Page 7

History Rhymes

“ Y ou do not want to do this.” Lawson’s eyes narrowed. “This is a mistake, Childe.”

“You’ve given me no choice,” Ryder admitted. “Don’t you see that?”

His Master’s eyes had widened at first in shock at his challenge. But now there was an almost eagerness in them. A smile was on Lawson’s lips. His Master’s big hands clenched and released by his sides. Lawson’s tongue snaked out as if Ryder was a meal and he was tasting him on the air.

The memory of Ryder’s human father--looking just the same--flashed before his mind’s eye.

Lawson’s face was replaced by an equally craggy, bearded one.

Both were big hulking men, or in the case of Ryder’s father, had been.

And that spit-shined grin with the reddened eyes was a mirror image on both of their faces.

Daemon’s words came back to haunt him then as if prescient.

Every time you think of Lawson like this, you think of your father--

He means nothing to me!

You wish he did, Daemon had sounded sad. There is a phrase I have grown to enjoy. History does not repeat, but it does rhyme.

The truth of that statement was so disorienting for a moment, that Ryder wasn’t seeing the courtyard and Lawson Hugues but his father in their cramped, filthy basement apartment with the single tallow candle that cast his father’s massive shadow behind him on the rotting wall.

A shadow that had consumed his family, consumed his life, and made choosing a Second Life so very easy.

A shadow that was later outlined in blood after he had been turned.

Lawson urging him on. Lawson knowing what his father was and telling him to end the man that had tortured him since he was born.

Did Lawson see himself in my old man? Ryder wondered. Did he recognize how easy it would be to replace one tyrant with another? With him?

“There’s always a choice!” Lawson spat and thrust a pointed finger at the center of his chest. “You could respect me! You could obey me! But no! A boy you hardly know turns your head and you choose him over me!”

Daemon’s words again echoed, If you are so sure of him, I want you to imagine him drunk and alone with Grayson .

Would your feelings for Grayson not be enough to keep Lawson under control?

Would he not do this for you? Daemon had murmured so knowingly.

Surely, he wouldn’t harm who you care for no matter how new that caring!

“If you were worthy of any of that, Lawson, you would never make me choose!” Ryder yelled back.

He was shaking. When had that started? It wasn’t fear. It was rage . So white hot that there were spots before his eyes.

That one cutting exchange between himself and Daemon came through loud and clear.

You would have me hate him, Ryder whispered.

Would I? Daemon’s voice was just as soft. Or does part of you hate him already?

“How long have you wanted to usurp me?” Lawson cried.

“Me?” Ryder sputtered, shocked at this allegation compared to all the rest. “Me? Usurp you?”

Again, that conversation with Daemon, the conversation he had sworn meant nothing, roared in his head.

Why did you choose me over Lawson, King Daemon?

You already know, Daemon had answered.

No, I…

You stopped him. You always stop him, Daemon pointed out.

It’s only when he’s drunk and that’s--

Too often, Daemon interrupted. Once is too much. And it's been more than once.

He apologizes when he comes to his senses! But Ryder knew what a weak defense that was as he said it. Demos and I have stopped him--

From what? Daemon had asked. From hunting your own Bloodline? Or other Bloodlines? Be honest, Ryder, why have you not taken a fledgling?

“Lawson is trying to turn it around like he always does, Ryder. Don’t listen to him,” Demos muttered.

Lawson’s cursed finger shot towards Demos. “You! You’ve always been an ungrateful bastard, haven’t you, Demos? Never on my side! Not from the first! Even though I gave you a Second Life!”

“I wanted to respect you. Hell, I even wanted to love you.” Demos shook his head. “But I knew from the start what you really were. What you’ve always been! And, if any of these people were honest,” Demos swept his arms wide to encompass Natasha, Siban, Irine and Harlan, “they would admit it, too!”

Natasha blanched while Siban’s lips flattened. Irine blinked anxiously. Harlan lifted the right side of his mouth in an almost assent.

“I am your leader ! I am your Master!” Lawson frothed.

“No, you aren’t! You haven’t been for years.

No, centuries . Ryder’s been cleaning up after you, holding things together, making it work!

You just get blood-drunk and sprawl on your pillows!

” Demos snorted with derision. “Fighting you tonight doesn’t make Ryder our leader, Lawson. He’s been that for a long, long time.”

Why did you choose me over Lawson, King Daemon?

