Chapter 33
“W here is the wine?” Petra asked as she settled on the large cushion on the ground in front of the low table covered in books.
Six days after Rix, Emerson and Carter had found the hidden library, they were settled into a rental house in the northern Liberties, officially celebrating the feasting holiday.
It was after dinner, Petra creating one hell of a meal for all of them.
Now, she was relaxing in the living room while Leo and Carter cleaned up the kitchen.
Since finding the books, things had been slightly different.
Emerson was focused on figuring out what exactly the right course was, and her sexy psychos had, for the most part, become less so, though she had a feeling that that wasn’t who they all were at their core.
Learned behavior wasn’t inherent behavior.
And her guys seemed to be enjoying it all.
“Here,” Rix said and poured more of the crisp white wine into her glass.
“Thank you. Now where were we?” They had been working on everything since they got there the afternoon before, between prepping for the meal and sexy bouts of indiscretions.
"Emerson was waffling about the history of The Order," Easton said, sounding distracted.
He'd been flicking through one of the books the guys had brought from the Chesapeake house, despite Emerson's protests.
There had simply been too much to read and they didn't have enough time to go back there before they left for the Longest Night ritual.
"He does love to waffle," Finn teased. "But seriously, has anyone found any more recent records? We still haven't figured out why The Order included killings in the first place. It doesn't sound like that's what it was all about at first."
“I don’t waffle. I love waffles,” Emerson said. “There is a big goddamn difference.”
Ignoring her cheeky lover she looked to Finn, who was sitting imperiously in the large wingback chair, a glass of scotch in his hands.
“Finn and I were looking at a book earlier...” she began, remembering they had only got so far before he had put her on her knees, and slipped inside her, making her read to him.
The book had been forgotten soon enough, but she had found a specific passage.
“And I did find one thing... Easton, hand me the yellow book there.”
"Sure." Easton passed her the book she asked for, setting aside the one he'd been flicking through so he could devote all of his attention to her.
She opened it and flipped through a few pages.
“Here... Okay, so,” she began to read. “When the solar eclipse was in Draco, Brother Garbi received a devotion, one mired in blood.” She looked up at them and back down.
“To which, blood is the life,” she frowned, “This isn’t Dracula, ugh, and it shall bring life to him. ”
Emerson frowned. “The eclipse in Draco was around a hundred and fifty years ago.”
"It's disturbing that you just know random shit like that off the top of your head," Leo said, coming into the room and sprawling in an armchair near the fire.
"So it's really recent," Easton said, sounding shocked. "The Order is thousands of years old. Are you telling me they've only been including killings over the last two centuries?"
“No, I’m saying that it has been largely killings for the past two centuries,” Petra said.
“This book says that blood rites were a natural part of the worship, but it was in balance with life rites, and those included...” she flipped through another few pages, “births, sexual rites and the rites of abundance.” She read through a few more.
“But a lot of those rites were tedious and were left to the female side of the group. It was when Brother Garbi had the devotion about blood that all life rites were given to the women. And males started with blood.” She sneered.
“So apparently because the life rites were too involved, they got rid of them. Because they were lazy?”
“That’s fucking interesting,” Emerson offered. “And I didn’t just know that about the eclipse. Google is your friend.” He shook his tablet at them.
"What is kind of interesting is that a lot of those rites involve blood," Leo pointed out, being serious for once.
"The ascendance to womanhood, the birthing of a child, the loss of virginity.
.. All of those have some element of bleeding to them.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if there were monthly rituals to be done, too. "
"They ever do anything like that at the orphanage?" Easton asked curiously.
She shook her head...then stopped. “Well...no...but when we got our periods for the first time, each of us, there was a special dinner.” She looked to them. “And flowers given to us, as well as pomegranates.”
"So if it's the blood that's important, not the life or the death, killing isn't necessary?" Easton pressed, looking pale.
"We don't know that for sure," Finn soothed, trying to calm him down. "We know that our sacrifices have been feeding Him all these years."
