He takes a step forward, and a warning growl echoes out of my throat. I let my Nexus flash in both my eyes, my hands turning into long claws. I can feel my hair changing colour, my skin draining of any life. “Take one more step and see what happens.”
“Fair enough. I deserve your hatred. I deserve every inch of what you’re feeling right now.” He puts both his hands in the air in front of him. “I’m not here to fight you. I’m asking for a minute to talk.”
“I don’t want to hear anything you’ve got to say.” I wave at the market. “Leave before I make you. Let Finnegan go.”
I turn to go to Finn, keeping my senses wide because I can’t trust turning my back on Rhodes at all. Not when he could stab me in it again. But then he says something that stops me. “The first time I met your mother and the man that brought you up as his daughter was when you were in her womb. She turned up in the Vian city and told me that my mate was—my mate is—her daughter, and you were going to be born to a world that would kill you at every chance it got. She told me of prophecies that had been said, of your fate, of your future. The four of us planned to save you.”
“Four of you?” I turn back, my voice catching. He met my parents when my mother was pregnant with me and Georgina. How could my mum possibly have known who my mates were before I was even born?
“Hollis.” Figures that asshole knows. “When we both found out, everything changed from that moment. Everything. All the sins I’ve done since may portray me as your enemy, may make you hate me, but you’re alive. That was the only point to all of it, and I would do it again. I was selfish just once, when I came after you when you ran out of the house after we got you back. Hollis and I agreed to keep our distance and make you hate us because it would be so much crueller to lie to your face every day, but fuck, when I got close to you, I couldn’t stop. I was addicted to you from the moment we met, and I fucked it up.”
“You gave me to the Vian king!” I shout back at his “holier than the Gods” shit. “You let Georgina carry me to the sky and kill hundreds of thousands of my people! Your people!” He says nothing. “You’re half Nexus and they’re your people too, and you let him—you let both of them—do that to me.” I feel my heart cracking. “You killed Howard. He was kind and innocent, just a boy trying to do the right thing and help people. You did that.”
“I didn’t kill him. Just drained him enough that he passed out.” I glance at Rhodes’s clothes for the first time, the dark purple academy-like leather that clings to his body, the thick black cloak falling from his shoulders, the heavy boots. There is a gold chain hanging low on his chest, with a symbol of a moon with a star cut into it in the metal. Vian clothes. “If we had taken him with us, someone would have actually killed him. He wouldn’t have been safe.”
“Oh, and that’s meant to make it better?” I roll my eyes. “What about the rest of Starlight City? What of the children and babies who cried out as my magic killed them? What of them, Rhodes?! You could have stopped it all, and now you have ruinedus both. I will never close my eyes and not see the death on my hands. You did this to me. You hurt me so badly that I’m not sure what there is left of me to give anyone. You fucking did this!”
Tears roll down my cheeks as the air stills as he kneels in front of me. “I’m sorry…I’m so fucking sorry, Gwen.”
“Get up!” I snap at him, angrily brushing my tears away.
He looks up at me as he rises. “I did what I could to make sure you lived. How do you think Prince Severi got high enough to grab you? He doesn’t have the power to fly or float. I shot him up there with my telekinesis power. Hollis made sure everybody else was distracted from seeing it was me. Severi took the full blame and claimed to have new powers to protect us, because he knows what is coming. We need each other. All seven of us.”
“I don’t believe you! I can’t trust you!” I wave my hands out, exasperated and furious. Gods, I’m still crying. “I can’t trust anything that you say ever again. You lied to me. You betrayed me. Do you know the first time that I ever felt safe was with you? Not once with my parents, on the run, at Harry’s house or any other time. Do you remember the first time that you told me that you didn’t fear me, that you would wait for me to tell you everything? It was the first time…” I touch my chest, my rapidly beating heart. “That I felt something in here that wasn’t pure fear. It was the hope of a future that we possibly could have, and then you ripped that away. You took it, and you just—you could have told me the truth from the start about who you really are. Is the story about what you said about your mother true?”
