Chapter 29 #2
“I never wanted to hurt you. You were the best thing that had ever happened to me, but I was lost—so lost without you. And then after everything Marlena said, everything I’d lived through, the people I thought were my friends didn’t trust me anymore, and then you came back as the stranger Marlena told me you’d be.
” Bridger gripped his thigh hard enough to feel pain, letting the uncomfortable pinch keep him from cracking.
“I don’t know… Yes. I acted selfishly because I couldn’t watch you die anymore.
” Joke was on him, though, because Marlena continued to make Bridger kill her.
“I couldn’t wait for you to become someone I didn’t know—not when our people were dying.
The people we promised to protect were dying…
and then she was going to take Meyer. He was all I had left. ”
Vega kept her chin on her knees, watching him with neutrality.
“I don’t expect you to understand what or why I did it, but learning to forget you was the only way I could become the commander everyone needed me to be.
” Bridger felt swept up in the moment, swept away in the feeling of getting all this unsaid shit he’d held in for nearly half a century off his chest. “I don’t regret it, and if that means you can never learn to trust me again, then so be it.
But Vega.” He paused, waiting for her to look him in the eyes.
When she finally did, Bridger finished. “I do regret hurting you.”
They both stayed quiet for a while, emotion thick between them in the small space, when Vega decided to drop valuable information seemingly out of the blue.
“Death was waiting for me when I brought Romulus back through the portal. I was forced to make a deal, promising to deliver the gods and Marlena to the underworld for the power to save Tolevarre.”
Bridger held his breath until she stopped talking, breathing her name on his exhale. “Vega.”
She stood, and Bridger jumped up after her, having no fucking clue what his response was supposed to be.
Vega sighed. “Stop knocking, okay?”
And then Bridger watched her lock his cell door before disappearing completely. Her absence didn’t stop Bridger from speaking out loud. “It’s not Death who makes deals.”
Hours later, when he’d begun rolling a pebble back and forth, Bridger felt the door creak open, followed by, “Don’t make me regret this.”
Hearing Vega’s words inside his head for the first time made him melt. The feeling of her inside a place that had once been only his… Gods, he could live in there forever with her. “You found me.” Bridger’s laugh echoed inside his own head. “I promise to be on my best behavior, Kitten.”
Her groan vibrated Bridger’s mind, and he laughed again… but at least she didn’t shut him out.
The euphoria of Vega’s first words down their bond would have lasted longer had he not decided to psychoanalyze every word Romulus had said for the fifth time through.
His conclusion: Vega hoped Bridger didn’t know the difference between Death and the ruler of the underworld, or she herself didn’t know the difference.
Bridger didn’t believe it was the latter.
“Did you pull the short straw tonight?” Bridger asked with a sarcastic smile. It brought him joy to see how easily he got under Leo’s skin.
“Shut the fuck up.” The annoyance in his voice was palpable.
Fucking fire-wielders were always so grumpy. Must be the heat inside them or something—But damn, dude.
“Hey, can I request a guard change?” He spoke down the pathway, waiting for Vega to respond.
“What did I say about interrupting me with stupid questions?” Vega snapped back.
He relaxed at her words. “Well, if you’d tell me anything about what’s going on, what the next plan is, literally anything, I wouldn’t have to be such a bother.”
Hours of silence later, and a group of footsteps came from down the hall, followed by Khort’s voice. “You can take the rest of the night off, Leo.”
“Hi,” Vega said, opening his cell. “I think it’s time the four of us talk.”
They didn’t let him out of the cell. Not yet. Khort and Arlet followed Vega in.
“No warning you were coming and bringing friends?” Bridger asked, raising a brow.
She answered with the roll of her pretty eyes.
The color had come back to Arlet’s skin, and she looked good. Rested.
Then there was Khort, who looked like he was ready to set Bridger on fire at any moment. Typical.
Bridger smiled at him, wiggling his fingers in a sarcastic hello. “Is this my trial? To see if I’m trustworthy enough to rejoin the elite bonded?”
Vega held a hand up, keeping Khort from rushing Bridger like a bull. They could sense each other’s movements, even while locked inside a cage meant to suppress even the strongest of powers.
“We’re here to talk about the logistics of making this work,” Arlet pointed out, always the one to step in when the three of them needed redirecting.
Vega plopped down at the other end of the cot she’d had sent to him last night. The note she’d tucked into the blanket read:
Because the Vega I am today doesn’t think you deserve to sleep on the cold ground. Not anymore, at least.
He’d traced Vega’s quick script with his fingertip close to a hundred times.
“Do they know about your deal?” He needed to know if Vega expected him to keep it a secret.
“They know everything,” Vega responded to Bridger out loud, a seamless transition into what they needed to talk about.
“Everything?” Bridger asked, cocking his brow as a crooked smirk formed across his lips.
“Everything,” Khort grumbled.
Arlet stood in the middle of the room, blocking Khort and Bridger from each other while also standing in between Bridger and the only exit he had—he wouldn’t take it even if he had the chance.
There was nowhere else for him to go.
Arlet sighed. “It’s time you tell us your side of the story, Bridger.”
His eyes bounced between Arlet and Khort, lingering on Vega the longest. She shrugged her shoulders and didn’t say a word.
“You think my story is going to change the way they feel?” Bridger asked with a sneer.
“It’s a start,” Vega quipped.
“There’s a lot I’m not ready to talk about,” Bridger admitted. “And it’s not because I’m hiding anything. I’m still not prepared to face every demon I locked away, and this whole feelings thing is kind of new to me again.”
For almost forty years, Bridger had blocked out anything that could hurt him, spending nearly half a century feeling nothing but what the fearless leader of Tolevarre’s army should feel.
