by Anne Malcom
On that, I darted forward, yanking Thorne back by the neck and quickly moving myself between them.
“Now, now, boys. What would your mothers say of you?” I asked, making a tutting sound. “You’re both being sent to bed without any supper at this rate.”
Thorne’s eyes were wild and full of a fury so deep even I couldn’t understand it. He tried to struggle around me; luckily, he was injured and I was simply stronger, so the motion didn’t work.
“Isla,” he growled, sounding more animal than man. “Get out of the way.”
I gave him a look. “Nope, shan’t.”
Movement behind me told me Rick had obviously gotten sick of the intermission in the main event, so he was intending to forcibly remove me. The stiffening of Thorne’s body to attack told me that too.
I kept my back to him, the attack that Thorne never expected coming.
I grinned at Sophie, who had crossed her arms and was standing casually.
“Thanks, sister,” I said.
She shrugged. “Anytime.”
I turned to see Rick frozen in place. Actually frozen, obviously mid–attack stance. His foot was hovering and the beads of blood dropping from the cut on his forehead were suspended midair.
I reasoned that the little spell also stopped that gash from healing considering it was still open and angry.
“That’s a nifty one, Soph,” I commented. “I feel like we could’ve used that in a lot of our other battles and saved a lot of pairs of shoes from getting ruined,” I accused.
She shrugged again. “That would’ve made it too easy and a lot more boring.”
I narrowed my eyes at her, wondering if she was telling the truth or if it was her newly found powers that offered her the ability to deep freeze a vampire king.
Unfortunately I didn’t have the time to ask at that particular juncture, as Thorne was getting a little antsy if the taste of his secondhand rage pouring through me was anything to go by.
“Okay,” I hissed, looking between the two of them. “Although I totally agree with solving any and all problems with violence, and I don’t believe in such things as a proper time or place, unfortunately I’m going to have to contradict two of those core beliefs I hold dear.” I paused, glancing at Rick’s frozen body, smiling slightly at how awesome it was to see the king who valued control so highly to literally not be in control over a single thing in his body. Then I focused on Thorne. His heart, though even, was beating slightly faster, not with fear but with the rage that had all but consumed him in the most puzzling of ways.
“We’ve got other things to do, so you two need to sort this out. You’ve thrown punches, now call a truce. For as long as it takes us to sort this out. Then I’ll gladly schedule a Pay-Per-View fight and pocket eighty percent of the profits. But for now, cool it.”
Thorne’s heavy breathing was the only response to my little request, though there was something in the air, in his feelings which were still washing through me and numbing my hands.
A tingle that picked at the little part of me that had been brewing, that itch that something between these two was more than nature.
That it was something that might change everything.
That it had something to do with Thorne’s demeanor earlier and the promise I made before we walked in.
I didn’t know why I was thinking of all of this, considering we only needed one creepy seer and that was Sophie. I sure as hell didn’t want the job, but the surety of the feeling was there just the same.
I glanced to the witch in question, who was regarding the two men with a furrowed brow, her eyes seeing more than was in front of her.
“Okay, could you take the other two out for ice cream or to hunt that faction of hybrids that was troubling Lewis downtown?” I asked Sophie. “You could always get ice cream after. With me. When I sort these two.” I jerked my head at Thorne and Rick. “And by ice cream I mean copious amounts of alcohol. For tomorrow I guess we go to war. And we party like sorority girls in Cabo on the eve of any war. Tradition and all that.”
Sophie grinned. “It’s a date.” She gave Duncan and Scott a look. “Let’s go kill some hybrids.”
Duncan grinned. “Finally.”
Scott looked a little more hesitating, his eyes on me.
I rolled mine. “Yes, run along. You don’t have to be glued to my side for all eternity. I’ve already got one of those and he’s causing me enough trouble.”
I gave Thorne a pointed glare. His eyes were clearing slightly and his wounds were healed a little.
