I miss the stupid moments, like when we’d stay up late in the computer lab and he got so excited learning about some new programming trick. He was always so enthusiastic to show off tome. Like a kid, but at the same time, there was never mistaking him for anything but a man.
I ache for him in places that remind me I’m a woman. Not that it will ever matter now that I’m doomed to be alone.
I pull the covers up over my head and close my eyes. They say it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, right? Maybe I should be feeling lucky to have ever had him in my life. Because we had so many good times together.
Like the night we stayed up late talking last week and he told me what really happened the day Sabra actually managed to send his spirit back to his realm. When he talked with the angels.
He hadn’t told us the whole truth that day when he got back. He saved it and shared it only with me. Because he trusted me. He trusted me, and then I hurt him so badly. I try to push those thoughts away and focus just on the memories; those are all I’ll ever have of him. An ache stabs at my stomach even as I remember.
“It was a beautiful place. More beautiful than I can even describe,” he said, his eyes getting a faraway look of wonder. Layden was usually incredibly handsome, but in that moment, as we sat on his bed together, he looked practically beatific. Like an angel carved from marble himself.
“What was it like talking to an angel?” I asked.
“She was so bright I had to shield my eyes. And I was also sort of floating because I was out of my body. She knew me. She called me a creature of the thief and asked if I was a thief too.”
“The thief. You mean your father?”
He nodded. “They knew my father well. I could barely answer her. I kept stuttering because she was so overwhelming. The whole place was…” He drifted off, his eyes still lost in the distance before coming back to me. “It was just the most beautiful place I’d ever seen. So full of light.”
I felt a pang in my heart then, because I knew that was the kind of place he belonged. And here I was, dragging him down into my darkness. “I’m so sorry your father ever took you away from there.”
Layden shook his head. “I was born on earth. He’s a thief because he stole the spark of life to create my brothers and me in a forge here. But to know that any part of me came from there…” A soft smile lit his face. “After feeling so monstrous my whole life…”
“No part of you is monstrous,” I interrupted with feeling. And I knew then that I couldn’t keep him here even if I couldn’t admit it out loud. It would be wrong. No matter how I felt about him as we both sat there together on his bed, our thighs so torturously close to touching.
“Eventually, as we talked, she said she’d looked into my soul and decided I wasn’t like my father after all. She said I was young.” He smiled. “And she said my brothers and I were always welcome home, unlike Gol’gonaar, who had used up his chances. I never even knew my father had a name before then. He just always told us he was Creator-Father.”
“Because it gave him more power over you,” I said. “And if you’d knownhistrue name, it would have given you power over him.” Sabra had taught me that. “He always wanted you to feel as helpless as possible so he could control you.” It was a feeling I understood well. I might know Vlad’s name, but only because he wanted us to know he was the direct descendant of a merciless, bloody king.
A ping sounds from my phone, and I throw off my covers to scramble for it. Could it be Layden? In spite of all the horrible things I said to him, is he texting anyway? Maybe he’s just letting me know where he is. That he’s safe.
I grab my phone and click to see the text.
My heart immediately sinks. I have a new message, all right, but it’s not from Layden. It’s from Vlad. Speak of the devil.
The text is just an address and a name with a short message. VLAD:Get compliance on upcoming sale of PTR Petrol.
Fury lights in my chest from the pain of all that I have given up because of Vlad’s control over me. I might not be able to escape completely, but I can’t stand things continuing this way. Sabra changed the deal she had with my grandfather to make it more bearable for herself. So can I.
I jump out of bed and stomp the entire way to Vlad’s wing. I’m done being his pawn. It’s time to stand up to him. I might be bound to him, but I’m done being his beck-and-call bitch. I might have lost Layden, and I’ll never truly be free, but I’m still going to be in charge of my own life as much as possible from here on out.
PART 2
THIRTEEN
LAYDEN
Phoenix slamsthe door shut to our newlywed suite and leans back against it, eyes closed. My new wife is so beautiful in her wedding dress—long black hair pinned back in an elaborate style that must be killing her scalp. Her full lips are still painted pink from the ceremony.
But she looked nothing like a blushing bride as her Grandfather Vlad spoke the ancient words binding us, her blue eyes flashing daggers at her grandfather’s cronies all through the ceremony and reception.
“Thank fuck that’s done with.” She expels a loud breath.
Not exactly the reaction I might have hoped for on my wedding night. Then again, what the hell do I know? I’ve never done this before. My brothers’ back slaps, winks, and bawdy jokes about not breaking the bed on the first night weren’t exactly helpful either.
It’s ridiculous. We’re grown men, thousands of years old, but just because I was last born, they’ve always treated me like I’m a perpetual schoolboy. Even though I was the only one ofus courageous enough to stand up to our tyrant of a father two hundred years ago. An act I still pay for every single day. There’s not an hour that goes by when the wounds on my shoulders don’t ache—right where my father cut off my wings with his burning sword. The molten hell-metal he poured over the stumps ensured they’d never grow back still feels like it’s burning.
None of my brothers lifted a finger to stop it. They buried me alive instead. But they still have the gall to try to play the “big brother” act with me? It pisses me off even on a supposed day of unity like today.
