Page 76 of Blood Vows
“We will find her, Victor.”
“How can you sound so damn sure of that?” I muttered.
“Because he came here for a reason tonight, whether it was to bargain for her life, for the dagger, or simply to let us knowhe has claimed her. He wanted to speak to us. Whether it was vengeance or pride that drove him, it means we still have hope.” Tal said, and I gave him a sharp look.
“Since when did you become such a family optimist?” He ignored the bite in my tone, letting out a long breath before answering.
“Since I realised that the brother I thought I helped kill isn’t dead, and that maybe, for once, we could finally get the answers we’ve been asking ourselves for decades.”
“Tal…” I started, but he shook his head.
“No, Victor. We’ve spent too long wondering if we did the right thing that day, and I know you have thought about it too.” My hands clenched at my sides.
“He killed our parents, Tal. You were there.”
“Yes,” he said quietly.
“But I also saw a man who wasn’t our brother. Are you really telling me that a few weeks of absence could change him completely?” I froze. The question hit harder than I wanted to admit. Because I had wondered. For years. For decades and through our link as brother’s he knew this. Yet despite this, I still asked,
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that I’ve thought about that day more times than I can count. And nothing about it has ever made sense.” A chill crept through me, settling like frost in my chest.
“I’ve always thought there was someone else involved,” he continued.
“Someone pulling the strings. Someone who wanted our family destroyed.”
“Why didn’t you ever say anything?” I asked, shocked. He gave a hollow laugh.
“What would have been the point? Our mother was dead. Our father was dead. We believed our brother was dead becausewe killed him. Admitting there might have been more to it wouldn’t have brought any of them back, and it would have ensured a lifetime of torturous guilt…even more than we have already endured.”
“So, ignorance was bliss?” I bit out.
“I wouldn’t go that far,” he said grimly.
“But it helped us eventually move on from that stain against our name.” He took a slow step forward, his boots crunching against the gravel path.
“Think about it, Vic. If we’d known someone else had been controlling him, if we’d known he wasn’t in his right mind when he murdered our parents… how would we have lived with that? Knowing that we slaughtered our brother out of blind rage? That we let our father’s curse make us executioners?” His words sliced deep. I opened my mouth to argue but couldn’t. Because somewhere in the pit of my soul, I knew he was right.
“So, what now?” I asked finally, my voice quieter, heavier before snapping,
“We just let him keep Nessa and pretend this is his consolation prize for us trying to kill him?” Tal’s expression softened, but his eyes still burned with that unnerving logic of his.
“You know that isn’t what I’m saying. I’m saying that if she loves us, truly loves us, then there’s a very real possibility that she’s falling in love with him too.” I scoffed, shaking my head.
“I don’t see this ending with any kind of happy ever after, Talon.”
“Right now, no,” he agreed.
“But think about it. Nessa doesn’t give up easily. You’ve seen her. She doesn’t let anyone tell her what to do, and she sure as hell doesn’t like having her choices taken from her. If she’s fallen for him, she won’t just stop loving us. And if she still loves us, then there’s a chance, however small, that she’ll find a way tobring him back from whatever darkness has its hold on him.” I stared at him, my throat tight. Damn him for making sense.
He was right about her.
She was stubborn, brave, infuriating and full of a kind of hope neither of us deserved. Maybe, just maybe, that hope would save us all. But right then, as I stood in the cemetery surrounded by the bones of our ancestors, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the storm brewing between the three of us was only just beginning.
“So, what you are saying is our greatest weapon right now is Nessa herself?” I said, folding my arms, trying to tamp down the heat that had nothing to do with the cold air around us. Vas had made the connection with her, that much was clear, otherwise he would not have abandoned the meeting. And if he fled because he feared for her life, then at least for the moment, she was safe with him protecting her.
Now all we could do was hope she could reach him, that whatever thread of feeling she had managed to weave through him might pull him back from the edge. I hoped Tal was right, for all our sakes, because if Vasileios had harmed her in any way, nothing on this earth would stop me from hunting him down again, and this time it wouldn’t be his heart…I would take his head.
