Page 79 of House of Blood and Roses: Vol. 2
I try to reconcile that image with the one I know about Thomas. I've never known him get that drunk, but then again, I haven't known him for very long, so it's entirely possible that he could.
"It wasn't until after he stumbled back that I realised there was blood on my knife. I'd forgotten I was holding it." He looks down at his hands as if seeing the knife there.
"You stabbed him?"
Bastian looks at me, a pained expression on his face. "I didn't know that it was Thomas. I thought the man was attacking me, and that it might be an assassin sent to kill me. I just did what anyone would have done and defended myself."
I take a deep breath and try to think about it all objectively. Bastian does look a little dishevelled, and he has a split lip. The blood all over his shirt makes it hard to tell if he was injured himself, or if it's all Thomas' blood. The thought makes me feel a little sick.
"When did you realise it was Thomas?" I ask quietly.
"After he was dead," Bastian says a little too quickly.
I take a drink, barely able to taste the blood even as it coats my tongue. I'm mostly doing it to give myself time to think, especially when I'm not entirely sure I believe everything my brother is saying.
"I left before that," he says.
I blink a couple of times. "You didn't call for help?"
"That's what I left to do," he says quickly. "I still thought that it might be an assassin who had been sent to kill me, so I went to find Lord Fallmartin, I knew that he'd know what to do."
"And when you came back, that's when you found out it was Thomas?"
Bastian nods. "But Bella had found him first."
"You let Bella find her husband dead?" There's no hiding the accusation in my voice, even though I want to try and be kind to my brother when he's hurting.
"I didn't know it was him." Bastian's voice is weak, and I don't really know from what. As much as I don't want to, I'm struggling to work out exactly what happened that resulted in Thomas ending up dead.
I look at my brother, trying to reconcile the person I thought I knew with the one in front of me. I want to believe him, and there's a part of me that does, but the rest isn't so sure.
THREE
My head is swimming by the time I leave Bastian's side, and the last thing I want is to have to deal with my father and whatever he has to say about this situation. I can't even imagine what that's going to be. I suppose it might depend on how much he knows of the story Bastian just told me.
I arrive at Lord Fallmartin's study door and pause for a moment, wondering what the best etiquette is. I'm still his daughter, but I'm also technically royalty, and this situation is completely unprecedented for me, regardless of which position I'm in.
I hold my head up high and walk in without knocking, surprised to find that my cousin is no longer there.
"Where's Bella?" I ask with a strangled voice.
Linc jumps up from his seat on the other side of Lord Fallmartin's desk and hurries over to me. "She's gone to sleep," he says. "Are you all right?" He searches my face for some kind of answer, probably worried about what might have happened once I was alone with Bastian. He doesn't need to be. Bastian might have a temper, but I doubt he'd ever seriously hurt me.
"Not really," I answer honestly.
"Where's your brother?"
"In the sitting room." I drift over to Thomas' body. It's covered in a sheet now, and I'm not sure that makes it any easier to stomach. "Can I?" I ask, gesturing to him. I'm not sure why I want to see Thomas' body. Maybe it's to give some kind of weight to Bastian's story.
Lord Fallmartin nods, seeming to watch me with curiosity rather than frustration.
I kneel down beside Thomas' body and pull back the sheet, letting out a gasp as I notice the stab wounds littering his chest. I cover my mouth with my hand and breathe deeply, trying to reconcile what Bastian told me happened with what's in front of me. He must have been really scared of the risk of assassination if he did this to someone he thought was going to kill him.
"What did your brother tell you?" Lord Fallmartin asks.
"Give her a moment," Linc tells him, a protectiveness in his voice that I don't expect when he's talking to my father. Mostly because we both always feel like we're on the back foot with him. Which makes sense. Lord Fallmartin is hundreds of years old, while Linc and I are both in our twenties.
"It's fine," I say, a little bit in a trance. I put the sheet back over Thomas and stand up. "What has he said already?" I'm not sure if my father will answer my question before I answer his, but it's worth seeing if he will, even if it's just to know how much we can get out of him in the future.
