CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT || JEREMY #2
More visions: the boys aging. They were sometimes laughing, sometimes yelling, but always there for one another in memory after memory. Then a pale, ashen-haired man appeared, features angelic but eyes merciless, mouth cruel and smiling.
Magnus, Thierry whispered, horror flooding him.
The vision shifted—Magnus turning him, ripping him from his life. Thierry’s shock at waking to find he was no longer human. Nicolas sitting up beside him, pale, his heart forever stilled, just as confused and frightened.
That bastard, I growled, wanting to tear Magnus apart for what he’d done to them.
Then—the bedchamber. Nicolas feeding, unable to stop, while Magnus laughed.
Thierry’s horror at seeing it and understanding, for the first time, the violence vampires are capable of.
Then came images of Nicolas, cold-eyed and predatory, nothing left of the young man he’d once been.
Taking life after life without hesitation.
Then I watched as he left while Thierry was forced to stay behind with Magnus. Nicolas no longer seemed to care what happened to his brother.
My mate had told me before that Magnus liked resistance. He wanted Thierry to hurt. Images showed me precisely what that meant.
Sickened, I refused to look away. He needed me to see.
I escaped him eventually, Thierry’s voice whispered, distant. But he chased me. He killed every one of the creations who left him—or made Godric do it. He said it was betrayal. He decided when it ended. Not them. Not me.
Visions blurred into centuries. Thierry moving, always moving. Clothes changing. Cities changing. People changing. But never his unease. Always anxious. Never fully safe. Never letting anyone close. Always ready to run.
When I heard Magnus was dead, I stopped running. Or I thought I did.
I understood. Even after Magnus’s death, he’d never really let down his guard.
The vision shifted. A man who looked exactly like Thierry lay on the floor, pale hands clutching a silver dagger buried in his chest, roaring orange flames licking at heavy velvet drapes behind him.
His vivid blue eyes—so much like Thierry’s—held no emotion as his lips shaped the words that had haunted Thierry’s nightmares for centuries: What have you done, brother?
Beside me—though neither of us seemed to have form—I felt Thierry’s sharply indrawn breath.
Then came the remembered horror of knowing he was about to watch his brother die.
And the even worse realization that he couldn’t.
He couldn’t stay to watch the flames consume the only person he’d ever loved completely.
His brother—the person Nicolas really was —had been dead for centuries. But still, Thierry hadn’t been able to stay.
Last came the guilt—crushing and total—as he bolted for the open window, dropped to the darkened street below, and ran into the night. Leaving his brother to die alone.
I knew, without him telling me, that I’d just seen the single worst moment of his life. Worse even than when Magnus destroyed Nicolas in front of him—because back then, he hadn’t fully understood. That horror had come later, in stages, as he learned what his brother had become.
This was worse because it was final. It was the ultimate act of betrayal, no matter his intentions.
It was something he could never take back.
I’ve got you, I told him. I’m right here beside you. You aren’t alone.
Thierry didn’t reply, but I felt him curl into me, letting me shield him from memories he couldn’t bear to see again. The grief and shame felt like they might snap him in two—might snap us both in two.
Because it wasn’t just his grief anymore. It was mine. Somehow, even though I’d never met his brother, I loved him too. And I’d lost him, just like Thierry had.
Then, as quickly as it had come, the vision melted away, revealing the forest outside Crescent Springs. I saw my first shift on my thirteenth birthday, under the silvery light of the full moon.
Ian was there. He hadn’t shifted yet, but he was watching me, grinning from ear to ear, even though it would be years before either of us admitted—or even understood—our feelings for each other.
Lindsey was there too, with the rest of the pack. The storm of anxiety and fear was suddenly overpowering—like I was back in that moment, wondering if I might not be able to shift at all.
Thierry was beside me, a warm hand on my back, reassuring me everything would be okay.
The vision flowed into scenes of Ian and me older—our fumbling boyish attempts to court each other, then learning for the first time how to love another man.