Anger. Determination.
“Then tell us what you’re willing to share.” Arlet’s voice was soft, but when Bridger looked up, her eyes were clouded with exactly what he’d expected. Apprehension.
Bridger had a sneaking suspicion it wasn’t Arlet or Khort who’d pushed this matter.
He huffed. He didn’t have a choice—it was time to open up.
Lost inside his roaring thoughts, Bridger didn’t miss the caress of Vega’s presence inside. When his eyes focused on her, she was already looking at him, her icy eyes drawing him in.
If Vega could talk about the shitty things that happened to her, Bridger could give them the peace of mind they were looking for.
“We’ve all fallen victim to Marlena’s torture.
I don’t need to explain what she’s able to do to someone when she has full control.
” Everyone nodded in unison, so Bridger continued.
“When I escaped after two years, I was already a different person. I had to become someone inside that cell to keep myself from going crazy.”
Bridger stared at the worn soles of Vega’s boots, giving himself something to focus on while he spoke.
“I spent 802 days locked away, and only three people talked to me. Marlena, when she was reminding me I had the power to save the people I loved, or when she felt it was necessary to tell me who Vega had come back as—how weak she was becoming. My mother, who never missed an opportunity to tell me what a failure I’d become, and a young level one warrior, freshly enlisted, who I manipulated and then had to kill to escape.
” Bridger couldn’t look up—didn’t want to see anyone’s reactions as he continued.
“Marlena never laid a hand on me the entire time I was her prisoner. She didn’t have to.
She knew I could endure physical pain. I’d been raised by a man who beat me any chance he got, usually for nothing more than a reminder he could.
But that didn’t mean the others didn’t. Guards, other leaders.
My own mother.” Bridger felt the breath Arlet inhaled.
“Whoever felt they had a bone to pick with me.” He’d been stripped of his powers the entire time, never able to fight back against the strength of those with three meals a day and unblocked abilities.
“When they were done they’d all send in a healer, readying me for the next person who showed up. ”
Vega knew of his father’s abuse, but he’d never gone into detail.
Bridger had always had secrets—had been raised to keep them close to his chest. “Marlena knew what it would take to break me. She’d already taken the only person I’d ever loved…
The last thing I wanted was for Vega to lose the people who loved her too. ”
Bridger ground his teeth together, pushing against the need to clam up.
“Keep going.” Vega’s words fluttered through his mind.
Having her there, in whatever capacity she was willing to give him, gave Bridger the nerve he needed to continue.
“Maybe Marlena already knew the four of us couldn’t die, but I didn’t, and she told me she would let you both live if I joined her.
” A laugh actually slipped through his lips, but it didn’t have any humor behind it.
“Vega hadn’t been the person we’d loved in a long time, and I was the one who found it hardest to deal with, but no one was in my shoes.
No one was losing the only person who’d ever made them feel whole.
” His eyes rose to Vega. “I lost her over and over and over… I don’t have to tell either of you what that felt like. ”
Khort rolled his eyes and started to talk, but surprisingly, Arlet cut him short. “Let him finish.” She nodded Bridger on.
“So while you lost Vega too, what you didn’t have, don’t have, is the responsibility of a Dimico-born warrior.
At birth, by blood, I was chosen for a specific duty.
” When the next commander was born, their power was already engraved in them—they didn’t have to wait to come into their ability like everyone else.
“I had a realm ready to tear itself apart, and no one to lead it. Do you know why the original bloodline didn’t allow the commander to also be the Curia seat holder? ”
None of them answered, but Bridger knew they knew.
“Because the commander’s life isn’t linked to one territory. It’s connected to them all. A commander’s obligation is to his realm, not his birthplace.” Bridger’s own lineage had been the ones to forget—to get greedy and want more for only themselves.
Bridger had never supported his parents’ views or beliefs, but up until Vega, he’d never had the courage to act against them.
“I took an oath to our realm, was born to protect it… and Marlena was letting people die, killing them. Not just us or the people we cared about. She was letting the people who had nothing else, no one else, die. We promised to protect them. We told Remus we would.” Bridger had so many conflicting feelings about Remus after everything Romulus had revealed.
He hadn’t even begun unpacking what he’d heard and witnessed.
“I had to make a decision for them, not me. I thought I’d lost Vega for good, and I didn’t have anything else to live for at that moment in my life.
” Bridger felt like he was being filleted open and examined for broken pieces.
Khort and Arlet’s posture softened, but Bridger wasn’t focused on them. He’d always said he didn’t care about the others, and while that wasn’t entirely true, he’d thought of Vega before everyone else.
She’d been the first and last person he’d thought of when he’d made his final decision.
“I eventually had to ask myself what Vega would have done in my situation.” In the early days after his betrayal, Bridger liked to believe there was a version of Vega out there somewhere who was proud of the man he’d had to become.
Understanding wrapped around their bond. “I would have saved as many people as I could.”
Hearing Vega say those words weaved a patch into the ripped fabric of Bridger’s soul.
Silence stretched between the cell, no one saying anything until Bridger spoke again.
“I took in who I could, saved those who would have had nowhere else to go. I changed the way the army works. I didn’t choose Marlena.
I chose my realm. I chose Tolevarre.” A weight lifted from his shoulders.
“I’ve made mistakes, been far more ruthless than I should have been, but without me?
I promise things would have been a lot worse.
” He didn’t know if they’d believe him, but he’d finally spoken his truth.
“So, where’s your army now?” Khort asked with a smug smirk.
A rumble echoed through the cave, shrieks of terror following.
What timing!
“Gonna go out on a limb here, but I bet that’s them.”