"But nowhere near the amount of energy that He gets from the small drips we make after a night with Petra," Easton persisted. "It's all backwards. Sex is about life. Blood is about life. What if we were never supposed to kill and it was all just some huge fucking misunderstanding?"
“I’m not ruling that out,” Jack said as he walked in, bringing more wine, and some water with him. “Is it at all possible that it was not only misunderstood, but willfully done?”
“What do you mean?” Emerson asked.
“I mean things changed when this Brother Garbi had a devotional, right? What if he did have it, but interpreted it how he wanted to, to gain power?”
"It's possible," Finn shrugged. "The priests are supposed to be impartial and absolute. If he was in charge of the Lore Keepers at the time, they might not have questioned his 'revelation.'"
"How could they not?!" Easton was on his feet, full of rage and sorrow. "How could they not question a total about turn from something that had been working for three thousand years?"
"Times were different then," Finn said, leaning forward, ready to move if Easton exploded.
"Brother, no one is saying that killing is inherently bad," Leo said calmly, his tone belying the fact that he was also poised to spring. "Some of the people we've sacrificed have more than deserved it. You had every right to kill those fuckers."
"You don't get it!" Easton's eyes were filling with tears as he hissed.
"If those lazy fuckers hadn't decided to do away with the women, and if this fuckwit Garbi hadn't been on a power trip, I wouldn't have been in the orphanage and I wouldn't have had to kill those fucking assholes!
Your fathers would all still be alive! We'd have had mothers!
" His voice broke and he abruptly spun and left the room.
Petra leaped to her feet and ran after him, leaving the guys to argue, searching Easton out. She found him pacing in the study. Stopping dead in the doorway, her heart hurt for him. Any of her other guys, she would have gone to them directly, to comfort them, hold them, but Easton...
To her astonishment, the moment he saw her, he fell into her arms. "My whole life feels like a lie," he wept. "I don't know what to do. I don't know how to feel." His tone was so agonized her heart broke all over again.
“Easton, if I could take this pain from you, I would. Devour it, and hold it I would. No one deserves what you have been through.” Tears fell down her cheeks, her arms around him holding him tight.
Gods, it felt so good to hold him, like a switch had been flipped and an ache was gone, an ache she didn’t even know she had been nursing.
"I wouldn't wish this on anyone." He was burrowed into her, face in the crook of her shoulder, so his words were muffled.
“Of course not. You’re a good person,” she said softly, running her fingers through his hair. “Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t take the pain for you. Because that is what you do when you care for someone.”
"I just can't... I can't..." He howled in rage and grief.
“I know. I know, baby, I know,” she said softly and kissed the top of his head. Her poor perfect Easton. He needed to grieve, needed to come to grips, because he wouldn’t survive, they wouldn’t survive without him.
"What am I supposed to do?" He wept, his whole body shuddering with the force of his grief.
“If I was a normal person I would say to forgive...to work through it... But I’m not normal, and neither are you, my love,” she said softly. “And I know whatever we do won’t fix things, won’t fix you, but whatever we do, we do it together. I won’t let you drown alone, Easton. I promise.”
"How am I supposed to tell a therapist any of this?" he said helplessly.
She saw his point. “I don’t know, love. None of this is normal...so maybe we don’t approach it like normal people.”
"I want to be better," he told her, pulling away finally, his face blotched and tear-stained. "For me. For you. The others. I thought I could fix this, but the more we learn, the worse it gets."
Taking his face in her hands, she looked him over.
“Easton, I don’t know what do to make this better, aside from you guys killing every last one of them, and then maybe we.
..maybe we can work on it together, to heal you, to try to make things better.
” She gave him a small smile. “It hurts me so much to see you struggling so bad, knowing it’s an enemy we can’t really face.
I’m going to do everything I can, try everything, to ensure things get better. ”
"You'd do that for me?" The look in his eyes was so lost. "Even when I can't...be with you like the others can?"
“I told you, Easton, there are plenty of ways to love someone...and it doesn’t have to be physical. Being with you is all I want, however you feel safe. I love you, Easton, it doesn’t hinge on anything but you being you.”
"How can you love someone as damaged as me?" he asked, completely bewildered.