by A. C. James
I was going to ignore that. Except it made me think of the first note he’d written and left with the waitress at the club when he thought I was Katarina. You look good wearing nothing. That night at HFC when Arie had cuffed me to the pole, Toren had been there, seen everything. Arie had fucked me right in front of him, and I’d been wearing the same thing: nothing. I felt exposed, vulnerable. My head spun as I considered the letters he’d written when he thought that I was her.
I gulped. “Why did you ask Katarina to forgive you?”
“Because I thought I was wrong.”
“About what?”
His eyes hardened. “It doesn’t matter.”
“You were lovers.”
Toren sighed. “We were lovers, but that was a long time ago.”
I shook my head. “Is that really how you feel? I don’t think so. You wouldn’t be looking for forgiveness or writing all that stuff if that’s how you really felt.”
He walked to the window that overlooked the Chicago River. White flakes drifted past, and I wondered when spring would ever get here.
“Where is she? I heard that she was dead.”
My worst nightmare had come true. I closed my eyes. How could I tell him that I’d killed her? I wished that Arie were here now. I took a deep breath, glad that when I opened my eyes I was looking at his back.
“Let me just get dressed. We can go downstairs and wait for Arie. I could get you a drink. Some Puncture?”
He turned and looked at me. I don’t know why, but I knew that I couldn’t lie to him or hold back. Toren should know the truth. Even if it meant that once he found out that I’d been responsible for her death, he’d rip my throat out.
“Is it true? Is she dead?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“How?”
Now was the moment. He would kill me just as soon as I told him that it was my fault.
“I killed her.”
He strode across the room and stopped right in front of me, but he didn’t touch me. I flinched anyway. I couldn’t help it.
“I just need to know one thing,” he said.
“What?”
“Why?”
I looked down.
“Look at me. And tell me why you killed her.”
I met his eyes and told him without breaking eye contact and, surprisingly, without flinching. “She lost her mind and was making headlines in the tabloids that could expose us. She tried to kill me. I had no other choice. It was me or her.”
Everything seemed to slow down as I waited for his response. This would be the end. I fully expected that he’d find the nearest piece of wooden furniture and fashion a stake out of it just so he could drive it straight through my heart.
He sneered, his expression turning cynical. “It really doesn’t matter anymore. I guess I wasn’t wrong.”
I gasped.
What am I supposed to say? And what wasn’t he wrong about?
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I said.
Now I did flinch, hoping it didn’t sound nearly as hollow and ridiculous to him as it did to me once the words were out of my mouth.
Toren smirked. “You know, you look like her, but you’re really nothing alike. Not a bit.”
I looked away. For some reason that sounded good to me. He’d figured out within the first five minutes of meeting me that I wasn’t her, but it had taken Arie a lot longer to get a clue. My gut twisted.
“You should get dressed. Come downstairs when you’re done. I think I could use that drink now.” He stepped away from me, turned, and walked down the steps.
It took me a second to get my body to cooperate with my brain. As soon as I was in the bathroom I closed and locked the door behind me. Although I doubted it would make much of a difference, it made me feel better to put a locked door between me and Toren. I could feel the blood rushing through my veins. I grabbed my cell phone off the vanity sink and dialed Arie.
He picked up after two rings.
“Hey, where are you?” I asked.
“I just wanted to stop by Victoria’s on the off chance she decided to go back there, even though I figured that was a long shot. I’m right around the corner. I should be home in five minutes.”
Relief washed over me.
“Holly, are you okay?”
“Yes,” I whispered.
“You’re not. What is it?”
“Toren is here.”
Dead silence on the other end.
“Arie?”
“I’ll be right there.”
There was a click. Arie didn’t even wait for me to respond, he’d just hung up, but he was coming. I didn’t want to be alone with Toren for one more minute. He made me uncomfortable, and I didn’t even want to analyze what had just happened between us. I wasn’t ready to think about kissing Toren back or grinding on him. I was such an idiot for not knowing that it wasn’t Arie. Shock jolted through me. My body had been so responsive. No one turned me on the way that Arie did. Except that Toren had turned me on.