Scott moved to do what I said.
“Toodles,” Sophie said cheerfully with a grin and finger wave that were comical when paired with the little goth rocker look she had.
I blew her a kiss with the free hand that wasn’t holding Thorne in place.
When she turned her back and ushered the two vampires out the door rather like a soccer mom might to two rambunctious children, I called to her.
“Ah, Soph?”
She turned. “Yeah?”
I nodded to Rick. “Better unstick the king before he starts to rust or something.”
“Oh shit, right,” she muttered.
The air changed slightly, thinned out perhaps, and Rick’s foot came down hard on the floor.
He blinked once, looking dazed for about a second before he got himself together enough to glare at Sophie’s back.
“Oh, don’t you dare focus any rage on the witch who most likely saved what remained of your suit,” I snapped to him.
He moved his eyes to me. “This is not your matter to involve yourself in.”
I narrowed my stare, letting Thorne go to cross my arms and stand between them.
I was reasonably confident they weren’t going to lunge at each other immediately. If they did, I was confident in my abilities, even without Sophie’s little freezing trick.
“I disagree, considering I was the thing you were hissing about before the fight began. Plus it affects my day. And anything that affects my day enough to fuck up my plans is going to get interfered with by me.”
Rick moved his glare from me to Thorne. “This isn’t about you, Isla. This is between us.”
The words hung in the air with a feralness that didn’t suit the regal king I had come to know, got annoyed with, and thought about shirtless from time to time.
The man I had come to know, got annoyed with, who consumed my heart and soul and I dreamed about and experienced more than shirtless as often as I could stared right back at him.
Their stare-down was more than I felt like handling. One could only weather so many macho men stare-downs without either suggesting a threesome or an explanation. The true Isla in me was very disappointed in the direction I went.
“Okay, I’m about as over this as I am about Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth being so on-again/off-again,” I announced.
Two heads snapped to me.
“Oh look, they noticed the beautiful, amazing and eloquent vampire in the room,” I said sarcastically. “Yes, I’m speaking. And I do it much better than the both of you, but regretfully one or both of you will have to speak when I’m done.” I narrowed my eyes. “That speech being the story of just how you two know each other and why you just can’t seem to get along. I mean, I’m all about a jelly wrestling match. In fact, I’m happy to call my lube guy to get enough KY to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool, but it seems we’ve got to work together in making sure the world doesn’t end in blood and destruction. In order for that to happen, I really need you to either kiss and make up—and if we go for that option, you have to wait until I have a recording device—or figure out how to fight it out without actually killing each other.”
I gave Rick a look.
“Because if you kill the man I love I’d have to kill you, and that would unwittingly be giving the revolution assholes exactly what they want. And I hate giving people what they want at the best of times. I’d much rather get what I want. And what I want, in addition to a tennis brac
elet from Tiffany’s and the newest Gucci bag, is for someone to finally explain your fucking deal,” I demanded.
I sighed at the silence, then paced the room. “I’m going to start pulling teeth at some point,” I warned.
Thorne gritted his teeth, the waves of emotion coming off him confusing.
The rage wasn’t. The rage was familiar and expected. It was what lingered beneath that. Something like fear, but not the same taste from the times I’d been in danger—which was far too much lately, even for my liking. It was some other kind of fear, one I didn’t understand.
“How do you two know each other, she asks for the very last time,” I said, coming to a stop in front of Thorne and trying to ignore his fear as it gave birth to some of my own.
Thorne’s eyes met mine with a hard resolve and something resembling apology in them.
“He’s my brother,” he gritted out.
Those three words bounced off the stone in the room and then hit me with enough force to wind me.
I stared at Thorne. Then Rick, who was holding himself still and giving me an even and blank look.
Then I waited. For one or both of them to yell “Psych!” and laugh about the epic joke they’d been playing.
No one said anything. And the three words chased away whatever silence tried to settle after them.
