CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Relief coursed through me. The ache within my chest subsided at the sight of Sebastian, though it was quickly replaced with an unnerving sense of dread.
The energy of the room shifted to a palpable tension, the thick air constricting my throat.
I kept the dagger poised above Alaric’s heart, even as he sat up.
“Hello, brother.” Alaric gave a deviant smirk.
Sebastian stepped into the room, his expression of stone unmoving, but I could feel the anger that simmered beneath.
I wondered if he hadn’t seen Alaric since the day he helped overthrow his father.
His anger was the strongest emotion I felt through the bond, but there was also a deep, unending hurt. A betrayal.
“You can’t even say hello to your own brother?” Alaric taunted.
Sebastian gritted his teeth. “I didn’t think I had a brother anymore.”
Alaric huffed out a breath that was part scoff, part laugh.
I looked between the two.
“Well, little fox, are you going to do it?”
My head snapped to Alaric as I realized he was talking to me.
His eyes were alight with challenge, delivering a test he knew I’d fail. My body clashed with my mind, both fighting to overtake the other, though both had no clear direction, and so both would lose. And Alaric saw that.
A wave of exhaustion slammed into me. I fell limp onto the bed. I struggled to prop myself up on my elbows. It was an immense effort just to keep my eyes open.
Alaric slid out of bed. He was wearing nothing but his black sleeping shorts as he stalked over to Sebastian. “Tell me, brother, do you find pleasure in stealing what’s mine?”
Sebastian’s eyes grew colder as they narrowed. “You’ve always been deluded in taking what you think you’re owed.”
Alaric laughed in a way that chilled me to the bone.
“Everyone takes. Turns out it’s a trait that transcends worlds.
Some will even create their own war to be able to possess some control.
After everything had been taken from me, why not take something of my own? Surely you can understand, brother.”
“Understanding doesn’t right a wrong.”
There was a long, drawn-out silence. I fought to keep my head up as it lolled to the side.
“You couldn’t have just let me go.” Alaric’s tone was sharp with a bitter edge.
“I couldn’t let you become the very monster you destroyed.” Sebastian stepped forward. “But I guess I was too late.”
“What can I say”—he grinned wickedly—“no one dares to challenge a monster with a brutal enough reputation.”
“Not no one.”
Before I could blink, Sebastian punched him square in the face. Alaric didn’t even try to block it. He just laughed maniacally before he tackled Sebastian, slamming him into an armoire, the splitting wood resounded throughout the room with a deafening crack.
Thuds rang out as they drove their fists into each other.
Fresh blood poured from Sebastian’s mouth and the split flesh of his cheekbone.
He lifted Alaric up, both hands around his neck, just to slam him back down onto the floor.
The room shook, sending items across the desk toppling over.
A mirror fell, shattering as it struck the floor.
Sebastian was stronger than Alaric. He had the upper hand until his body grew rigid, and his eyes glazed over.
Alaric threw him to the floor. I struggled to sit up fully, my heavy head begging for rest. Alaric loomed over him, sitting back on his haunches as his eyes glowed with manic obsession.
Whatever he was showing Sebastian took him completely out of this world.
He was so immersed within the illusion, he didn’t see Alaric draw his dagger.
And I felt it through the bond.
Alaric was going to kill him.
I couldn’t breathe through the finality that cut through me.
“You should have let me be, brother.” His calm was the placid glass of a black lake, hiding otherworldly horrors in the opaque depths.
“Alaric, please,” I whispered. His full attention stole a breath straight from my lungs. Whatever semblance of control he had was gone. A fresh wave of exhaustion racked through me. My eyes nearly welded shut. “Please, don’t. I want to see.” A twisted sense of pride rained down the bond to me.
The full scope of his rage narrowed right on Sebastian. His grip on my sedation wavered, and I took what was my only opportunity. I slipped from the bed, tiptoeing behind him, holding a breath that would soon break me to release.
I flinched as he suddenly turned around. I could tell he was growing weaker keeping Sebastian within his illusion and attempting to sedate me. I lifted my hand, placing it delicately on his arm.
“Alaric, please stop,” I whispered.
That strange calm hit me with such force I fell to the ground, gasping for breath.
I looked up to him with tears burning my eyes.
I wouldn’t let him kill Sebastian. I would exert myself to the point of death fighting the hungry waves hellbent to pull me under.
And if I broke free, I’d have to kill him.
Because he finally snapped. I felt the aftershocks of all that fell within him, what the threads held carefully in place.
He wouldn’t allow someone else to be taken from him, but he didn’t realize he would be killing his own brother to keep me. He couldn’t see it.
“Alaric, please don’t make me do this.” The words fell between sobs.
He looked to me, a face upturned and dug out.
His wild eyes held sorrow and anger. Confusion and hesitancy.
A turmoil so visceral I questioned my own existence.
I felt the fire that burned through him, and I wondered how he was still standing and how long it had been burning this way.