God, I didn’t even know whether to tell Arie the truth. I could just imagine the two of them brawling in our living room. Not that I gave a damn about what would happen to Toren, but I didn’t know how strong he was and didn’t want him to rip Arie apart. The two vampires obviously had some sort of history that revolved around Katarina. It pissed me off that she was still a problem, even now that she was dead.
I splashed some water on my face. It was still flushed, and I felt a little like throwing up. I shrugged into my clothes, took a deep breath, and made my way downstairs. Toren sat at the breakfast bar. He turned in my direction as I came down the stairs; I couldn’t stand those penetrating emerald eyes. And then he grinned at me. It was like he was mocking me, but I didn’t have time to think about it.
The door to the loft swung open and then slammed shut. I bit my lower lip. Toren followed my gaze and turned toward the door. Shit. Somehow I knew this wouldn’t be good. Arie was home.
Chapter 2
My bones rattled when Arie slammed the door. He hadn’t even bothered to acknowledge me. For a second it seemed like he was just as confused to see me standing there as he was to see Toren, who he’d immediately scowled at.
“What are you doing here?” Arie asked.
I looked from Arie to Toren and then back again. Instinctively I moved so that the sofa was in front of me, because I had a feeling that this wouldn’t end well. Two incredibly sexy vampires were about to rumble. I had to admit it was kind of hot.
Toren sneered. “You didn’t think that I wouldn’t come to confirm it for myself. Not when I heard that Katarina was dead.”
Again Arie glanced in my direction, and there it was—that baffled expression. He blinked, then regarded Toren. “We made a deal.”
“What deal?” I asked.
Arie ignored me and continued to scowl at Toren. In fact, I thought he might throw Toren right through the glass wall and over the balcony to plummet into the Chicago River.
“Oh, my little brother thinks the same city isn’t big enough for both of us. We agreed that we’d never deliberately invade each other’s space, and if we happened to cross paths by accident…” Torren shrugged. “The one who was there first has the right to stay,” Toren said with a pause to emphasize his point. “Right, brother?”
“Do you have any other family?”
His face had darkened. “Not anymore.”
Arie’s lie hit me like a punch in the face. Now I was pissed. Really pissed.
“He’s your brother?” I asked, gesturing toward Toren.
Honestly, I didn’t know whether I was more shocked that Arie had a brother or that he’d lied straight to my face. Trust had never come easy for me—Arie had known that and still he’d lied to me. My eyes burned with tears that I refused to shed. I wasn’t going to cry or let him see how badly his lie hurt me. I’d sooner unleash the anger that simmered in my stomach like a pot about to boil over, than spill a bloody teardrop over the betrayal that had just torn me apart.
Cripes, we’d talked about my trust issues, and from the very beginning he’d known that growing up the way that I had, in the system, meant that I had a hard time letting anyone in. Honesty was everything; or at least it had been until now. I couldn’t believe he’d actually stormed off to take a shower when I didn’t want to tell him about the cryptic love letters that Toren had left me when he’d thought that I was his dead lover.
Excuse the fuck out of me.
I’d wanted to spare Arie jealousy over someone who didn’t mean anything. And he would’ve been jealous if he’d read the letter Toren wrote. Those comments about what I looked like without any clothes on would’ve made him want to tear Toren limb from limb. I didn’t know that we’d have such an intimate audience for our little exhibition at the club. Neither of us imagined Toren would be sitting at the bar. Damn it! Heat crept to my face.
But neither of them seemed to notice the tell-tale signs of my discomfort.
“He’s the bastard who broke our agreement,” Arie said. Hostility made his gray eyes icier than ever. And was it me or did he sound a little bit drunk just then? I couldn’t explain why, but a shiver ran down my spine. Arie seemed really off.
