My stomach knots painfully.
They’re talking about war. Actual war. And from what everyone always says, that’s kind of his whole deal, isn’t it? War and chaos and destruction.
Maybe his past isn’t as much in the past as I desperately want to pretend it is.
“Who?” Kharon demands. He’s finally handed his daughter fully to Ksenia since the helicopter has stabilized, and she’s nursing peacefully now, making small contented sounds.
Layden throws his hands up in the air. “Your guess is as good as mine. I didn’t think there were any more of our kind left on this plane.” He shoots a pointed look at Abaddon. “Got any more siblings you’ve pissed off and buried alive while I was away?”
“Are you ever going to let that go?” Abaddon growls, taking a threatening step forward.
“Probably not,” Layden says flatly. “You know we’re supposed to be the last of our kind.”
“Unlesssss,” Remus says slowly, drawing out the word. Something like a smile—or maybe a smirk—plays across his too-wide mouth. “Unless Father did something when he got dropped back into the Great Hall by brother dearest.”
He nods toward Layden, and that statement silences everyone instantly.
“Surely you don’t think Daddy would have gone down without a fight?” Remus continues, his voice taking on that manic edge I’m starting to recognize. “He could have sent back something or someone as a present for his misbehaving sons. A little parting gift.”
Everyone looks at everyone else for several long moments while the helicopter flies on in silence. The only sounds are the steady beat of the rotor blades and baby Raven’s soft nursing sounds.
And then Abaddon lets out a single, abrupt “Fuck.”
That about sums it up.
TWENTY-TWO
REMUS
I stareat Lauren seated beside me on the helicopter, which is finally flying calmly now after all that delicious chaos. Layden even managed to get the back ramp up, though it squealed something awful on the way—metal grinding against metal in a way that made my teeth ache pleasantly.
My chest hums with the buzzing adrenaline of the recent conflict and whatever waits ahead of us. Battle always does this to me—lights me up from the inside like I’ve swallowed lightning. My fingers twitch with residual energy, wanting to grab something and tear it apart.
But on the other hand...
I frown, the expression feeling foreign on my face.
For the first time in my entire godforsaken existence, I actually want to run in the opposite direction of a fight.
I want to grab Lauren and flee whatever dangers lie behind these startling developments that have chased us out of our fortress home. Take her somewhere safe. Somewhere quiet. Somewhere far away from all of this.
I’m disturbed by the impulse even as I have it.
The feeling is so wrong it makes my skin crawl.
I’m War. I meet fury with fury and fire with fire. I am chaos incarnate. I don’t run from fights—I start them.
I do not have pacifist thoughts and have never fled a battle in my entire life. Never even considered it.
I should be delighted that we’re flying toward a nest of vampires. Should be practically vibrating with excitement.
I should be planning how fun it will be to fight an unkillable foe should they get out of line. To test myself against something that won’t simply die and rob me of my entertainment.
Father briefly took an interest in the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II as he fought to retake Constantinople—a pet city of our father’s. One of many pets he’d played with over the centuries. He enjoyed backing different leaders as one after another wrestled the city from each other’s control like dogs fighting over a bone.
He once told me, laughing, that the humans were toddlers fighting over cities like toys. That watching them was better than any theater.
I’d wondered only very briefly what that made him—whispering poison in warlords’ ears and dispatching his sons to do his deadly bidding on behalf of his whims. He played with humans like pawns in a game, relishing their destruction over and over again. Building them up just to watch them fall.
