“What are you doing here, Severin?”Scepter didn’t answer his brother’s question as he materialized in front of his twin.
Severin sighed as if he were saddened.He looked saddened, then glanced away trying to appear downcast.Scepter didn’t trust him.
“What has happened to you, Scepter?Why are you not excited to see your twin?We once were inseparable.”Severin held his arms out to his sides.
He shook his head.“I’m smelling so much bullshit right now.You know why I’m not pleased to see you.Hell, I told you if I were to ever lay eyes on you again, I’d rip your head from your shoulders and shit down your throat.So, what has given you the idea I’d want to be all hug your ass now?”
“They say time heals all wounds?”Severin offered, then shook his head.“I’m also here to tell you our father has been killed.”
Scepter sucked in a breath.He’d sealed off the link to his birth family so long ago he’d no longer felt their loss.He’d thought...he’d assumed he’d know if they’d ever left the Earth.“How?”he asked.
Severin slid his hands into his pockets.“That’s why I’m here.I’ve tracked the male responsible here, and to my shock, he has ties to you.Want to tell me why that is?”
“Are you accusing me of assassinating our father?”Scepter asked, shocked his twin thought he’d do something so despicable.
His twin shrugged.“I’m here to find out.”
“If I wanted you and our father dead, I’d have killed you four centuries ago when you highjacked my wedding and married my fiancée.”Scepter realized he didn’t feel the same anger and betrayal now that he found Starla.His brother and father’s treachery destroyed him and his betrothal to Bianca.Although she hadn’t been his bonded mate, he’d agreed to the marriage and thought they were in love.
“You speak the truth,” Severin said.
“No shit.So what are you doing here?Fucking up our shipments?”Scepter asked, waving his arm in a wide arc.
Severin grinned.“I only made them look as such.Don’t you want to know who I’ve tracked here?And who is responsible for our father’s death?”
He inhaled a deep breath and gripped the back of his neck.“Where’s your female?”he asked.
Fire lit his brother’s eyes.“Bianca is dead,” he growled.
Severin looked at him with such intensity and grief sparking in his expression, it was like a physical blow.“I’m sorry, Frate',” Scepter said, calling his twin brother in their old language.He hadn’t used the term in hundreds of years.As he did, he placed his hand on Severin’s shoulder, offering his strength.
“You’re bonded?”Severin gasped.
Through their touch, he’d allowed his twin to feel a little bit of his emotions.Obviously, the fact he’d found his female permeated his being.Shit.“If you think of touching what is mine, I will kill you this time.”
“You should know what it means to have a bonded mate versus choosing, brother.I didn’t have a choice back then, and neither did Bianca,” he growled.
Scepter closed his eyes, working to get his beast under control.“Forgive me.It is new, finding my female.”Admitting the truth felt almost like a weakness, but he thought he owed it to his brother.
Severin turned away.“Bianca...she wanted to apologize to you her entire life.It always bothered her that she’d hurt you, even though it wasn’t either of our faults.Fate bonded us.She did love you, though.That was hard for me to come to grips with, knowing my bonded mate had loved my twin first.Hell, I hated you for a long time.It was easier for me knowing you were halfway across the world from us.That makes me a bastard, right?And then, you didn’t return.You cut us all off.That gutted me.It gutted our father.We tried to reach out to you, but you cut us off completely.Father said you’d return one day.He said we would need to be patient.Fucking, bloody hell, you are the king of grudges.Four hundred years, Scepter.”
“I’m not going to apologize for leaving.If I’d have stayed, you and I would’ve battled.There would’ve only been one of us left standing.”Scepter didn’t break eye contact with Severin.His twin blinked hard.
“Yeah, you’re probably right.It’s of no consequence now.I came here to kill the bastard who took out our father.Are you going to stand in my way?”Severin asked.His hands went to his hips.
Scepter didn’t miss the blades strapped to his brother’s chest in a crisscross or the glint of the sword hilt over his shoulder.“Do you have a name?”
“He left a calling card after he killed my—Bianca.When our father battled him, the same card was left embedded in his chest.The Demon.”Severin handed him a card.
Scepter sucked in a breath.Astaroth.The male couldn’t have been the one to kill their father, unless it had been a while.
“How long?”
“It’s been five years, two months, and seven days.I’ve been tracking him for all this time.He’s hard to track, but he made a mistake.”Severin explained Astaroth’s thirst for young females and the macabre way he left them.He never left the demon card unless he killed a male.Except he’d gotten sloppy in Canada, where cameras caught him.From there, Severin tracked him to New York and the docks that linked him to Scepter.
“He is on our kill list already,” he told Severin.
“Want to play rock, paper, scissors?”
