“Oh yeah? Are you two ever awake at the same time? Do you ever actuallytalk?”
“Well, no.” I blink. “But that doesn’t matter. We share a memory—usually, anyway. Apart from whatever he’s managed to do these last few days...” I frown, regretting having said it out loud when curiosity sparks in her eyes. I shake my head. “It doesn’t matter. He makes a mess, then I wake up and have to straighten it out. That’s how it’s always been between us.”
She just shrugs. “Sounds to me like you’re just normal brothers with a serious communication problem.”
I huff out an incredulous laugh. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Maybe.” She holds my gaze. “But I’ve met him, and now I’ve met you. So yeah, I get it. You and him are caught in a seriously inconvenient situation.” She gestures toward my—our—body.
Then she lets out a long, deep breath. “Okay, that’s not fair of me to say. I don’t understand. I’m sure no one can really understand it except you two. I’m sure it sucks a lot of the time to have to share a body. It’s gotta drive you both crazy.”
“He’s definitely crazy,” I mutter.
She cracks a smile at that, and I’m so completely dazzled by the transformation of her face that I lose the thread of whatever point I was trying to make.
“Who’s not a little nuts these days?” she says lightly. “We’re all living in a late-stage capitalist dystopia. Besides, sanity’s overrated.”
Then she turns around, attention back on the bread as she starts kneading again.
Wait.
How am I losing this argument? What point was I trying to make?
Is she intentionally using her femininity as a weapon against me? Because it’s an excellent tactical tool if so.
I stride toward her but make sure to stop on the other side of the counter. Probably best to keep a substantial hunk of stainless steel between me and her delectable curves if I’m going to keep my head clear.
“What I’m trying to say is that there’s no way Remus showed you who he really is. He’s dangerous.”
“So dangerous your brother locked him in a dungeon for two hundred years?” She looks genuinely angry. “Yeah, he told me. Who does that to their own family?”
“So he didn’t tell youwhy?”
She bites her bottom lip, and I think:Ah. Finally. I’ve landed a point.
“Fine. Why?” she asks without looking up.
“Because he’s a psychopath who couldn’t be trusted not to continue rampaging the countryside.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means my brothers and I had just finished sacking Moscow on Napoleon’s behalf after one of the bloodiest campaigns the world had ever seen. The rest of my brothers and I were exhausted by all the bloodshed, but Remus?” I shake my head. “Remus only feltenergizedby the war. It was the last time the Horsemen would ride before rebelling against our father and retiring for good.”
I see her brow furrowing. Good. She’s listening.
So I press my advantage.
“My other brothers and I had blindly followed our father’s orders for so long. But Remus did it because helovedit. As the French finally left Moscow in defeat, he roused the peasants to attack in guerrilla warfare—decimating the very army he wassupposedly fighting for because he craved war so desperately. Nearly a million humans died in just six months. Soldiers and civilians. Yet Remus only hungered for more.”
Her hands have withdrawn from the bowl. She stares past me at the wall, processing.
“He said he was a soldier...”
I laugh—harsh and bitter. She looks up at me.
“I knew he hadn’t told you everything. Did he mention the part where my brothers and I are the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse?”
She swallows hard. Her eyes go wide. “He might have left that part out.”
