51. Bastian
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
BASTIAN
B astian knew he was alive because he could smell snow, and citrus, and lily of the valley. Even if he was dead, he didn’t care, because that scent… it meant that wherever his soul had gone when it left his body, hers was there, too.
When he opened his eyes, her face was the only thing he saw.
Her eyes were closed, lashes long and dark against her pale skin.
Blood soaked her silvery hair, her clothes, but it also bloomed with a vibrant flush in her cheeks.
Her lips were parted. Warm, steady breath feathered across the back of Bastian’s hand where it lay between them, clutching hers.
Alive.
She was alive.
They were both alive, and the soft gray light of early morning glowed around them. Blood stained the pale stone beneath them— their blood. So, so much of it.
But Isolde was warm . Her wounds were healed.
The skin of her forearm where Selene had sliced her open was pale and smooth.
Bastian’s own arm didn’t bear so much as a scratch, and he felt…
strong. His blood thrummed in his veins and his heart pounded in his chest. Isolde’s scent overwhelmed him, crisp and bright and heavenly.
“Isolde,” he whispered, untangling their fingers to reach for her face. “Can you hear me, moonbeam?”
She shifted, nuzzling her cheek against his palm, but didn’t open her eyes.
A tiny kernel of worry flared to life in his chest, but he squashed it down.
He’d drunk the blood first, and she’d been so, so weak by the time she swallowed her share.
Her skin had been nearly translucent, it was so bloodless.
Now she was breathing, her cheeks and lips pink, her skin warmer than he’d ever felt it.
“Bastian,” rasped a voice from behind him.
He shot upright, spinning to plant himself between Isolde and the source of that voice. Some primal instinct roared within him, urging him to guard, to protect , to eliminate whatever threat might come for her. That instinct only strengthened when his eyes landed on Everett.
Everett, who had tried to drive a hawthorn stake into Isolde’s heart. Who had lunged at her last night, ready to tear out her throat for the simple fact that she was a Vampire.
But… he had also saved her. Everett had broken his own father’s neck, betrayed the very man to whom he was most loyal, to stop Anselm from killing her.
Bastian had watched him restrain Selene while Isolde carved out her Sire’s heart, and then guide that chalice of blood to her lips, urging her to drink.
Now, Everett held Anselm in his lap, tears streaming down his bloodied face.
“Bastian,” he repeated— begged . “He’s dying.”
From the amount of blood that stained the stone around Anselm’s body, Bastian couldn’t fathom how he wasn’t dead already. Somehow, though, his chest still moved, rising and falling in uneven gasps. His eyes were open, trained on Bastian’s face.
Despite it all, Bastian found himself on his feet, rushing to Anselm’s side. He dropped to his knees, grasping his father’s hand in his.
“Bastian,” Anselm managed between gasping breaths. “The ritual… worked. You’re… alive.”
“Yes,” Bastian said. “Isolde is, too.”
Anselm swallowed, with great difficulty. “Selene?” he asked, his eyes filled with an equal mixture of despair and hope.
Bastian shook his head.
The hope extinguished, and the despair spilled over.
“You… love her,” Anselm gasped. “Isolde.”
“I do.”
“I’m glad… it was you, then.” Anselm’s grip on Bastian’s fingers was so, so feeble, compared to the grip Bastian had grown up knowing. “That you and Isolde… get to live.”
“Father,” Everett began.
But Anselm lifted the hand that didn’t hold Bastian’s, cutting him off. “There’s… something you need to know,” he choked out, still gazing at Bastian. “The… ritual. Because you drank your own blood, your lives… are tied now. But you’re not… immortal. Neither… is she.”
Bastian stared down at Anselm, his heart pounding in his chest.
“You mean,” he said slowly, “all along, you and Selene could have done this—linked your lifespans—without killing me and Isolde? You could have done the ritual with your own blood, and Selene would have become mortal?”
“Selene… didn’t want to be mortal,” Anselm said. “And I… loved her. I couldn’t… take her immortality away.”
