“And what about her? What do you think it will be like for her to have to look at your eyes, your father’s eyes? The very eyes that have frightened our nation. Do you know how terrified she was when she saw your father? She hadnightmares for months. Do you want her trembling and quivering and living in a constant haunted relationship? Every time she looks at your eyes she’s going to be soiled with fear and hate herself for not blooming with love.”
Dig choked on his own saliva.
“Do you want her to live likeShay?”
Dig lifted his head.
While Dig had been doing his homework on Delphine, it seemed Magnus had been doing his own homework on Dig.
Shay.The Soulmate of his older brother. A sweet, kind girl who had lost the lottery of love, and ended up connecting to Slash Artery, a maniac and killer. Shay was now poisoned by their family, carrying the burden of their shame, coasting by on medication just to help her manage the pain of the Soulmate connection.
Dig’s throat bobbed.
No, he didn’t want Delphine’s life ruined.
“You can’t tell her,” Magnus said. “Please, Dig, if you love her, you won’t tell her and ruin her life.”
Dig squeezed his eyes closed, each word Magnus spoke was powerful and true, hammering nails into his heart and head.
He knew now that Delphine could not love him… not when she saw the malicious eyes that sunk into his skull. Eyes that were not his. Damned eyes.
“Then I won’t tell her,” Dig said, rousing some sense. “I won’t tell her who I am… she’ll fall in love with me. Let her get to know me. She’ll fall in love with me first and then I’ll show her, and she won’t care.”
Magnus shook his head. “She’s not going to love you, Dig. You need to leave her alone.”
“But I’m her Soulmate. If she doesn’t connect, she will be considered Soulless.”
Magnus patted Dig’s shoulder with a smile. “Then do the right thing and let someone else be her Soulmate.”
“But that’s impossible—”
“Oh no, it’s very possible,” Magnus said through his smile. “All you have to do, my friend, is kill yourself.’”
Nah, fuck that.
A month later, he broke into her bedroom at 2am instead.
39
He wouldn’t look at me.
Dig arched forward as if the world sat too heavy on his shoulders and he supported the crippling weight of it. His tousled black hair swept down his cheeks and across his forehead and he hid his face in the makeshift curtain. He became a snail going into its shell. Funny to see such a man who stole lives with a natural ease to fold into his weaponed body.
At first, I assumed he was frightened, but I knew already Dig Graves did not feel such impotent fear. There was no tremble. He curled down and away, ripping his head to the side to keep his face detained from my sight.
“Dig,” I beckoned him.
“What’s wrong little brother?” Slash bent to catch Dig’s shameful hunch. “You don’t want to look up?”
“Little brother?” I repeated.
The two words coiled in my head, prodding questions, and I looked up to Slash for the answers. The asshole was far too transfixed on Dig to care about my presence and confusion, licking his lower lip.
“Brother?” I directed this to Dig. “He’s your brother?”
No answer came from him either.
“Dig,” I tore out his name, irritated. “Look at me.”
