by L. C. Davis
I hesitated. “I can't separate myself, Ulric. I'm in love with Victor.”
“Yes, but you were in love with Sebastian not long ago,” he reminded me. “You've seen the best and worst of them both on a level no one else has. I raised them. My perspective is not an entirely objective one either.”
“I guess not,” I said, staring off into the garden. If Ulric was right and Victor had marked me, there wasn't a chance Sebastian could become alpha anyway. There was no harm in being honest. “And this stays between us?”
“Absolutely.”
“Okay, then it's like you said. If they were two halves of the same person, they'd be perfect—for the alpha role, I mean,” I clarified. “Sebastian is fiercely protective, relentless, kind for the most part and the pack trusts him completely. He's also got a fuse longer than the Nile, but when that fuse blows, it's explosive and it destroys everything in its path. He plays dumb, but it's mostly an act. The truth is that he's lazy and he doesn't want anyone to challenge him, even though that's exactly what he needs. He has no intuition because he never stops to feel things out, he just goes for them and hopes he can muscle his way through.”
“Keep going,” Ulric murmured, listening intently. “This is good.”
I sighed. Now for the hard one. “Victor is so many amazing things. He's brilliant and even though he doesn't have to work to be good at everything he does, he tries hard anyway because he wants to be better. He thinks things through, and he'd do absolutely anything to protect the people he loves. And he's loyal. You saw that he was willing to take the fall for something he didn't do just to protect me from finding out about my vampire side because of what he thought it would do to me.”
“All very true,” he said patiently. “And his weaknesses?”
I hesitated. “He has a short fuse. He's brilliant and it makes him impatient with everyone who isn't on his level. He lets his passion and his intuition run away with him. The other wolves don't trust him because he's always off in his own world. Sure, he's usually doing things for the pack, but they have no way of knowing that. They need to feel like their alpha is one of them, they can't just take his word for it.”
Ulric was smiling again. “What?” I asked, worried I'd gone overboard in my analysis.
“I was just thinking it's no mystery what your vampire gift is.”
“Gift?” I asked. “We already know I'm psychic, to a degree.”
“No, that's your ability. Your gift is intuition,” he said proudly. “The same as Victor.”
“So what would my werewolf gift have been?” I asked, curious.
“Only one way to find out,” he said wryly.
I rolled my eyes. “Even if I knew how to get it back, I don't want to. I can't handle living with a conscience after everything I've done.”
“You're stronger than you think you are, Remus. Always remember that.” He said, stretching as he stood from the bench. “I suppose it's time I returned you to your mate. Remember, when he finds out I told you about the mark, you twisted my arm.”
“Got it,” I said, following him back towards the Lodge. “So, did I wake up too late to get to you before Hunter's war speech?”
“I'm afraid you have to be up pretty early in this house if you want to talk to me first,” he said, chuckling.
“Are you going to do it? Are you going to help him gather an army?”
“I haven't decided yet,” he admitted. “The boy does make a strong case for striking first. It's a shame his fool of a father is too set in his ways to let him take on a bigger role in the pack.”
“You think he'd make a good alpha?”
Ulric hesitated. “No, but not for the reason his father thinks. He's a loup floraison, like you. He's more masculine than they typically are, but it's still not his role to lead an entire pack no matter how much he wants to.”
He must have seen my indignant rant coming, because he added, “Before you start, it has nothing to do with what they put on his birth certificate. The original wolf who's next in line to become alpha of the pack in northern Oregon is also transgender and I dare say he'll be one of the finest alphas the Brotherhood has seen. There are plenty of female alphas as well.”
I frowned. “This original-versus-fleur wolf thing is that big of a deal?”
“Yes.”
Huh. “When will you have a decision about the ritual?” I asked, deciding not to press the issue. “Hunter made it sound like we didn't have much time.”
“We don't. That's the main reason I need to choose my successor sooner rather than later,” he said, opening the door as we walked back into the Lodge. “Considering that this affects you personally, you'll be the first to know when I come to a decision.”
“Thank you,” I breathed. If he thought there was even a chance I would be mated to Sebastian again he was crazy, but I knew that arguing wasn't going to help matters.
“Let's go see if they're both still alive or if they've solved my dilemma for me.”
His face was stony and unreadable as usual, but I was beginning to be able to tell when he was being sarcastic. “Not funny,” I grumbled, quickening my steps a little just in case.
When we got closer to the study, the sounds of fighting were over. That could either be a good thing or a terrible thing. I knew Victor wasn't dead. I knew I would feel it somehow, just as I had felt he was alive back in Austin.
Ulric opened the door and I darted inside, looking for signs of bloodshed. There was plenty of blood on the floor and some on the coffee table where it looked like someone's head had been bashed in, but not enough blood for a murder scene. I would know.
To my relief, Sebastian and Victor were perched in opposite corners of the room. Victor was on one of the chairs with his hand pressed against the gash on his forehead that had yet to fully heal. Blood trickled through his fingers, but he was sitting upright for the most part and he seemed fully conscious. A small trail of blood ran down his lip and chin. Sebastian was sitting on the floor with his back propped against the wall. He looked considerably more dazed than Victor and the shadow of a black eye had overcast his right brow. His lip was split open, but he didn't have any other major visible injuries.