I could hardly stand it, could barely hold a hand out, and he was immersed.
And his eyes softened as he held my image. “Don’t worry, my love. This will all be over soon.” He turned to Sebastian. I could faintly hear what he had murmured. “Not again.”
The glint of the black tourmaline blinded me, plunging me into ice water, seizing my limbs.
No.
My face split into a horrendous sob as I pushed through the sedation.
I gripped the bedpost, climbing onto heavy feet.
I waded through years of repression and unspoken words to get to him, aching smiles and rigid posture, through all that wanted me out of their sight.
I trudged through the contentment to die to grant them a better view, and I crossed over to the other side.
For the first time in my life, I lifted my dagger.
And plunged it into his back.
I fell to my knees as he sank to the floor.
I held him in my arms, struggling to hold his weight, setting him down gently as I leaned over him.
Sebastian sat up, released from his illusion, and knelt beside us.
His pain melded with mine. Our bond a bridge of torment, joining our exposed chests, flayed flesh and broken ribs.
What I didn’t expect to see in Alaric’s golden eyes as he looked up at me was pure, encompassing awe. “Finally,” he breathed with a whisper of a smile on his lips.
“I ... I’m ...” Each word crumbled to ash in my mouth.
“Don’t be sorry. Never be sorry.” He raised his hand, cupping the side of my face. I exhaled at the thawing cold. His hand grew warmer against me. I gripped his wrist, pressing his hand further into me, feeling the heat that would soon dissipate.
My tears spilled over, trailing down his hand. His thumb ran over them.
“Don’t cry for me, darling. I know what I am.”
And I saw myself through his eyes then, through the fading tracking spell and the soulmate bond that would be with me forever. And I couldn’t breathe through the sight. He craved so desperately to be loved, and he placed all he ever had in me.
I knew he could see himself through my eyes as I looked down to him with a severed soul.
“It’s enough just to know that you care.” He inhaled a weak breath. It wasn’t enough air. I could feel it in my own chest. His hand softened against me as I held it up, growing limp.
“It’s enough, drenlunne.”
A riot of emotions warred within me, marring my soft tissue with eternal scars.
For a moment, anger ignited and raged through me at him making me do this, at my hand that buried the dagger in his back, at the life forever tied to me, the life I took.
I wanted to sob and pound my fists into him for making me take his life.
The life he threw away. The life he couldn’t get a hold of.
The life that slipped through his fingers.
The life that was taken from him before I ever knew him.
I wanted to storm through the earth and burn it down, pass through worlds spreading hellfire for what they took from him.
But the anger ebbed, leaving me in a barren wasteland, like the one I had painted over and over.
Peeling open wounds once healed over, exposing them to the acrid air, renewing an unending ache.
An ache for the love I wished he could give himself, for the love that should have never been taken from him.
And he felt it all, and he smiled.
I leaned down, pressing a kiss on to his forehead, the warmth gone too soon as the chill seeped back in. As I rose looking into his eyes for the last time, I had never seen a man so content to die.
His eyes slid over to Sebastian. A silent conversation passed between them. Sebastian berated himself with failure for not being able to save him. Alaric wished he could but held no blame over him.
“You were always loved, brother. You always will be.” Pain cut through Sebastian’s detached voice.
Alaric let out a long exhale that ended too quickly. His eyes drifted closed.
“My desk drawer, dove.” His voice was so faint I nearly missed it.
A cold hand reached deep within me, stealing my breath, leaving me gasping for air.
Sebastian quickly moved behind me, lifting me up onto his lap.
Alaric slipped from my arms. My ragged breaths tore through the hollow room, each one too short.
Violent shivers shook through me as my body plunged into a deep cold.
“Breathe, mannyenska. Breathe,” Sebastian soothed, holding me back against his chest that rose and fell behind me steadily.
I leaned into him, into his breaths, until ours became rhythmic.
I shivered against him. His arms tightened around me until his warmth finally managed to melt through me.
As my shaking subsided, uncontrollable sobs spilled from me, taking me under churning waters.
Sebastian ran his hand through my hair, over and over.
A part of my soul withered away, crumpled up into a dead mass. The weight a gentle reminder of what would never come back, of what was waiting for me on the other side.
Alaric had said it had been years, and I felt every single one.
Sebastian held me until my cries bled out into exhaustion, until the blood that dampened my nightgown grew cold.
“What does drenlunne mean?” I whispered, my throat raw.
“My light.”
I exhaled with a fresh trail of tears.
He helped me up as I struggled to stand, my legs long numb from sitting for so long. I went to Alaric’s desk, pausing before it. I opened the top drawer. All it contained was a stack of letters, the first one addressed to me. Dove. The ones at the bottom of the stack yellowed from time.
I sat on the leather armchair with Sebastian behind me, his hand on my shoulder. I opened the letter on the top of the stack. It was dated the day before the attack on the manor.