“Nicolas?” he gasped out, his voice growing choked and thick.
And then it hit me—the enormity of what had just happened.
Thierry was here.
Mybrotherwas here.
After eight centuries apart, he was here. And I was too. I didn’t know how to do this, or what came next, but we were both here now, in this moment. And for the first time in an eternity, I was finally a person who could care for him again. A person capable of loving him, understanding him, and being his best friend, the way we once were so long ago.
If I had never met Eli, I might have reacted poorly to seeing Thierry again. Or perhaps I wouldn’t have been bothered at all, so long as he didn’t attempt to harm me—again.
But now…
Now I could feel it. I could feel it all.
The years we had lost. The horror of the creature I had once been—and perhaps still was, to some extent. But most of all, I could feel the possibilities.
Eli had given me my brother back, too.
“I’m here,” I said, my voice thick. “Brother, it’s good to see you. I got… lost.”
At my words, Thierry’s whole expression broke open.
We both crossed the distance in the same moment.
Thierry threw his arms around me, and I threw my arms around him. And I wasn’t sure who went first, but we were clutching at each other, my grief and pain and hope palpable.
Hot tears, sudden and fast, poured down my cheeks.
I was no longer a cold and perfect creature.
I was no longer a being who was always in total control of myself and everything around me.
And that was okay.
In that moment, I only knew two things for certain.
First, that I loved Eli with all of my newfound heart and soul.
And second, that no matter what else happened, Thierry and I were going to be brothers again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE || ELI
“How did you meet?” I asked Jeremy a few minutes later. I fished a bottle of water out of Nicolas’s fridge—he must have started stocking it for me at some point, and I had barely even noticed—and then handed it to Jeremy.
“It was a spell,” Jeremy explained. He handed the bottle back to me. “Also, you ought to drink that. I don’t need it.”
“Oh, right. Huh. I guess you’re probably a… vampire… too.” I hesitated around the word. Vampires and magic spells—my life had gotten immensely strange, much faster than I might have imagined possible.
“Well, I was a werewolf before I became a vampire,” Jeremy said casually, as though he were telling me the time of day. “Now I’m both.”
“Ah.” Vampire–werewolf hybrid. Sure, why the hell not?
“Yeah, it was a whole thing.”
“Right.”
The dark-haired vampire who had attacked Nicolas—Godric—had stepped outside without a word when the brothers were embracing. Now Jeremy and I both stood awkwardly in the kitchen, trying to give them some space.