Quiet, perfect moments outside our shared cabin, Ian at his easel, painting with his face all scrunched up in concentration, while I drank beer and teased him for being so serious.
It hurt to see these memories again. Even with Thierry beside me, even with what I felt for him now, it was still a raw wound, something that had never fully healed—a piece of myself I could never get back.
Because that’s what happened, Thierry murmured. You grew up with Ian. You loved him. And how you feel about me doesn’t change that. He paused. That’s a good thing, Jeremy. It’s a gift that you loved him so much.
Then the visions darkened. That awful night I’d found Ian, broken and alone, eyes vacant—lost to me forever. The way I’d shattered, everything good inside me imploding in an instant. Half-crazed with grief. Then the night I’d commanded my pack to go after James. Thierry saw every bit of it.
The clearing where James finally convinced me to let him and the vampire leave without violence. The moment I recognized what I’d been about to do, and understood James wasn’t a life raft at all. He was a mirror, showing me who I had become.
But you didn’t do it, Thierry’s voice whispered between us, firm and kind. You chose correctly in the end. Because that is who you are.
I wanted to believe that. I wasn’t sure I did.
That’s okay. You will, eventually.
Flashes of the empty, endless days after—me in wolf form, lurking in the woods, far from the others. My grief, my guilt, my need to get away, crushing me, smothering me. And even when they shifted too, when they searched for me, I ran. I couldn’t be trusted.
And your pack forgave you enough to go after you.
You understand, though, don’t you? Why I ran.
Thierry’s grief at seeing his brother was still palpable. Yes. Of course I do.
The visions faded, and the room—dim though it was—felt too bright. And colder than it should have been after the warmth of our shared mental space. Somehow, we’d come apart, his head resting on my chest. The bite on my neck had already healed.
Can you still hear me? I wondered.
“Yes,” Thierry murmured, his breath cool against my chest. “Loud and clear.”
“Do you regret it?”
Not for a moment, he replied silently, his conviction strong. Aloud, he added, “I’ve been running all my life. Even after Magnus.” He paused. “I met Nathaniel and saw what he was trying to do. I stayed to help him, but I still ran in all the ways that mattered.”
“You didn’t want to get hurt again.”
“Yes.”
“That’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s very human.”
“I haven’t been human in a long time.”
“You are, in all the ways that matter,” I said, echoing his words. I kissed the top of his head. “And it’s okay to stop running. I told you before—I’m not going anywhere.”
“You don’t know that,” he said. And I could feel his sudden, sharp anxiety through the bond. What I’d felt before was only a pale echo of what the blood bond showed me. Now his thoughts and feelings were so vivid they felt like my own.
“I do,” I assured him. “I won’t leave you. I promise. Not as long as there’s a breath in my body. And maybe even after that.”
He huffed. “A love affair with a ghost would probably be difficult. For instance, you’d likely have a harder time ravishing me.”
“I’d learn. I’m a pretty motivated guy in the right circumstances.”
His lips twitched into a smile, and I knew my words had chased away some of his unease. “Don’t I know it.” He paused. “What about your pack? You can’t stay here forever, as much as I might like that.”
“I honestly have no idea. But I’ll figure it out.” I hesitated, then said it anyway. “I have something to live for now.”
Thierry let out a long, shuddering breath. “Me too.”
“Godric, the pack, all of it can wait. Today is for us.”
Relief thrummed through the bond. He nodded. “Yes. Quite right.”
I pressed another kiss to his hair, him curled against my chest. We lay there a long time, just existing. Something deep inside me finally relaxed. I didn’t know what came next, but I knew whatever it was, it would be at Thierry’s side.
We drowsed on the knife-edge of sleep, the rest of the world meaningless noise. There was only warmth and safety, the absolute contentment of knowing we had both looked at the worst parts of each other and neither of us had flinched.
When Thierry slipped into sleep, I followed, safe in the knowledge that I would see him again. I would always see him again.