A wolf, then.
But his scent was too strange for that—it spoke to somethingother.
But then my gaze slid back to Thierry. The last time I had seen him, he had tried to kill me. He had driven a silver dagger through my chest and set the room ablaze. But I hadn’t felt anything at the time—no sting of betrayal, no grief that it had come to that between us. No revulsion that my twin brother had looked at me and seen a monster that had to be destroyed.
And now—now, I felt it.
I felt it all.
And the years crashed down on me. Years spent without my brother, without my best friend. Without the twin I used to know better than myself. Without the first person I had always loved more than myself.
I had gotten so unbelievably lost—to the point where I hadn’t even minded.
So lost that I had barely even noticed his absence.
“Thierry?” I asked, bewildered. “Why—”
Something in my voice broke, and the sudden hot lump in my throat choked off my words.
My twin studied me for a long moment, his eyes widening with disbelief at whatever he saw written across my face.
“Hello, brother,” he whispered, his voice abruptly ragged. And then his unreadable expression cracked right down the middle, and I could see it all—the many years of grief and anguish he had racked up—as plainly as I had ever been able to read him.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded, my voice—too thick—betraying the storm of emotions I felt at seeing him again. “And why are you withGodric?”
Thierry’s electric-blue gaze searched mine for a moment longer, his obvious grief mixed with both wonder and disbelief. “We need to talk.”
* * *
Eli sat next to me on the couch, his fingers threaded with mine. Thierry’s gaze kept drifting to our joined hands, his eyes oddly glassy. Next to him sat the werewolf—who Thierry had introduced as Jeremy, his mate. I hadn’t been aware that werewolves ever mated with vampires. Though Jeremy’s heart didn’t beat in his chest, so “werewolf” might not have been the most accurate word to describe him.
“Magnus is alive,” Godric said once we were all settled. “Has he reached out to you?”
Jeremy shot him a look that managed to be equal parts annoyed and bemused. “Jeez, man. If that’s how you warm people up, I feel sorry for Rico.”
I stared at him. Who the hell was Rico?
“Indeed,” Thierry said, shooting Godric a silencing glare. “I will do the talking. You’ve done quite enough, I think.”
“Magnus,” Eli whispered. I glanced at him to find he was paler than he ought to have been. He stared at Thierry, transfixed. But the expression on his face was almost like he was seeing a ghost. Of course he was unsettled. After the tussle with Godric outside my front door—where anyone could have seen—it was no wonder he was shaken. I made a mental note to check in with him later and make sure he was okay.
Then Godric’s words sank in.
Magnus, the sadistic vampire who had turned Thierry and me, was still alive. I had heard, centuries ago, that he had died—and Godric along with him—at the hands of a coven of deeply aggrieved witches.
I stared at them blankly, numb all over, the way I had spent so much of my endless life. I tried to make the words make sense, but they didn’t. But when Eli sucked in a sharp breath beside me, I realized I had gripped his hand harder than I intended.
“I’m sorry,” I said immediately, pulling away from him. There was an unseemly quaver in my voice. The walls felt like they were pressing in on me.
“It’s fine,” Eli said, shooting me an alarmed look.
I barely noticed. My veins felt as though they were filled with ice water.
Magnus had done this to me.
He had stolen my humanity.
He had forced me to kill my first victims.