“Even if it meant killing me?”
Anselm’s face crumpled, and one single tear slipped down his cheek. All he had left to give. “I’m sorry,” he breathed. “For turning you. For… the sacrifice. Everything. You were… my son. Just as much as Everett. And I… failed you.”
Bastian knew he ought to tell Anselm he forgave him. He should have absolved him of his guilt, even if he didn’t mean it, and let Anselm go to his death in peace.
But all he could bring himself to do was give Anselm’s hand one last squeeze. “Goodbye, Anselm,” he whispered.
Then he released Anselm’s hand and sat back on his heels.
Anselm gave Bastian one long, last look, then turned to Everett.
“The pack… is yours now,” he said. “Lead by the law… but do not let the law… lead your heart.”
“Don’t go, Father,” Everett begged. It had been years since Bastian had seen his brother cry, but tears poured down his face now, his brow crumpled with sorrow. “I’m not ready.”
“You are,” Anselm assured him. He reached up with blood-soaked fingers and touched Everett’s wounded cheek. “The Vampires… are not our enemies. We are stronger with them… than against them.”
Everett shook his head, but didn’t object. He just gathered Anselm more tightly into his arms, bent low, and pressed his forehead against his father’s.
A moment later, Anselm’s chest sunk with one final exhale and did not rise again.
Everett eased his father gently onto the stone. He wiped at the tears on his cheeks, wincing as he touched the wound there. His shoulders heaved with a few shaky breaths before, finally, he looked up at Bastian.
“I’m sorry,” he said hoarsely. “For everything. I didn’t know what they had planned.”
Bastian nodded. “I am too. For Anselm.”
“I was just trying to protect him. He—” Everett broke off, voice cracking. He cleared his throat and tried again. “I don’t think I can lead the pack without him.”
“You can,” Bastian told him firmly. “You’ve been training for it your whole life. But Anselm is right. The Vampires are not our enemies, and if you don’t squash the talk of abolishing the Pact, there will be a war.”
Everett’s shoulders sagged, like the weight of his new responsibility already drug him down. His hazel eyes were wide with shock, and grief, and fear. Once, Bastian would have done anything to help Everett bear that weight. His brother. His best friend.
Now, he only sat and watched Everett feel.
“Will you come back to Lake Hall?” Everett asked, turning those wide eyes on Bastian. “I want you to come home.”
Bastian stared at Everett. He’d known that the Punishment Everett had dealt him had been a matter of the law, and he could forgive his brother for that.
Not today, but someday, Bastian thought he’d be able to forgive Everett for everything else.
He had saved Isolde, after all, and to Bastian, that counted for something.
But could he go back to Lake Hall, to the place where Anselm had raised him, knowing—at least for ten of those years—that one day he would kill him? Where Anselm had turned him against his will for that same purpose?
He’d meant what he said to Isolde. Lake Hall was his home, and he missed it there. He missed the softness of the grass in summer, and the golden light, and swimming in the lake. He missed Aggie, and the friends he’d grown up alongside, and, even after all this, he missed Everett, too.
He could live without all that if he had to. But there was one other thing he knew he absolutely, unequivocally could not live without.
“Would Isolde be welcome there?”
Everett blinked, his gaze darting over Bastian’s shoulder to where he knew Isolde lay.
“She loves you?” he asked.
“She does.”
“She’s a Vampire.”
“I’m aware.”
Everett stared at Bastian for a long moment, like he’d never seen him before. Then, slowly, he nodded.
“She’s awake,” he said.
Bastian shot to his feet, turning to face the other side of the bloody courtyard.
Opposite Anselm’s body lay Selene, cold and dead, her eyes unseeing and her hand stretched toward her lover.
A few feet away sat Isolde, warm and alive.
Her eyes were closed, her face turned up and to the east as dawn began to break.
And as the first ray of sun broke through the trees, painting her face in warm golden light, Isolde smiled.