Toren laughed. “That’s true enough. I am a bastard.”
“Well, now that you’ve confirmed Katarina is perfectly fine, you can get the hell out of here.” Arie nodded toward me and waved his arm toward the door.
My jaw dropped.
“Oh, please. Don’t play games. Holly told me everything. Katarina’s dead. This one killed her.” Toren pointed at me.
Arie looked at me as if he were seeing me for the first time. Then the cloud of confusion slowly lifted as recognition shone in his eyes. When it did, he staggered and leaned against the wall near the massive bookcase.
-Arie?-
Something was wrong. Really wrong. No way was he trying to play games with Toren. His eyes were glassy. He hadn’t known me, and that was a much bigger punch to the gut than his dishonesty. I ran to him and wrapped my arms around his neck, tangling my fingers in the dark curls that hugged the collar of his leather jacket.
“Are you okay?” I whispered against his ear.
His arms came around my waist and then his hands moved up my back. “Ah, Holly. I’m sorry, love.”
When I looked into his eyes I saw recognition. After having to pretend to be my mother the day I’d met my grandmother, I didn’t think I could deal with anyone else I loved suffering from memory loss. My world was filled with love, friendship, and family because Arie had brought me into his world. The thought of it all disappearing when he looked at me just then had been scarier than all the demons and tragedy we’d faced. Relief washed over me.
Toren coughed. And then I noticed a leather jacket, which must have been his, flung over one of the stools at the breakfast bar that combined the living room with the kitchen, and remembered my grandmother’s odd moment of clarity.
“I can’t believe it,” she whispered.
An eerie stillness filled the room.
“What?” I asked.
“I've been waiting for you to find me before the disease takes me.”
The hair on the back of my neck stood on end. “Who do think I am?”
“I’d know you anywhere. You look just like my daughter. You’re my granddaughter. The one they made me give up.”
“Yes, I’m Holly.”
“I like that name. I don’t know how long I’ll be like this, but I need to tell you two things.”
“What do you need to tell me?”
“You’re a vampire.” She nodded. “That’s good, because the strength will help you, and so will he.”
“Who?”
“The man in the leather jacket. He needs you more than you know, and you’re going to need him. You’ll feel betrayed, but you’re going to have to trust him. Something bad is going to happen. Bright city lights. It will be bad and you’re going to need him.”
Arie had always worn a leather jacket, but apparently Toren did too. I couldn’t think about that when all I wanted was to get Toren out of the loft so I could help Arie — make sure that he was going to be okay. I’d deal with figuring out my grandmother’s premonition later.
I twisted in Arie’s arms. “Toren, you should probably go. I’ve got this.”
I’d tried to sound firm, but I could barely look at him after our encounter upstairs.
“I’m not stupid and I’m not leaving. Not when there’s something going on with my brother.” Toren’s jaw was set. Crap, he really meant it, and that would mean dealing with him whether I was comfortable with it or not.
“You’re not my brother,” Arie growled.
“Grew up together, didn’t we? Raised as brothers under the same damn roof, weren’t we? The way I see it, that makes us brothers whether you like it or not…brother.”
Shit.
“Your mother was a whore,” Arie slurred.
“Arie!” I yelled.
Arie took a step toward Toren, or tried to, but he was unsteady on his feet. It was definitely not like Arie to refer to any woman in such a derogatory way. Something was very wrong indeed, and I didn’t like the uneasy feeling that settled over me.
“I think we should all sit down,” I said as I took Arie’s arm and guided him to the leather sofa. “And you should apologize to Toren for what you said about his mother.”
My eyes widened when he didn’t fight me on moving to the sofa. Now I was officially worried. No one ever told Arie what to do. He sat on the sofa, but made no move to apologize. He glared at Toren across the coffee table when he took a seat in the matching chair. There’s the Arie that I know and love. ‘Stubborn’ would be the understatement of the year, but I was grateful to see the challenge in his eyes as he regarded Toren.
