Chapter 24 #2
Terror. No, horror flooded him. His body shook with adrenaline. Tears stung his eyes. He did not understand.
For a moment, his mother didn’t answer as she finished ratcheting the silver restraints shut. The sound of it like the slamming of a prison gate. He had heard that noise plenty in his life, as well.
“Nothing, my dear, weak little boy.” Volencia patted his cheek. “Nothing at all. And once you learn that? You will truly be free.” She motioned her hand to the vampires holding the other ends of the chains.
It would take all their combined strength to pull his struggling form beneath the surface of the water. He screamed and fought as hard as he could.
It had been useless to try. As were all his attempts to fight the lessons his mother had been trying to teach him. In the end, he so neatly fit the mold she had made for him.
Monster. Murderer. Killer. Torturer. Enforcer. Mad dog.
Serpent.
He was all of those things. Gladly.
But wasn’t he something more…?
A new memory came to touch his mind. To hold his hand.
The feeling of lips upon his.
Kill them all, Nadi.
Kill them because I couldn’t.
Nadi stood on the deck and watched the coffin sink beneath the waves. Mael’s hand settled on her shoulder, heavy and warm. “Let’s get you a drink.”
“Yeah.” She turned from the railing and headed to the bar with him. Maybe she’d drink herself stupid.
With what she was about to do tonight…
She was really, really going to need a few drinks in her system.
Gathering around the bar, she was handed a perfect metropolis by Lana, who pulled her into a hug shortly after and placed a kiss on her cheek.
Mael was next, turning her to face him. His kiss was far more personal. He crooked a finger under her chin, stepped in close, and caught her lips with his. She shut her eyes… and returned the gesture.
He tasted like daylight. Like the summer sun. He was nothing like his brother. Firm, but unassuming. There was nothing demanding. Nothing that took. In his kiss, she felt protected. Honored. Treasured.
He smiled down at her, running his thumb tenderly along her cheek.
“Welcome to the family, Nadi Iltani. We are going to change the world.”
Nadi.
He loved her.
And he had never told her.
Now he never would.
“We are the Nostrom family.”
Raziel watched his father with keen interest. The man was a towering figure, though he could not recall now what he actually looked like. The sword he held in his hand shone with wet blood that dripped from the tip onto the floor.
Blood that had recently come from the fool who had decided that he was not going to obey his father’s simple rule.
Which was to obey all his rules.
He had few memories of his father. But the ones he had, he coveted. There were some things his mother could not be allowed to poison. And the knowledge of what vampires should be, and how they were meant to rule, was one of them.
Volencia had corrupted their way. If his father had been alive… none of this travesty would have ever happened. The world could have been made right if only Raziel had won.
If only.
If only.
If only.
Two words that meant nothing in the end.
In his memory, Raziel’s father held the blade aloft, pointing it at the others who stood in attendance. “We are vampires. And we are to be feared.”
Nadi.
He loved her.
And he had never told her.
Now he never would.
His grandmother Lilivra. A shadow behind a curtain. Never appearing in full, always just a silhouette, seated in bed. Her voice was strong, but somehow… even as a child, Raziel was worried the old woman was frail.
Something was wrong with her.
“Your grandchildren, Mother.” Volencia stood behind them, her head bowed. Mael, Lana, Raziel. The first time they had ever seen their grandmother. They were told not to speak. Lana was shaking in fear.
The silhouette of the woman sitting up in bed didn’t seem like an old lady. She looked young to Raziel. Or at least, she wasn’t hunched and withered. But it was hard to tell.
“One is destined to rule. The others to die. One is a mad dog, who delights in the kill. Another a golden beast, with honor in his heart.” Lilivra lifted her hands, palms up in front of her, as if cupping water.
“The third, will change this world forever. Come closer, Raziel, second grandson. I have words meant only for you.”
Volencia sputtered. As a child, the moment had seemed strange to him. As an adult, Raziel knew how angry that had made his mother.
“Silence, Volencia.”
Raziel had crept forward, his hands clutched together in front of him. He hovered close to the edge of the gauze curtains.
A hand darted out from behind the curtain and snatched his wrist, yanking him close. The hand wasn’t skeletal—wasn’t wrinkled—it was youthful and the grasp was impossibly strong.
Grandmother Lilivra’s whispered words were seared into his soul that day.
