Page 224 of Cruelly Bitten

“Of course, I suspected that might be your next move,” he went on, ignoring my reply. “I had contingency plans in place, including a vial of my blood and Lilith’s promise to do whatever was needed to revive me. But testing the strength of the ceremony wasn’t necessary at all. It simply didn’t work.”

“And you went on to live in secret?” I guessed.

“I went on to perfect my plans. Then I reached out to you to offer you the throne as the oldest royal. Well, technically, Lilith reached out to you. But you weren’t at all surprised to see me that day. Deep down, you knew I was responsible.”

Yes, I’d begun suspecting that.

But my arrogant self had thought I could handle my brother on my own.

Clearly, that went well,I muttered to myself.

“You rejected my offer,” Cane went on. “Actually, you threatened to lock me up, tell everyone the truth, and fix my mess before I destroyed the world.”

He chuckled and finished his drink, setting the glass down on the wooden coffee table between us. Then he leaned back and spread his arms out across the back of the couch.

“You were under the impression that I needed to be rehabilitated. But it was you, dear brother, who needed to be freed from your bond. Which I tried and failed to do.”

I glanced at Ismerelda’s prone form before refocusing on Cane. “Was that the point of the weapon you used to subdue me? To free me from my bond?”

“What you refer to as a weapon, I call a tool. It’s meant to block the part of our minds susceptible to theErositalink. But it’s not perfect. And the older the link, the harder it is to destroy. Unfortunately for you, it ended up removing your memories instead. Which, as I said, was an accident.”

Hmm.Understanding what had been done to me evoked a new thought, one I voiced aloud. “Shouldn’t I just be able to heal that part of my mind, then?”

I could regenerate every other part of me. Why not this part?

Cane’s lips twisted. “One would think so, yes. But theErositalink isn’t exactly tangible. Whatever magic allows us to exist also allows the bond to be created. And that enchantment works in ways we don’t fully understand. Hence the reason it’s so fucking dangerous.”

“Well, right now that dangerous link is the only connection I have to the last thousand years. So I need her alive, Cane.”

He studied me, his gaze astute and direct. “Is that the only reason you want her alive?”

I considered the question and looked at Ismerelda again, my mind processing through the responses I knew my brother would want to hear. “It’s the primary reason,” I said slowly. “But her blood and pussy are also excellent reasons.”

It was a crass statement, but the upward tilt of my brother’s lips told me it was the right one to make.

“Perhaps my tool worked better than I’d realized,” he mused. “When you abruptly took off with Ismerelda last week—on the day I’d decided to reveal myself to you, of all days—I thought I’d failed. But maybe I haven’t. Maybe you’re cured after all.”

I snorted. Mostly because there wasn’t anything in me that required acure.

But I shifted that derision into a scoff as I replied, “Ismerelda somehow managed to dismantle the barrier between our minds. When that happened, her memories were suddenly mine to explore. I’d been enthralled and then pissed to realize my access to the past was about to come to an abrupt end. I reacted accordingly.”

He nodded. “Understandable. I hadn’t considered what she might offer you beyond the obvious. I’d only brought her here to test your humanity. Had I realized she could assist with the memory problem, I would have encouraged that much earlier on.”

“You weren’t concerned her memories might trigger my humanity?” I asked him.

His shoulder lifted and fell. “It was always a possibility. I have plans in place should that happen.”

“And do those plans involve killing her?” I guessed, my tone carefully devoid of emotion.

“Yes.” An emphatic answer that didn’t require elaboration, which explained why he didn’t continue after uttering it.

In his mind, removing Ismerelda from the equation would immediately rid me of my ties to humanity. He might be right. What he failed to realize was what I would do to him if he removed my heart.

Because Ismerelda was so much more than a link to humankind.

She wasmine.

And I would not take kindly to him harming her in any way.