“Some of it. She was killed by Vian. But it’s complicated,” he admits.
“I imagine so.” My voice is cold.
“She wasn’t really my mother in any sense,” he adds. “I didn’t grow up with parents, friends or anything other than Hollis.”
“What does that mean?”
He gulps. “I was bred and created along with Hollis, along with many other soldiers that are in the Vian army. I was carried by a woman that I call my mother, but she wasn’t my biological relation in any sense. I have no idea who is. Neither does Hollis. We’re the only ones who have each other. Twins are rare, and it’s even more rare that we have strong powers. The second we were born, the king sensed what we are, and he had us titled as commanders and trained to be ruthless for him. The woman I called mother did it for money, and she kept an eye on us as we were trained growing up. The carriers are seen as sluts in the Vian city. She was killed because she refused another commander when he demanded sex, and he accused her of being a Nexus sympathiser. The punishment for that in the city is being drained. I had to watch, and so did Hollis. After that, I felt no emotions. I was taught emotions were weakness, and I believed it completely. Nothing. Emptiness, stillness. Hundreds of years of not feeling…until I felt you in the world for the first time. Then everything changed. I felt my own heart beating to life.”
“How heroic of you. I am sorry about your mother, but it changes nothing.” I blow out a breath. “I do not want to be your mate. I was right to reject you in the first place, and I will reject you for every single day of our lives until I am dead. With your so-called help, that will be sooner rather than later. Now I suggest you leave, because my Nexus, she is desperate to take a bite out of you, and it won’t be nice. It won’t be pretty.”
“Wait.” Rhodes reaches out and grabs my arm, and with my other hand, I punch him hard across the face. He winces, but he doesn’t stumble back, just accepting it. I expect to feel better, to enjoy the blood dripping from his lip, but it just makes me feel sick to see it. Both of us are breathing heavily, staring at each other. “I don’t expect you to believe me, and I definitely deserved that. I’m here for a reason, and I need to tell you something.”
“I don’t want to hear a word that you say.” I pull my arm from him.
“How about if it comes from me? I’ve never lied about disliking you.” Hollis walks out in a suit, his hands tucked into his pockets, a thick cloak hanging off his shoulders. The moonlight casts a light around him, making his blond hair so bright it almost looks silver.
I growl in greeting. Rhodes rubs his sore cheek. “I told you not to follow me this time, brother.”
“I knew she wouldn’t be smart and listen to you. I’m surprised you’re still standing.” Hollis turns his eyes to me. “Severi is in danger, and he will die by the end of the next day if you don’t come with us. There is a public hanging and burning planned for your prince, and we cannot get him out alone.” Hollis turns his eyes behind me, and I feel Finnegan getting closer.
Finnegan’s huge bear paws pad over next to me, and he presses into my side. I put my hand on his head to stop him. “Wait. Don’t attack them, Finnegan.”
He bares his teeth at the twins. Rhodes lowers his head. “Everything I did was to keep her alive, and you don’t know everything yet. Neither of you do. The Gods are playing with us all, and if we aren’t careful, Gwen’s life will be the cost of their games. I did not mean to hurt her.”
Finnegan’s bear is silent, staring down at Rhodes. I look at Hollis, who smirks at me. Prick. “Why can’t you get Severi out? Why come to me?”
“Because we’re watched at all times when we’re in the city. The king doesn’t trust us, and even coming here was a risk. But you wouldn’t be noticed. You already had a potion that made you pretty much undetectable. We know how to get in and out of the city, and Rhodes will make sure the path is clear.” Hollis cocks his head to the side. “And why would I save that asshole?I’m only here because I’m getting someone else out of the city tomorrow, and it’s a good opportunity for you to get someone out too. Your powers might be useful.”
“Why did you come?” I ask Rhodes next.
His answer makes me wish I didn’t ask. Wish I didn’t hear it. “Because I love you.”