“Tear down the walls. Burn the metropolis to the ground. What they have built is a mockery to what we vampires are meant to be. Only you understand our true nature.”
She had pushed him away violently then, sending him sprawling onto the ground.
His destiny. Laid out before him when he was nothing more than a child. All their destinies, in fact—and their mother had seen to it that they would fulfill them, whether they liked it or not.
Raziel had always wondered if Lilivra had never spoken those words, how much of his life would have played out the way it had.
Would he have ever learned to delight in murder the way he had? Would he ever have become the bastard that he was now? Would he ever have been trapped inside his own mind, dying forever?
A flash of the real world. Of where he was. Of darkness. Of a coffin. He wondered if he was still sinking. He wondered if it mattered. Of drowning.
Nadi.
He loved her.
And he had never told her.
Now he never would.
The memories were better than the pain of drowning.
He remembered his first kill. A human that had raised a hand and struck some of his sister’s “merchandise.” And bruised merchandise earned less on the market.
So there he was… asked to not only deal with the man, but to make an example of him. He easily picked the lock of the man’s apartment when he wasn’t home and relocked the door behind him. Perusing the man’s sad, pathetic little space for ten minutes, he became quickly bored with it.
It didn’t shock him that a person who paid for a night’s company only to strike the woman in frustration was a miserable sack of shit.
Sitting down on the cleanest piece of furniture in the man’s living room, Raziel took out a coin from his pocket and began walking it across his knuckles. He waited.
The man returned home a half an hour later from work. He’d been to the bar already and stank of cheap alcohol. Damn. It meant he’d feel Raziel’s efforts all the less.
Whatever.
Once, a man walked into the kitchen and got himself a beer from the icebox without even noticing Raziel sitting in his living room. That had made Raziel smile.
It had turned into a game after that night. He would sit in a person’s home and just quietly wait to see how long it took them to figure out they weren’t alone.
Some people figured it out instantaneously.
Some people took embarrassingly long.
A different time, someone had made dinner, eaten it, taken a shower, and was about to go to bed before Raziel had finally made his presence known. Or else he would have had to sit there all damn night.
But this particular man noticed, finally, when he walked into the living room, intending to likely drink his beer on the sofa. He froze.
“Who the fu—”
“Sit down.” Raziel kept the faint smile on his face.
The man sat on the floor right where he was standing. Right. Yes. He was still adjusting to how extremely literally people took his instructions. He had to learn to be very specific with what he told them. “Why did you strike the woman you spent last night with?”
“Huh?” The man made a face as if his question made no sense. “You’re here about a whore?”
“I am here—” Raziel sighed. “Because I was told to be. Now. I’m asking you a question, and you’re going to answer me. Why did you strike the woman?”
The man paused. “She wouldn’t put my dick down her throat.”
“Why?”
“Claims it made her choke. Bullshit excuse for a whore. So I smacked her once or twice, then made her take it anyway.”
“Hm. Well.” He despised the man. He was going to be rather glad to kill him. “Did she choke?”
“Yeah. Felt good. And?” The man furrowed his brow. “Why can’t I move?”
Standing, Raziel brushed off his pants. “Listen to me very carefully. Once I leave your apartment, you are going to swallow that beer bottle, neck first.”
“But I’ll—I can’t—”
Raziel walked toward the door, patting the man on the shoulder as he slipped his coin back into his other pocket. “Who knows. Maybe it’ll feel good. Have a lovely night.” Opening the door to the hallway, he shut the door behind him with a click.
At first, he’d made sure the punishments fit the crimes. At first, he tried to care. But little by little, it chipped away. It wasn’t about the person he was killing anymore. The part of him that felt remorse for taking lives was gone.
If it had ever existed in the first place.
Honestly, he doubted it ever did. At least, not human lives. Or fae. Or those he was simply told to kill. When he knew the people he had to end, cared about them, of course he felt remorse.
Like when someone in their ranks turned traitor—someone he knew, someone he had laughed with, drank with, shared stories with.
Those deaths hurt.
Those deaths stung him.
Which was why he chose not to have friends after a while. It just made life easier. The only people he trusted to never betray him were the ones he would choose to keep around. Which was precisely one. Ivan.
He thought it would be two. Nadi.
But here he was.
Nadi.
He loved her.
And he had never told her.
Now he never would.