”
She scoffs, shaking her head. “What do you know about it? You weren’t there. You were asleep.”
My jaw tenses. For a moment, I worry Remus is threatening to take back our body. But no. I’m still in control.
“I know my twin. Don’t you think I know him better than anybody?”
She slams the dough against the counter one final time, then not only looks at me but takes several purposeful steps toward me. Plants her flour-dusted hands on her hips.
“Oh yeah? Are you two ever awake at the same time? Do you ever actually talk?”
“Well, no.” I blink. “But that doesn’t matter.
We share a memory—usually, anyway. Apart from whatever he’s managed to do these last few days.
..” I frown, regretting having said it out loud when curiosity sparks in her eyes.
I shake my head. “It doesn’t matter. He makes a mess, then I wake up and have to straighten it out.
That’s how it’s always been between us.”
She just shrugs. “Sounds to me like you’re just normal brothers with a serious communication problem.”
I huff out an incredulous laugh. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Maybe.” She holds my gaze. “But I’ve met him, and now I’ve met you. So yeah, I get it. You and him are caught in a seriously inconvenient situation.” She gestures toward my—our—body.
Then she lets out a long, deep breath. “Okay, that’s not fair of me to say. I don’t understand. I’m sure no one can really understand it except you two. I’m sure it sucks a lot of the time to have to share a body. It’s gotta drive you both crazy.”
“He’s definitely crazy,” I mutter.
She cracks a smile at that, and I’m so completely dazzled by the transformation of her face that I lose the thread of whatever point I was trying to make.
“Who’s not a little nuts these days?” she says lightly. “We’re all living in a late-stage capitalist dystopia. Besides, sanity’s overrated.”
Then she turns around, attention back on the bread as she starts kneading again.
Wait.
How am I losing this argument? What point was I trying to make?
Is she intentionally using her femininity as a weapon against me? Because it’s an excellent tactical tool if so.
I stride toward her but make sure to stop on the other side of the counter. Probably best to keep a substantial hunk of stainless steel between me and her delectable curves if I’m going to keep my head clear.
“What I’m trying to say is that there’s no way Remus showed you who he really is. He’s dangerous.”
“So dangerous your brother locked him in a dungeon for two hundred years?” She looks genuinely angry. “Yeah, he told me. Who does that to their own family?”
“So he didn’t tell you why?”
She bites her bottom lip, and I think: Ah. Finally. I’ve landed a point.
“Fine. Why?” she asks without looking up.
“Because he’s a psychopath who couldn’t be trusted not to continue rampaging the countryside.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means my brothers and I had just finished sacking Moscow on Napoleon’s behalf after one of the bloodiest campaigns the world had ever seen.
The rest of my brothers and I were exhausted by all the bloodshed, but Remus?
” I shake my head. “Remus only felt energized by the war. It was the last time the Horsemen would ride before rebelling against our father and retiring for good.”
I see her brow furrowing. Good. She’s listening.
So I press my advantage.
“My other brothers and I had blindly followed our father’s orders for so long.
But Remus did it because he loved it. As the French finally left Moscow in defeat, he roused the peasants to attack in guerrilla warfare—decimating the very army he was supposedly fighting for because he craved war so desperately.
Nearly a million humans died in just six months.
Soldiers and civilians. Yet Remus only hungered for more. ”
Her hands have withdrawn from the bowl. She stares past me at the wall, processing.
“He said he was a soldier...”
I laugh—harsh and bitter. She looks up at me.
“I knew he hadn’t told you everything. Did he mention the part where my brothers and I are the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse?”
She swallows hard. Her eyes go wide. “He might have left that part out.”
Then she shakes her head and laughs a little—nervous, disbelieving. “Horsemen of the Apocalypse? I mean, are you even being serious right now?”
I look her dead in the eye. “Deadly serious. Remus and I are War. My eldest brother Abaddon is Pestilence. Kharon is Death. And the youngest, Layden, is Famine.”
She just blinks. “But—but—” She sputters, waves a hand uselessly in the air. “I thought—doesn’t Abaddon have a wife and a baby? And isn’t Kharon’s—Death’s, according to you—wife or consort or whatever pregnant?”
“Yes,” I say shortly, not wanting her to miss my point. “Like I said, we retired. And it was different for them. They were just trying to be good sons to our father. Obediently following his orders because they didn’t realize there was another way. They were just roles we played, not who we were.”
I pause, let the words settle.
“Except for Remus.”
She scoffs. “Are you kidding? You can’t have it both ways. He told me you’re all thousands of years old. Are you really going to blame everything you did on your dad? I’m pretty sure you’re considered a grown man after the first hundred years, let alone a thousand.”
I breathe out hard.
No one has challenged me so directly in... well, a very long time.
“It’s true, what you say. It’s just a story we’ve told ourselves over the years. But you’re right. We had full responsibility for everything we did. We simply considered human life to be...” I breathe out again. “Of little consequence.”
Her eyebrows shoot up. “Wow. You just said that out loud.”
I stand straighter. “Unlike Remus, I will never lie to you about who I am. We thought ourselves gods. Humans were merely the fodder in our father’s games to gain power.
He manipulated human leaders like pieces in a chess game and cared nothing at all for the pieces knocked off the board—especially pawns.
His only concern was gaining advantage and winning. ”
“And Remus?” she asks quietly. “What did he care about?”
“Nothing!” The word comes out harder than I intend. “He cared for nothing at all. He just delighted in chaos. He was a constant thorn in our father’s side because he didn’t care about winning or losing. He just wanted war, discord, and madness.”
She crosses her flour-dusted arms over her chest. “And you? What did you care about?”
I want to dissemble. Deflect. Change the subject.
But I’ve just promised not to lie to her.
Besides, it’s not like I should want her to think well of me. The sooner we drive her away from here, the better for everyone.
So I look her straight in the eye as I tell her the truth.
“I, too, am War. As much as I might hate my twin at times, I can’t deny we’re two sides of the same coin. He can stir the chaos and mad bloodlust of war, but I brought the order—the genius tactical planning that allowed for true, effective, and total destruction.”
I put my hands on the counter and lean in so she really hears me.
“Remus and I have decimated everything we ever touched. And my brothers knew it. Far more than even my brother Death—who is kind-hearted and gave peace to those in the worst suffering imaginable—Remus and I were the most destructive Horsemen to your world.”
I hold her gaze, let her see the monster I am.
“And I believe with my whole being that we should still be chained to that dungeon wall downstairs. Because I fear Remus will tear a hole through the heart of this realm with his rage and selfishness if he continues to remain free.”