Page 61 of Blood Vows
“The Fondatori began to demand answers,” he said, his voice low and steady again.
“They suspected his mind was unravelling, and they could not allow someone unstable to hold a seat at their table.” This certainly made sense, as it would have been like having a mentally disturbed king running the country and putting his people at risk.
“So, they were putting pressure on him to pass the dagger to his son?” I guessed, and he nodded once.
“He saw it as a conspiracy against him. He was close to declaring war on the founding families themselves, on the Fondatori. And had he done so…” He exhaled, rubbing a hand over his face.
“It would have been catastrophic. Each seat at that table commands armies, loyalty, and entire bloodlines. The devastation would have consumed both vampires and humans alike.”
“So, you had no choice,” I said softly.
The words hung there like judgment, and he winced, his expression tightening as if each syllable drew him back to the moment he had tried so hard to bury.
The silence that followed was deafening.
I didn’t know what to say. My mind spun with the horror of his predicament, but also with the flicker of something else… Something that felt far too close to understanding, as I thought about my own cruel father.
He turned away from me then, his voice quiet, almost broken.
“Your mother… What about her?” I asked, but this was when he seemed to have hit his limit.
“Just leave it alone, Nessa.” He implored, but I wanted it all.
“Tell me… What about your mother, Vas… what happened?” He winced, as if this was the part he hated to relive the most.
“I am not sure exactly what happened that night between them…How it started…he had changed so much towards her in the months leading up to that night.” His voice cracked, rough and low.
I wanted to say something… Anything, but all I could do was sit there, watching him drown in the memory, my heart breaking under the weight of it. Because as monstrous as his confession was… I could almost understand it. But then, when he continued with his silence, one that thickened the air to an almost suffocating degree, I forced myself to ask,
“He tried to kill her, didn’t he?”
“Yes,”Vas hissed, his voice a low growl edged in grief.
“I walked in and he…he deserved to die!”The force of his words struck the air like a storm. Shadows rippled across his face, his darkness answering his anger before he could rein it in.
“Oh god… I’m so sorry, Vas,”I whispered. His back was hunched, one hand braced against the mantel as though it was the only thing keeping him upright. The muscles in his shoulders flexed beneath his bare skin, tense with a century’s worth of rage.
“I heard them fighting…” he began, quieter now.
“…I heard her crying. My mother never cried. When I went in, he had her backed against the wall, dagger in hand. She was bleeding. He had already struck her once, and when he saw me… something changed in his eyes. It was hatred, not for what I had done, but for what I was. He called me a cursed thing, said the goddess had damned me, even before I drew my first breath.” He took a sharp breath, his hand curling into a fist.
“He turned the dagger on me. I don’t remember the moment it happened… the first strike, the second or all that came afterit. I just remembered the scream, then…nothing.All I know is that something inside me broke loose. And when I came back to myself…he was dead.”
His voice cracked, rough with the sound of a memory that had never healed.
“That was the moment it passed to me… The darkness. It left him and found me… Found my brothers…His final curse.As for my mother, she must have dropped to the floor. She was barely breathing. I tried to… but the blood… There was too much of it and I was… not myself.” The words settled over me like ash. I didn’t breathe for what felt like forever. My chest tightened until it hurt and I could take it no more, forcing myself to fill my lungs.
I could see it in my mind as he spoke, the blood, the horror, the child that still lived somewhere inside him watching it all unfold. And something inside me ached for him in a way that went beyond sympathy. It was grief, and I shared it with him.
“Vas…”I whispered, his name trembling out of me like a prayer. He didn’t look at me, his eyes locked somewhere far away, maybe back in that room, standing over his mother’s body.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered again, softer this time, as if anything louder might break him completely.
“You were trying to protect her.”
He turned his head slightly at that, not fully meeting my gaze, as though her ghost still stood between us. The shadows that always seemed to follow him shifted with his every breath, restless, alive, and aching for release.
“You didn’t fail her,”I said, barely more than a whisper.