I was ashamed that the smell of blood, even under such a horrible circumstance, could trigger thirst in me. At least it was secondary to concern and disgust. When I dashed over to Victor's side, the thirst faded even more.
“Are you okay?” I asked, taking his face in my hands to examine the cut. “How many fingers am I holding up?”
“Fifteen.” Well, at least he had the presence of mind to be his usual snarky self.
“Your forehead is a mess.”
“Thanks for that, love.”
“I'm serious. Let me go get Clara.”
“Don't bother Clara with this,” he grumbled.
I looked back at Sebastian. “I'd feel better if she checked out the both of you.”
Victor sighed. “Fine. I'm not going to drag her up here, though.”
Sebastian rose to his feet and staggered slightly. I seemed to be the only one who noticed. Without a word, he left the room. It had been hard to tell who won the fight, if there even could be a winner in a fight between twin brothers, but Sebastian's behavior made me think that Victor had lived up to his name this time.
“Come on, let's get you downstairs,” I said, holding his arm.
“I can walk just fine,” said Victor.
“Oh, let the boy get you patched up. You'll need it because you and your brother are going to be cleaning up my study later,” said Ulric.
“Yes, Sir,” Victor said dryly. It occurred to me that the brothers had more of a father-son relationship with Ulric than I ever would. It bothered me, but not for the reason it probably should have.
“Something wrong?” Victor asked, glancing down at me on our way to the infirmary.
“Just realized I've been dating my brothers.”
He laughed. “You could have mentioned that to me, you know.”
/>
“I'm serious. Ulric raised you guys, you're more like his kids than I am. This is weird.”
“It's not as if we grew up together, Remus. Well, not physically. We may have a special relationship with Ulric, but it's still not the same as your relationship with him,” he assured me. “It doesn't have to be weird unless we make it that way.”
“I guess. So, who won?”
“You don't need to sound so enthused,” he said with a chuckle. “I suppose I did.”
“I can't be happy you won in a fight against your brother, especially not when you were fighting over me.”
“It was partly over you,” he admitted. “It started out that way, at least. That shit he pulled with you the other day may have precipitated it, but that fight has been a long time in coming.”
His words comforted me as much as they could, but until they were able to be in the same room without beating the shit out of each other, I was going to harbor some feeling that was dangerously close to guilt about coming between them.
“What did you and Ulric talk about?”
“A little bit of everything,” I said, trying to sound casual. He didn't need to know that the majority of our conversation had centered around the alpha decision. Just because Ulric hadn't directly asked me to keep it confidential didn't mean I was free to divulge it, even to Victor. “We talked about my mother a lot.”
“Really? That's good. I've been hoping you two would get the chance.”
“I strong-armed him into telling me about the mark,” I said, deciding to get it over with.
Anger flickered across his face for an instant before he was himself again. He gave a short laugh of disbelief. “In all his years of living, Ulric has never been strong-armed into anything. Certainly not by a waif like you, no offense.”
“Okay, so he told me of his own free will, but I'm glad he did. Who knows when I would have heard it from you,” I said, punching him in the arm. He didn't even seem to notice. “You didn't think I need to know something like that?”
“In time,” he said. “I wanted to know when and how it happened first. Hunter has been assisting me with that.”
I wanted to ask how, but held my tongue. Victor talked more when you didn't ask him questions.
“I needed to know if you loved me because of the mark, or because you actually loved me,” he admitted quietly.
“Victor! Of course I love you,” I said, coming to a stop. “Ulric told me a long time ago that a mark doesn't become active until you're in love. That's why Sebastian's faded, I think. I loved him at one point, but compared to the way I love you, it's nothing.”
Victor was looking past me at something with a haunted look on his face. My blood froze over and I turned around slowly. I didn't need to look to know that Sebastian was standing right behind me.
And he'd heard everything.
8
As soon as Victor was settled in the infirmary, I collected a handful of supplies from Clara and headed out to find Sebastian. Victor clearly wasn't happy about it, but he didn't try to stop me. He was far more lenient with where I went since his return, and now I knew why. Sebastian had always been able to track me through the mark. Now Victor could.
I ran all the way upstairs and knocked on Sebastian's door. There was no answer the third time I tried knocking and I was beginning to think he'd gone off somewhere when I heard an exasperated, “Whad'you want?” from the other side.
“It's Remus,” I called through the door.
“I gathered that. No one else is as annoyingly persistent as you are.”
He was mad at me. Good. Mad was better than devastated. “I know you're not going to see Clara, so she sent me up with some supplies.”
“She picked a bad messenger,” he muttered. His voice was closer, though, and a few seconds later the door opened a crack.
“So I got you to open the door,” I said with an apologetic smile. “Give me five minutes?”
He rolled his eyes but stepped back to let me inside. His room wasn't in its usual state of chaos. In fact, it was almost clean save for some clothes on the bed and...
