That had made Nibo more determined than ever to cut his brother a wide berth, as such people were seldom reasonable. God knew that he’d never understand the cruelty of the man he’d been born with. Such things were forever beyond his comprehension. Why hurt someone when you didn’t have to? Why break their heart when it was so much easier to make them smile?
All he’d ever wanted was peace and a small corner of the earth to call his own.
Live and let live.
’Twas his nature to create and his brother’s to destroy.
“I’ve lost you, haven’t I?”
He smiled at Vala’s question. “Nay, my love. You’re the one who found me.” Kissing her scratchy straw cheek, he shrank his staff and tucked it away. “Why are you so curious?”
“Didn’t know you could do such a thing. It was quite impressive.”
He shrugged. “Necromancy isn’t as impressive as it is scary. Best to leave such things alone.” As her current plight showed.
Damn them all for what they’d done to her. Had they left her body intact, he could have saved her.
But nay, they’d burned her flesh and left him nothing to work with. No way to save her, which was why they’d done what they had. They’d been that determined to keep them apart and make sure that he couldn’t have what he wanted most.
If only he knew the correct god or creature to save her. Why was there no one who could make this right? It was so unfair.
Out of all the magic in the universe, there should have been something.
But that was the thing about injustice and cruelty. They respected no one and left no one out. Sooner or later, those bitches shit on everyone, with equal disdain.
And some days they seemed to go out of their way to cross the street, hunt him down, and take special care to make sure that they shoved a double dose of their venom down his throat.
“Nibo?”
He paused at the sound of Sancha’s voice. The tall Spanish lady was always grace and elegance, wrapped in a blanket of ever-present sorrow. Since the day he’d first met her, he’d recognized her as a kindred spirit on this earth.
“Aye, my lady?”
She glanced to Valynda and swallowed. Her eyes turned bright and glassy before she spoke in the lowest of tones. “Might I ask a bit of something?”
In his mind, he already knew her query. He saw it in the back of her eyes like a mirror playing out the horror of her past. The night the lady had come home to find her world ripped apart by its own cruelty.
Her pain reached out to him and tore a jagged hole straight through him. It was the one thing he hated most about his powers—that he could feel someone else’s anguish as much as he felt his own. That no matter how much he tried not to care, he did. He couldn’t stop it.
With a deep breath, he placed a kind hand on her shoulder. “She didn’t suffer, Sancha. Malene knows how much you loved her. She plays in a beautiful garden where she waits for the day where she may see you again so that the two of you can laugh and dance as you did when she used to cry until you picked flowers to make her a crown for her hair.”
She choked on a sob before she drew him into a tight hug.“Muchas gracias!”
Nibo rubbed her back before he nudged her toward Jake Devereaux, where her future waited, yet she had no idea just how important he would be to her, nor what their future generations would mean to the world. “Think nothing of it.”
He bit back a smile as Jake bashfully approached her to check and make sure the lady was fine.
“What are you up to?”
He caught the suspicion in Vala’s tone as she eyed him warily. “Why must I be up to anything?”
“Because you have that look about you that makes me nervous.”
“I’d rather have that look about you where you stared at me as if I were your favorite dinner.”
“Nibo …”
Before he could answer her chiding tone, Thorn joined them.
