Sixty-Three
Varius
I want to tear free of my binds and rip out his fucking throat. Even if I managed to pull the nails out though, the three witch’s snares would keep me thoroughly restrained.
I am helpless.
I am weak.
And I have to make an impossible choice.
All my life, I have been forced to make them. Kill Talon or hear him out? Send Maddox in to almost certain death or risk never seeing my wife? Torture the woman I’m in love with or lose Khalid, the only brother I truly trust, forever? Listen to the woman who raised me, who protected me all my life, or the one I’ve only known for a few months? Focus on saving Micha or Rudy? Stop to try to save Leno or run for my wife? Eyes? Or ears?
I’ve not always made the right choice.
But this isn’t right.
Neither of these choices are right.
Rudy is like a fucking son to me, and this whole time I have been focusing on Micha. I can’t end it with him dying because I chose her friend – my friend over him. I won’t. I don’t care how much he’d make that choice himself.
He is my son, and I cannot leave him to die.
Nor can I choose Dayne, the only man my wife needs to recover. She doesn’t love me anymore. She hates me with every fiber of her soul, and no doubt will run away as soon as she’s free. So she needs Dayne. I need him to watch out for her when I am gone from this world – giving up my life so she can continue to live without being forced to complete the blood bond. Without being forced to tie herself to a man she hates.
“Choose,”
Antonio says, his tone light and mocking.
I look at Rudy, tears in my one remaining eye, the other in my stomach – or perhaps having already passed through to the sheets. He looks at me and gives a little nod. Choose me. I’m ready.
I know he’s suicidal. I’ve walked in on him trying to kill himself multiple times. He’s only here because he loves us, because he knows how big of a hole his death will bring to the family. But he isn’t happy as much as he smiles. He has chaos magic inside him, and it’s tearing him apart. So if I choose him, maybe he won’t die.
I shake my head, my whole heart bleeding. I can’t.
He smiles at me. A bit sad but entirely without judgment. Without blame. You can. I’m ready.
I’m ready.
I’m ready.
Well, I’m fucking not!
I’m not ready to lose another brother.
I thought Rudy the most infallible of us with his magic. With his self sacrifice to stay alive and be our emotional support. We need him with his love of the little things in life. His rosy glasses. His time out to stop and smile. We need his comfort. His humor. His warmth. We need all that he is. I need him.
I can’t lose him.
“I need you,” I rasp.
He looks at me softly. “Not if you have her.”
But I might not have her. I might have lost her for good given all the things I’ve done, and I fucking understand it. I failed to save her. I took her magic. She thinks I made the choice to take her fucking eyes. To hurt her again despite my promises.
So she believes Antonio. Believes him to be her savior. The one who hasn’t lied to her because she isn’t of the right mind to see his words for the lies they are.
What if I choose? What if I give up on my son, and she just leaves?
Pure agony rushes through me. I can handle her walking away from me to be happy somewhere else. But I can’t do it while also losing Rudy. Can’t stomach it. Can’t handle it. I start to hyperventilate. Can’t hold back the tears.
“Aw, look at the big man cry,”
Antonio mocks.
I ignore him, keeping my eye on Rudy. A silent question. Can you control your magic?
Pain flashes in his eyes. He shakes his head.
And I break.
Chaos magic isn’t like regular magic; it doesn’t wait to be commanded. It’s wild and unpredictable, and it will latch on to every one of our fears, bringing them to life. If he tries to use even a little, to poke a hole in his tight control, the magic will burst free.
And my greatest fear is losing them all. Micha, Rudy, all my other brothers, my mother, Dayne, Lou, and Stefaan. Everyone I care about, everyone my wife cares about could be killed in an instant, wiped from this world by Rudy’s magic.
I can try to focus on a different fear of mine, pull up the line-dancing goats that I’ve conditioned myself into being afraid of just for him. But I know Dayne’s greatest fear is losing Micha. Antonio’s too. And I don’t want to know what horrible things Eduardo can come up with. Or Terra – one of the strongest disease witches in the last two hundred years.
And then there’s Rudy’s fear.