“A suitcase?” I frowned.
“I'm going away for awhile,” he said, taking a seat beside the pile of clothes.
“Since when?”
He shrugged. “Since a few minutes ago.”
“Sebastian, you can't just leave. The pack needs you now more than ever. if this is because of what I said --”
“Oh God, please don't make me sound that pathetic,” he muttered. “I might be an idiot, but I'm just smart enough to accept when I've lost. Victor is the better man, I get it, but I'm not leaving in a juvenile rage because my brother stole my boyfriend—figure of speech,” he added, cutting off my protest. “I'll stick close enough to help if the pack needs me. I just need some time to clear my head and Ulric needs a final push to make the decision we all know he's going to make in the end.”
I listened, surprised by the depth of his reasoning. As soon as I had learned of his plan to leave, I started planning to talk him out of it. Now I wasn't sure. I took a clean wet cloth and began wiping away the blood on his forehead. “How do you know he's planning to choose a new successor?”
“Because whenever Ulric is about to make a big decision, he gets this look in his eyes. It's been the same ever since we were kids. That and he isn't just protecting the pack anymore, he's protecting you,” he said, taking on a wistful tone. “He's not going to leave anything to chance. Not anymore.”
“For what it's worth, Sebastian, I don't think the decision is as cut and dry as you seem to think it is.” I had no idea why I was admitting that, especially to him, but the words were out of my mouth before I could think them through.
He gave me an empty smile. “Then that's all the more reason for me to make it cut and dry. The pack needs a real leader and his mate to be a united front, vampire or not.”
“Even if they don't need you as alpha, they need you here as a brother, Sebastian,” I said reluctantly. “So do I.”
He shook his head. “I'll always be there for the pack, Remus, but I can't pretend like I'll ever see you as anything other than my mate. Mark or not, that's just the way it is. Overhearing you in the hall didn't make me want to leave, but it did give me the perspective I needed to go through with this. It made me realize that I wasn't sticking around for the good of the pack. I was sticking around in the hopes that my Remus was going to come back, that he wasn't really gone and that I could fix you somehow given enough time.”
“Sebastian,” I said gently. “Even if he—even if I could get that side of me back, I still wouldn't be the same person you fell in love with.”
“I know that now,” he said, wincing slightly as I dabbed his wound with antiseptic. “Guess I just needed to hear you say the words.”
“I'm sorry you heard that at all.”
“I'm not. If you'd told me to my face, I probably wouldn't have believed you.”
I tilted his head up and dabbed at the cut on his lip next. It had already started to heal slightly. We stayed in silence as I cleaned up his lip and bandaged his forehead as best as I knew how. “I know I'm a vampire and we're not supposed to feel anything –“
“Aside from Victor.”
“Yes, aside from Victor,” I sighed. “But there's one thing I'll always regret.”
“And what's that?”
It was hard to look him in the eye all of a sudden, so I pretended to be preoccupied with fixing the corner of his bandage. “The way I came between you two, and not just when I cheated on you. From the very beginning I caused division. I'll never forgive myself for that,” I said, clearing my throat since my voice was strangely hoarse.
Sebastian's hand closed around my wrist and pulled my hand away from his face. He cupped my cheek in his other hand and brushed a strand of hair behind my ear in a fond gesture that I knew wasn't meant for me. Not really. “You're stubborn as hell so I'm gonna have to lay this out for you. The cheating hurt, I'm not gonn
a pretend it didn't, but once the dust settled I realized that Victor's betrayal hurt even more than yours. If he had come to me man-to-man and told me what was going on, even about him marking you, we could have dealt with it. There would have been fighting, but at least it would have been done with.”
He sighed. “As for coming between us, you can blame the moon. She's the one who saw fit to give us both the same soulmate.”
“So you do believe in the legend?”
He shrugged. “I've never been one to overthink things like my brother.” It was the first time he'd said the b-word since everything that had happened in Austin. “I'm not devout like Foster or anything, but something about it just feels right in here,” he said, bringing a huge fist to his chest. “Even if it doesn't feel right up here.”
I stopped him before he could do the same to his wounded forehead. “Careful,” I muttered.
He smirked. “It's good to know you still care a little, even if you don't love me anymore.”
“What I said to Victor wasn't entirely true,” I admitted. “I may not be in love with you, but part of me will always love you, Sebastian. Victor might be the only one who can make me feel the full range of human emotions, but you were the first guy to make me feel anything after Jeff. It felt like it would never be safe to trust anyone like that again, but you broke down every wall so fast that before I even knew what happened, I had fallen in love with you,” I said, trying to ignore the familiar twinge somewhere deep in my mind. The wall appeared against the black backdrop of consciousness and a thick rope of ivy coiled deeper into one of the cracks in its stone surface.
Sebastian stood, much sturdier than he had appeared in Ulric's study. He took my left hand and pressed his lips against the back of it. The faint burn underneath my skin kept me from protesting the strangely intimate gesture. “Thanks for that,” he said, letting my hand fall back to my side. “I should get going.”
“How long do you think you'll be gone?” I asked.