You already know .

You already know.

You already know.

They already know.

“To the death then?” Lawson’s voice was light.

Natasha gasped and covered her mouth with her hands.

Siban no longer leaned against the tree but was standing with arms loose at their sides as if prepared to fight.

Harlan had stopped sharpening his knife and his eyes flickered between them.

Irine had actually ceased pacing, which said all there needed to be said by her.

“Is that what you want?” Ryder asked softly.

It wasn’t that Ryder doubted he could defeat Lawson. He knew he could. But to kill his Master? To give him his Second Death? He’d killed father to save his mother. No matter how strong Grayson was, he wouldn’t be safe until Lawson was defeated, too. None of them would be.

It wasn’t only him who hadn’t taken a fledgling.

He couldn’t remember the last that was brought in.

Irine, the youngest of them here, fluttered like a butterfly under a glass.

Her anxiety. Her fear. It reeked from her like an oily perfume.

No one wanted to bring in another fledgling and have them edging to get out of their skin like her.

“That is the only way I will let you have the leadership of the Weryn, Ryder.” Lawson cracked his knuckles and that smile grew larger. “Over my dead body. But we all know that it’s going to be yours.”

He’s eager to kill me. All this time. I don’t matter to him. He sees me as a threat. He’s always seen me as a threat.

The realizations flowed through Ryder’s mind. He’d noticed Lawson’s seeming dislike every time he had a new animal form, but this was more than that. How long had this active dislike been there? And how could he have been so blind to it?

“Your father didn’t mean it, love,” his mother’s remembered voice whispered through his mind.

Her shaking hand had smoothed his hair back from his bruised and bloody forehead.

His breathing came in wheezing gasps from his father kicking him in the chest over and over again.

His nose, too, was crushed from one of those ham-like fists striking him right on the bridge.

His left eye was swollen and completely shut. The other was open a slit.

“You shouldn’t make him angry,” she continued. “If you just wouldn’t make him angry, he wouldn’t hurt you.”

Him existing made his father angry. Him being there made his father angry. His father was angry all the time about everything and he could take it all out on Ryder. Broken bones. Bruised flesh. Flowing blood. It was a sacrifice he had to make to ease that anger.

“We just have to please him. Don’t step out of line. Don’t speak up. Give him the respect he deserves,” she whispered, “and everything will be all right.”

You would have me hate him,

Would I? Or does part of you hate him already?

Maybe you have a good reason to, Weryn.

That last line had Ryder’s head snapping up. It wasn’t the memory of their conversation. It was new .

Weryn…

“Are you reconsidering, Ryder?” Lawson wheedled. “Perhaps if you beg, on your knees, and give me the boy then I might--”

“You must be stopped,” Ryder interrupted. That rage reignited like a match being lit at Lawson’s disgusting words. “I will stop you.”

“Damn straight,” Demos muttered.

Demos. His best friend. His Blood Brother.

Closer than blood. Closer than family. Demos would rise and fall with him, too.

Out of the corner of Ryder’s eye, he saw that the tension that had filled Demos--seemingly forever--was gone.

For the first time in evidently a very long time, Demos finally was relaxed.

Relieved . If Ryder hadn’t already known that there was nothing else to be done, this would have confirmed that this was the right thing to do. Ryder relaxed.

“Then to the death it is!” Lawson laughed and he lunged for Ryder.

But before Ryder could even move, a woman appeared behind Lawson out of thin air. And then both she and Lawson disappeared.

“Wyvern Vampires! What--” That was as much as Demos got out before a Wyvern Vampire appeared behind him, touched his shoulder, and the two of them disappeared, too.

Siban was next. They got to move one foot and were gone.

Harlan disappeared before he rose up from the rock he’d been sitting on.

Irine gave out a shrill cry that ended in mid-yell.

There were other cries throughout the Weryn house as Wyvern Vampires appeared and took every single Weryn Vampire and teleported them somewhere.

Ryder’s head snapped in every direction as his Bloodline was snatched from their beds, their rooms, their baths, wherever and taken.

A silence fell down on the house. It was empty except for him and the wind.

Then she was there.

Standing before him in all black with a golden corset around her lithe body and a gold undershirt rising up under her collar like the sun on the horizon.

Her long hair was in intricate braids with delicate beads that clicked as she brought her hands together in front of her to show she meant no harm.

He stepped quickly back but she did not pursue him.