The whole world gone. His body rotting with decay. But he’s still alive, left to wander alone in perpetual pain. Left to scream into a void that will never answer back.
Perhaps he is not strong enough to make that reality true for the whole Seven Planes or even this world. But he is strong enough to take out an entire city. Entire islands that might be nearby. Or kill off all the fish and other creatures in the sea around us, causing a devastating effect for the world. It’s why he doesn’t come with us on missions. Why he’s so godsdamn careful with his magic.
With chaos magic comes chaos.
Comes death.
He tries to smile at me again. I’m ready.
But I’m not.
Gods fucking dammit. I’m not.
Dayne groans, finally coming to, and my attention pulls to him.
His shoulders jerk as he tugs on his binds. He isn’t nailed down like I am, just chained. He even still has his hands – though they’re tied together so he can’t use them.
“Fuck!”
It’s a sudden shout full of fear. He knows where he is. His head snaps up, his eyes wild with a remembered panic, a childhood of trauma and terror-filled pain. I’m sure he’s looking for Eduardo, but they land on me and freeze. I can sense his heart beat running wild. The Craving lunges in my belly, wanting him to run. Wanting me to chase. My teeth start to ache, but I fight it back. If I make the choice when I’m mindless…
“Shit,”
Dayne says. “I’m sorry.” Sorry for getting caught. Sorry for ending up here. He’s the only one who could feel where I was through the tattoo. Now my brothers have no hope in saving us. In saving Micha. He’s doomed us all, and a part of me wants to punish him for that, to let him feel the consequences of his mistake by picking him.
But he wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for me.
None of them would be.
If anyone should die, it should be me.
“Kill me,” I say.
“So you can get her in the next life?”
the werewolf scoffs. “No.”
“Choosing won’t stop the blood bond!”
“It will because we both know who you’ll choose. And then she will come to hate you.”
I shake my head. He’s fucking delusional. “When she learns you were behind it –”
“I would’ve done nothing but proven to her that you will always hurt her when given the chance. You will put your own selfish needs above hers.”
“You will hurt her if you kill him!”
“I will be all she needs.”
He says it so flippantly, so damn confidently. He truly believes it. He doesn’t know her at all. A life with him will destroy her in so many ways. As if a life with me already hasn’t, a mocking voice says.
“The blood bond isn’t completed!”
I shout desperately. “If I die, I’ll never see her again.” Never be able to hurt her even by accident.
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not –”
“A pathetic attempt from a dying man. Now choose.”
“I’m not lying! If you kill me –”
“I want you to suffer,”
he cuts in. “I want you to wake up every day, wondering what you could’ve done differently. What you could have possibly decided to do that would’ve changed what happened. I have spent over a hundred years living with the choices I made. The guilt that led to my mate and pups dying. She wasn’t supposed to be there. She was supposed to stay back. Sau was supposed to be an easy kill, so I threw her at my wife, fucking damning her because I thought she could handle her.
“I saved your mother from being killed by my pack for what she did, willing to let bygones be bygones if she just healed my mate.”
He shakes with his emotions. So much fucking rage and fury and pain and grief flickering across his face.
“But she refused, and so you will suffer for her sins. She took everything from me. Death will not be so easy for you.”
I stare at him, trembling with my own rage. With the fear that I’ll lose my son or my wife’s best friend – my best friend who I have actually come to trust over these last few months.
Then Dayne cuts in. “You really need to go to therapy, dude.”
Rudy’s mouth breaks out into a grin. Mine falls open in shock.
“If you think killing me is going to push Micha into your arms, you don’t know her at all.”
“She’s already in my arms.”
I pick up on how quick he is to get jealous. Wonder how I can use it.
Dayne shrugs as well as he can in his chains. “Eh. She always did have a terrible taste in men.”
He glances at me, that same smile on his face Rudy has, that same willingness to die for her. “You know her first crush was on the mean kid in Karate Kid? Like hello? Blond villains are never hot.” He points his head at Antonio as if the point is made.
Seething, the wolf looks at me. “You have one minute to choose,”
he demands. “Or she’ll stay here with me forever.”