Toren shrugged. “No need to apologize. My mother was a prostitute, after all. I can’t really blame him for feeling the need to remind me.”
I gasped. “But how do you know that Arie is your brother?”
“There’s no proof,” Arie said, waving his arms in exasperation.
Toren shoved his hands through his hair and then gripped the leather chair, his frustration evident. It didn’t escape me that they were very similar, both in their dress and in their domineering mannerisms, but as I looked from one to the other I noted how different they were, too. It also didn’t escape me that even though Toren said there was no need to apologize, Arie’s remarks had clearly cut deep. Hearing the truth spoken so brutally had to have stung. But I needed to know everything, so I tried to find a way to put it as delicately as I could.
I coughed. “Given your mother’s...uh, occupation, then, what makes you so sure that you’re brothers?”
Toren sighed. “Five years before my brother was born, my mother died.” He paused and looked away.
“I’m sorry,” I said, my voice dropping.
“I was only a year old at the time. She had been a prostitute but she gave it up when I was born. She claimed that she knew for sure that he’d been the one to knock her up, and he believed her.” Toren shook his head as he continued. “But given her career choice, Arie’s not lying when he says there’s no way to be sure we shared the same father and that we’re really brothers.”
Arie was looking through the glass wall that opened onto the balcony and gazing toward the river but then he’d looked up, scowling at Toren. “Half-brothers if anything at all.”
I crossed my arms and looked at Arie. “Stop it!”
The conviction in his voice broke my heart. He made it abundantly clear that Toren meant nothing to him. I didn’t know what had come between them, but it made me sad, regardless of my general dislike of Toren and my annoyance with him. But I couldn’t help wondering whether I was really annoyed at him, or if I was ticked off that I’d responded to his kiss? I drew in a breath with a thin hiss. Toren just looked at me like he knew exactly what I’d been thinking at that moment, so I changed the subject.
“But he kept you an
yway?” I asked. “He took care of you both.”
Toren nodded. “Got married just so he’d have someone to help take care of me, knocked her up too, and Arie came nine months later. I was only five at the time. His wife didn’t live long after childbirth due to the arduous journey — we’d been were exiled to Babylon. Then our father met Arella, and they never told either of us the truth. They raised us as brothers, but it came out when our father was rambling on his death bed.”
“So Arie’s mother…she’s the only mother you ever knew,” I whispered.
And clearly learning the truth had made their relationship complicated. Arie had told me about Arella. She was the vampire his father had met, and she’d taken care of Arie after his mother died. She was the vampire who turned Arie. But Arie had conveniently left out the fact that he had a brother or half-brother or whatever they were to one another. They definitely had the bickering—the definition of family—down pat. That was the one thing I knew without a doubt. The only other thing I knew for sure was…
He lied.
No matter how much I wanted to, I couldn’t confront Arie about his dishonesty given the current situation. They both looked absolutely miserable, lost in the past. If I didn’t think that hugging Toren was such a bad idea, I would have, because the bitterness in his voice betrayed the cold indifference in his emerald eyes. My heart broke for him. For both of them, really, because neither of them had known their mothers. That was something I could understand from personal experience. I’d never known my mother either, but at least the Sight had given me more than most parentless children.
Where others had warm memories of their parents, I had these little glimpses of what my life could have looked like if their arms were wrapped around me. The three of us shared this common thread. It connected us in anger at the world in all its unfairness. Still, I had to be grateful for having the Sight and what it had given me that day in my mother’s old room, sitting on the edge of the bed, talking to my gram.
Toren nodded. “I’m glad we found out the truth, finally, even if it’s something that he’ll never accept. Our father’s death was hard on him.”
Toren talking with me about Arie like he wasn’t even there, but his honesty helped me understand a lot. It had simply pissed Arie off.