Chapter 22 #2
He was obviously good at tracking as well, but then why hadn’t he been able to locate those responsible for his parents’ deaths? Nicholas recalled something else.
“You said the people who killed your parents were brought to justice. You told me that once. But…” It hurt to think, but Nicholas had to know; he had to make sense of Gabriel and his dreams while he still could.
“The council had them killed, didn’t they?” He was sure of it, even without the heartbreak in Gabriel’s expression confirming it.
“But… but why?”
“My parents knew Zayn’s parents. My mother assisted with his birth in secrecy, and then, when news of the seer emerged, my parents helped them escape our village. But it was already too late.”
But then, how had Zayn’s parents kept him hidden all those years?
“The collar,” Nicholas breathed. “It was charmed.”
That was the word he’d heard used to describe it in his dreams. It couldn’t be removed. Muharib had tried, but they ultimately had to find a witch who would help them.
As if sensing where Nicholas’s thoughts had gone, Gabriel explained.
“It kept him undetected, but it also dulled his ability to commune with the animals, something he loved. It contained an enchantment that kept it affixed on his neck, but he figured out how to counteract it. He’d go off into the forest and remove it, but only for the smallest of seconds.
One day, his mother found him asleep, surrounded by fallow deer. ”
“It’d been off for too long,” Nicholas guessed.
“He lied about exactly how long, of course, not wanting to uproot again. She strengthened the enchantment, but the seer had already spotted him. She left for the market one evening after sunset. Zayn was missing when she returned, and his father’s head rested on a pike in the front yard.”
The final death.
“They should’ve been more vigilant. But people become complacent after enough time passes.”
“Where do you fit into all this? How did you end up with Zayn?”
Gabriel stretched his neck. It was such a human thing to do, which upset Nicholas even more.
“Don’t,” he said when Gabriel stepped forward to help him sit up. “I can do it myself.”
Gabriel looked ready to collapse under the weight of guilt and regret by the time Nicholas had situated himself.
The fire hissed and snapped as he waited for Gabriel to continue, the flames seeming to shed light on the amber glow he normally kept hidden behind his gaze. Nicholas had to remind himself that before him stood a killer—a deadly monster, no matter how beautiful he was.
“Go on.”
He couldn’t hide the anger from his voice, but even more crushing was that he couldn’t hide the tenderness he somehow still felt, either. Gabriel seemed to hold on to it, offering a shaky smile. Nicholas’s gaze fell to his cold hands. It was either that or release his caged tears.
“His mother’s name was Latifa.”
He said it as if she were as beautiful as the name sounded. If she looked anything like Zayn, she had to have been magnificent.
“She tracked me down at a blood-tavern in a neighboring city. Blood-taverns are where those without a blood-mate, or a blood-bonded mate, go. I was a drifter, so I fell into the first of the two categories.”
Nicholas knew the difference between the two, he just couldn’t reach the memory.
If he had to guess, a blood-mate was who the massasu dimae were assigned to feed from before finding their blood-bonded mate.
It could be a friend, a neighbor, or even a relative.
Love had little or nothing to do with the former and everything to do with the latter.
“I didn’t know who she was at the time. I didn’t learn any of this until later.”
“Did she use her gifts to find you?”
“She wasn’t a powerful saahira. The collar was about as far as her abilities went.
There were ways to find people like me, though.
A system set in place. She wanted me to ambush the convoy escorting Zayn to the capital and deliver him safely to a witch who was all too powerful.
One who’d been rumored to have defected from the stronghold of the council and their seer, and lived to tell the tale.
Latifa dumped a pouch overflowing with coin at my feet…
and promised me the names of those responsible for my parents’ deaths. ”
It was clear he believed her, so Nicholas didn’t bother asking how she’d managed to convince him.
“He wore the collar in my dreams. Well, until he didn’t. He was being hunted anyway.”
“They had his scent by then. There’s much that can be done with that, especially with the help of a witch.”
“Those beasts carry your scent.”
Nicholas licked his dry lips, steeling himself before asking, “Were you chosen because of the prophecy? Were you and Zayn… fated?”
Given his teachings on Divine Providence, fate shouldn’t even be something he considered, but nothing was as it seemed, or as he’d been told. Not anymore.
“No.” Gabriel stepped closer to the foot of the bed, death-gripping the bedpost. “It could’ve been anyone, Nicholas.”
“Sheer coincidence then, huh?” He may have come off flippant, but he had to fight to steady his chin.
“Hybrids were saharah at birth, their vampiric gene only triggered when they reached the age of roshd. Somewhere around twenty-three. It then required the help of another massas dimae to see them through their transition. Any massas dimae would do.”
Nicholas hated the relief he felt.
“Were the council’s forces only made up of your kind?”
“Their militia, yes. We were physically stronger than the saharah.”
“And you were only attacked at night.” Nicholas remembered that vividly: them fighting for their lives under the stars.
“Yes, Saraadians were nocturnal creatures—as intended. We all took shelter during the day. Zayn and I were only vulnerable at night.”
As intended? Nicholas tried to make sense of that, but breathing had become increasingly difficult.
There was still so much Nicholas wanted to know.
Like, why didn’t Gabriel look like Muharib, or why he couldn’t walk in the sun then, but could now?
He wanted to know what had happened to Zayn.
Had he been caught unaware? Had they been betrayed?
And why hadn’t Gabriel been there to protect him?
He desperately wanted to know what happened to Gabriel’s country, to his people, and how he’d managed to survive.
Most of all, Nicholas needed to know if Gabriel cared for him as much as he cared for Zayn. Or did he care for him because he cared for Zayn?
But there was no time for more. Nicholas was too fatigued, felt less than a handful of blinks away from his eyes never opening again. Terrified, he kept them wide open and settled for what little he now knew.
“I would’ve told you all this sooner,” Gabriel offered, sounding defeated. “I should have, and if I could do it all over again, I would. But…”
Nicholas wasn’t used to seeing him unsure of himself, so ruptured. It broke something in him as well, something he hadn’t realized had been spared in all this. He cried on the inside and only hoped he could contain the flood until the end.
“But would you have believed me? Would you have given me a chance? Would we have gotten to know each other? Gotten to fall…”