Page 54 of Eternal Light (Fated in the Stars #5)

“Over? Now, who’s the fool? Nashville will be chaos—a war…so much collateral damage…” He laughs weakly. “So, I still win.”

Gideon looks up to see Leo, Luca, and Nix outside the circle of light, but standing closer.

Could Carnell be right? Has Gideon created a power vacuum where the other crime families will wreak havoc upon Nashville’s citizens in attempts to garner more territory?

“Kill me, son. They’ll follow you. I’ve been planning this since you were born. Take your rightful place as leader.”

Carnell coughs again, his breath stuttering.

“Or you could let me do it,” a deep voice says.

Gideon gets to his feet, heart pounding double-time, as a tall man in his mid-thirties moves to stand by Carnell’s head.

“Connall, you lazy bastard. There’s blood on these pants. I’ll be taking it—”

“Hello again, Luca and Nix,” Connall says with a small smile before he frowns. “I told you to go home and leave Carnell to me.”

Luca waves. “Hi, Connall!”

The butler?

At the same time, Nix gasps, eyes going wide. With an urgent whisper to Leo, he runs off into the night.

Luca moves to follow, but Leo holds him back.

Gideon will finish this, and then find out what has Nix looking so scared. He turns to Connall and lifts his chin. Surely Gideon owed him thanks for aiding his mates, but he does not owe him this.

He does not appreciate the butler’s fond gaze on his mates.

“Leave him to you? What right do you have?”

Connall’s jaw clenches hard in the flickering light of the torches, hands clenched in fists at his sides.

“He killed my father, and I have been waiting fifteen years to finish this.”

“He deserved it. Interfering idiot. Allistair is my son. Mine,” Carnell growls weakly.

Gideon ignores him in favor of holding Connall’s gaze.

“Your mother asked him to protect you when you were a child, and Carnell took offense.”

He doesn’t remember it. Learning that there are many things he’s blocked out from that time in his life—and many more he’s wished he could. But there’s something more here—something that Gideon should know.

“Tell me.”

Connall bows, offering him a smile.

“I am Connall O’Daire, your first cousin. My father was your mother’s elder brother.”

They’re family? Now that he knows, he can see his mother a little around Connall’s eyes, and even himself in his smirk.

It hits him, then.

“The old man. He is your grandfather…and mine?”

“Every day, Patrick reminded me what would happen if I rebelled. My grandfather would pay the price if I ever strayed a toe out of line.”

Doing anything to protect your loved ones is something Gideon understands.

“He passed away yesterday.”

The memory of the enigmatic older man on a cold bench in Lupine Park, reminding Gideon he is loved, that he is good, comes to mind. Even the brass plaque with his mother’s name on it—and how he’d made a small request, and then a big one.

“Why didn’t he say anything?” Gideon whispers.

“You had a family. You were free of Carnell; he thought you wouldn’t want to be reminded of him.”

Of me goes unsaid, and for a moment, Gideon sees Connall’s loneliness written in the lines on his face.

“He should have let me decide.”

“I agree, but he was a stubborn bastard. I remember my aunt was much the same.”

And his grandson.

Carnell coughs again, his breathing loud as he chuckles to himself, muttering about winning and the truth after all this time.

“Fuck, shut up, you piece of shit.” Connall kicks him in the side.

Turning to Gideon, he nods at Gideon’s beloved mates.

“As much as I hate to say so, where he can hear it, he’s right. There will be a power vacuum. Are you sure you want to be the one to fill it?”

Following Connall’s gaze to where Leo has his arm around Luca’s shoulders, he realizes that he absolutely does not want to inherit one more thing from Patrick Carnell.

“Fuck no.”

But he is not ready to give up on being the one to avenge his mother, his mates, and himself.

“Then let me do it.”

“The killing?”

“Yes, and leading the family. I’ve learned everything I need to know to change things for the better. Go back to your mates knowing you are free from all of it. Let me do it, Gideon.”

“No! No! Gideon must do it. He’s mine. Born under the Hunter’s Moon…fates…light and dark…” Carnell mutters, eyes slipping closed before opening again. “Vengeance and…light.”

“Look,” Connall says, “we can stand here until he dies, but if I may offer some advice?”

Gideon nods once.

“You don’t have to do this last thing to be free of him. Just choosing to walk away means you won. Choose to live in the light with your mates.”

Choose to live in the light.

Wasn’t that what his mates had been telling him all this time? That he chooses to be good, so he is. He can choose to walk away and let Connall finish this, so that his mates are safe. He’s avenged them with a fatal blow, just as Nix had done all those months ago.

Would he say Nix’s freedom is any less a victory because he hadn’t watched him die? Hadn’t sped Hayes’s death along? Never.

“I can walk away,” he says quietly, and finds Luca and Leo again.

Leo smiles and holds out his hand.

“I can choose to live in the light,” he says louder.

The beginnings of what feels like freedom tingle in that place Leo’s words had warmed earlier.

“You have been, no?” Connall clarifies. “Don’t give him one more second of your life.”

When he lets the idea take root, it’s surprisingly easy to nod.

“You’ll make sure…”

“You severed his spinal cord, but I promise he won’t live longer than the time it takes for you to walk away. I’ve been waiting a long time, living in the dark, too. It’s time.”

Gideon nods. “Don’t be a stranger when you’re back in Nashville?”

Connall’s eyebrows go up. “I’ll see you at Quest sometime?”

With a nod, Gideon turns away without a backwards glance, his father’s plaintive voice fading behind him.

“No!” Carnell says again. “Allistair must lead. Born under the Hunter’s moon…one must stay.”

Behind him, Gideon hears Connall growl.

“Not to make you feel better or anything, you psychotic fuck, but I stayed. And my birthday is October thirtieth. Born under the Hunter’s Moon.”

Luca leaps into his arms, his legs wrapped around his waist and his cold nose pressed into his throat over his mating bite, while Leo puts a hand on Gideon’s lower back under his t-shirt, guiding Gideon at a fast walk toward the light at the far end of Carnell’s—Connall’s—compound.

He’ll never admit it, but he doesn’t relax until he hears a garbled moan and a sucking, fleshy sound from behind them.

And he still doesn’t turn around.