Thorne was watching me intently and didn’t make any move to come to me, which unnerved me. At any point in our lives so far, whenever he sensed any kind of strong emotion from me, or just in general, he needed to touch me. Be near me.
But not now.
I looked around the room, inspecting the well-dusted corners.
“What are you looking for?” Thorne demanded.
I snapped my gaze back to him. “Not what, who,” I corrected.
He frowned in response. “Who the fuck are you looking for?”
“Ashton Kutcher, of course,” I snapped. “I’m thinking he must be making like a comeback show or something, considering the only explanation for what you just told me is that I’m being punked. He better get here soon because even being on TV hasn’t calmed my temper enough not to get a lot of blood on a lot of the camera crew if they don’t show soon.”
Silence descended once more. Thorne was yet again giving me that look.
“Ashton isn’t coming, is he?” I asked.
Thorne didn’t even grin, just shook his head.
I stared at him, clenching my fists and trying not to go with my first instinct, which was to lunge at Thorne.
I focused on Rick. My rage was also with him, but the cut of the lie wasn’t as painful when it came from someone you expected at least a little betrayal from. He was a king, and a vampire, after all.
And I didn’t love him. Nor expect him to love me.
He might have considered himself somewhat infatuated with me and asked me to be his queen more than once, but the coldness of his heart rivaled mine.
And two cold beings couldn’t love each other.
Demons couldn’t love demons. They didn’t have the capacity for it, needing the human part of the equation to change their chemistry and heat up whatever was left in their chest.
It was only then that I realized that true betrayal only came from people you loved.
And that it hurt.
A fuck of a lot.
“Explain,” I commanded Rick, not looking at Thorne, and doing my best to block out every single fucking one of his emotions. My own were already shaking through me with such a force that I was surprised I didn’t crack my fangs from my gums, considering they were extended.
Rick’s face was blank as he held my eyes, something swimming in his that wasn’t the rage that had all but disappeared in a rather unnerving second. “You are aware of the origin stories of both his race and ours?” he asked after a moment of regard.
My mind unwittingly went to that storybook Thorne’s nitwit little sister had under her bed before it snapped back to the present moment.
I looked to the ceiling. “Please don’t anyone else give me a fucking history lesson. I had enough blood shed over it the last time around.” I moved my glare to Rick. “Yes, I know the fucking origin story. Greek gods, blah blah blah, human love, meddling of said gods, blah blah blah. I’m also aware of a little thing called biology. I know we stretch it a little when our species give birth to human children who eventually turn into vampires, who then die and then the female ones reawaken in order to further the race. Weird on Mother Nature’s part. But she also made it possible for Donald Trump to exist, so we’ll just roll with it.” I paused, steeling myself to give me more strength needed to fight a werewolf before flickering my gaze at Thorne. “But he is human.” I noted his heartbeat before thankfully moving my attention back to Rick. I couldn’t unhear the heartbeat that was previously comforting and quickly becoming haunting, but I could control where my gaze went.
“You’re a vampire, so forgive me for thinking you’re spouting a load of fucking bullshit when you say a human slayer, birthed to kill vampires, shares blood with a vampire who just happens to be king of all fucking vampires. Doesn’t really jive.” I paused. “Plus Thorne’s parents are both dead. Assassinated by vampires, which is the reason for your immense hatred of our damned species, isn’t that correct?” I asked Thorne, keeping my voice as flippant as I could. Which was pretty darn flippant. “Or was that just a big giant lie? Because one of the two of you is telling big old porkers, and if one lie exists, then I’m sure as shit more exist.”
His hands were tight at his sides, balled into fists. “They were my parents,” he told me fiercely. “In every sense of the word, except biology.”
I blinked at him. “Ah, honey, I think maybe you might not have passed the right science classes. Biology is pretty much the main thing that determines parentage.”
His eyes never left mine, rage lingering in them. Unlike Rick, he didn’t have the ability to turn off his emotions and present a façade like only a vampire could. When you burned hotter than an inferno, it couldn’t just be snuffed out, and even when it was, embers remained. The embers of fury were there but something different moved, an intensity that was reserved for me alone.
“No, babe, you’re wrong. They loved me, cared for me and taught me to be a man. That’s pretty much everything a parent does. And they gave me the gift of not having to grow up with anyone who shared my blood.”
“Your vampire blood. That’s what you’re trying to get me to believe, right?” I asked, a lot of disbelief in my tone and a scowl on my face.
Rick chose that moment to cut in. “You are aware of the fact that a mortal man was chosen to protect mankind from the race of vampires.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yes, by a god. That’s the story. I already got that story too.” I gave Thorne a glare. “From my beloved, of course, but then again, he’s also the one saying he’s the brother of a vampire king, so who knows if what the fuck he says is true. If anything he says is true.”
Thorne flinched at my words, more so than he did with any of the hits Rick had landed on him, the insinuation that everything he had said to me was a lie causing more damage than the still-healing bones and cuts.
I hated that I could see that, feel that through our connection.
I hated that I even cared.
Rick either didn’t see the reaction or didn’t care. Most likely the latter because he carried on.
“Well, it forgets that the vampire was once a mortal man. And a different legend exists, a truer one not taught at Mortimeus because it will shatter every belief that vampires hold dear. A truth about the blood that belongs to the gods. The gods do not give gifts or curses lightly. For Ambrogio had a brother. One whom he quarreled with over the very woman Apollo cursed him for.”
“She must’ve had a golden vagina,” I muttered.
Rick ignored me.
“Ambrogio was a traveler, though Caius was his companion, as the legend chooses to leave out. And the fact that he was first to encounter Selene in the
days before Ambrogio. Caius was more noble in his pursuit of Selene and loved her from afar, even when she chose the man he shared blood with.”
Something flickered in his eyes that I chose to ignore at that moment. Something that tumbled the waves of Thorne’s emotions.
“Caius was filled with agony when he watched Ambrogio love the woman he wanted more than life, then, when the curse was cast, watched that same woman die. He had moved on and created a family of his own, but he would forever love Selene.” Rick paused. “True love is the only thing in this world that is truly deathless.” Another pointed look. “So when Ambrogio, broken and now a complete vampire, came looking for blood to sustain him and murder to damn his soul so he didn’t feel the pain of heartbreak, he found it in killing the village where he’d once shared a life with Selene until love had ruined it all. And it was his brother who sacrificed his life in order to save what remained of his family. Ambrogio drained his brother without hesitation. Or he tried to. Whatever remained inside him, left over from the woman he loved and killed for love, it stopped him from taking everything from his brother. He didn’t kill him, but he didn’t leave him for life either. He left him somewhere in between. Which was where Eleos found him. And she offered him the gift his sons would get.”
He paused.
“The same version of the story Thorne no doubt told you, save a few details.”
I glared at him. “A few fucking pivotal details,” I hissed. “Still, you haven’t filled me in on how you two are brothers from the same mother, or so I assume.”
Rick’s eyes swam with a sorrow that I didn’t it have it in me to care about.
No, I couldn’t give two shits about his sorrow right then. Or even Thorne’s. That was the beauty of my own all-consuming rage; when you got really angry at someone you loved, it did the nifty little trick of hiding the truth of the hurt, for a time at least.
Band-Aid over a bullet wound and all that.
Rick saw my anger and continued with his voice even. “We do share the same mother. And father. Much like Ambrogio and Caius. For it was the curse of Eloes that she didn’t inform Caius that his future sons would have the gift, and so would the sons after them. But only because of the shared blood with Ambrogio in his veins. And when the Vein Lines of vampires were created, so were the Vein Lines of the Praseates. Of those two brothers to counteract one another. Only once in a millennium is a new king made. And his wife is killed, of course.”