Page 28 of Hunger in His Blood (Brides of the Kylorr #3)

CHAPTER 28

KALDUR

“ R aazos’s blood. ”

I heard the hushed curse behind me.

“What are you doing here?” I grumbled.

“I can barely see you through all the smoke,” came Thaine’s voice. “Don’t invite a human in here. You might not escape their clutches.”

He’d meant it as a jest, but when I didn’t respond, only sucked down another deep lungful of lore smoke, he shut the door to my private quarters. Behind me, I heard him cross to the closed balcony doors. The metal shifted when he opened them, and a funnel of icy wind swept through my room, like a keeper intent on clearing away all traces of the smoke.

“Close it,” I growled, feeling the icy chill on the back of my neck. I couldn’t stand it. Every sensation against my skin was too much. I was overstimulated, at all times of the day. Even clothing scratched at me uncomfortably, which was why I was naked, sprawled out in the chair.

My brother came to stand in front of me, temporarily blocking out the fire flickering in the hearth behind him .

I scoffed. “Maudoric must be really worried if she sent for you.”

Thaine assessed my sorry state, his brows furrowing. “What’s happened, Kaldur?”

“Nothing. And I don’t want to hear whatever you’re going to say,” I snapped.

“Yet you obviously need to,” came my brother’s response. His tone was careful, but even I could hear the concern lacing through the words. Thaine wasn’t one to show his emotions readily. He was like Kythel in that way, whereas a lot of me ran hot like our eldest brother, Azur.

“Tell me,” Thaine insisted. He dropped down onto the rug in front of me so that we were eye level.

“Don’t. Get up, will you?”

“At least put some damn clothes on,” Thaine grumbled. “You think I want to get an eyeful of your cock ever ? On Raazos, what’s wrong with you?”

That brought out a resigned laugh from me, one which felt foreign. I hadn’t laughed in weeks.

“What, no clever retort?” Thaine questioned, his eyes flickering back and forth between mine. “Now I’m really worried.”

I rose from the chair and went to my dresser. My limbs felt heavy and uncoordinated, but I managed to pull on some pants and a tunic, all while keeping the slim lore pipe firmly pressed between my lips.

“You shouldn’t be here,” I told him. “Go back to Salaire.”

“Maudoric is worried about you,” Thaine told me. “She has reason to be. I’m worried about you too, now that I see you. I’ve been wondering why you’ve been avoiding my Com calls.”

When I turned back to him, even his keen observation set me on edge. I felt like I was a moment away from a berserker rage. Day or night, it didn’t matter. It was hellish. I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat. Preserved blood made me want to gag now that I knew the taste of my kyrana ’s blood .

No, don’t let your thoughts wander to her, I commanded silently. Not when Thaine is here.

“Let’s go outside to the balcony,” he suggested, rising and leading me, like I was child, to the open paneled door. “You need some fresh air.” A pause came. “And a fucking bath.”

“You going to watch me take one of those too?” I grumbled.

“If I have to,” he replied simply. “And I’ve already seen more of you than I care to in my lifetime.”

Out on the balcony, the biting rush of the wind made me clench my teeth. Too much sensation. I almost turned to retreat, but Thaine plucked my lore pipe from my fingertips and leaned his forearms against the balcony banister, taking a drag. I needed that back before I could leave.

“You came here in this wind?” I asked when the silence stretched.

“Yeah, so let me smoke a little,” came his reply. “It wasn’t easy trying to reach you.”

The longer I stayed out on the balcony, the more bearable the wind became. Soon I was even able to relax, though my head was cleared of the thick, comforting smoke inside the room. I’d been convinced that the lore was the only thing preventing me from a rage.

“Tell me what’s going on,” Thaine ordered.

Had I really thought I could hide it from my family for very long? From Thaine?

I looked out over Vyaan, at the warm yellow glow from the Halo orbs being installed along the South Road and the quiet landscape surrounding it all. The forests and mountains and fields.

Quietly, I confessed, “I found my kyrana .”

Thaine sucked in a sharp, startled breath, and I felt him turn toward me, those brilliant green eyes hardening.

“And then I drove her away.”

“ Vaan, ” Thaine whispered. “How long? ”

“She left three weeks ago.”

“Where is she?”

“In Laras,” I replied, “to go be with the male she actually loves.”

It took everything in me not to fly to Laras this very moment. To track her down. To chain her to my side.

“And you’re just going to let that stand?” Thaine asked, after he absorbed the words. If I thought I’d get sympathy from him, I’d been sorely mistaken. “Your kyrana ? Your one fated mate? My true brother would never have let her go. I don’t know who’s standing in front of me now, but it’s not him.”

“You don’t understand,” I told him, irritation making me bristle. “It was my fault.”

“Then help me understand,” Thaine said, handing me back the lore . “Help me understand so we can put this right.”

We.

“There’s nothing to put right,” I told him, my shoulders sagging.

But in the end, I told him everything. Every ugly detail. How I’d kept Erina at arm’s length, not wanting others to know she’d been my keeper. Her perfume, Luc Denoren. How I’d discovered that she’d intended to use me for my money, for my title, to better the life of her lover. How I’d thought she was different. How she’d overheard Lydrasa and me in my study. Everything she’d accused me of that I’d confirmed…how she believed I thought the worst in her. Even how I’d become aware she was my kyrana the day she’d walked in on me and Lydrasa.

I confessed how hellish it had been. About the day I’d found out she’d left and the scrambled, chaotic aftermath searching for her. Then the resignation had come…the anger, the fury, the longing.

It all came pouring out of me like opening a festering, pus-filled wound .

In the end, I didn’t feel clean , but I was relieved that Thaine finally knew.

My brother had his elbows planted on the banister, and he was massaging the bones of his brows by the time I was done, his eyes closed.

“You’re a fool,” he finally decided. “I expected this of Kythel, trying to be all noble by sacrificing his own happiness for the betterment of our family’s line. But not of you.”

“Thank you very much for that insult,” I snapped. “I thought you would understand it. She’s a keeper, one who’s made it clear she wants a higher position.”

“Yeah, she’s a keeper. Not a Thryki spy. Who cares? And you believe she was using you? Why? Because of the word of her supposed friend?” Thaine asked me, finally lifting his gaze. He wasn’t quite glaring at me, but there was disappointment in his eyes. “Because you heard it from someone else and believed them over the sacred bond of a blood mate?”

Nothing I hadn’t already agonized over in the last few weeks, but his tone made me bristle.

“She told me she loved him!” I growled, my voice echoing over the quietness of the courtyard below, which led to the garden pathway. “That night in my study. She told me she loved him.”

“Who the fuck cares?” Thaine asked, glaring at me now. “She’s your kyrana , Kaldur. Not some socialite you picked up at a noble’s dinner. Steal her away from him like your life depends on it…oh, because it does!”

I’d never heard Thaine so willfully sarcastic. Or this fervent.

“No, this is about you,” he decided, rolling his shoulders. “Did she ever admit to wanting to ascend her position within the keep?”

I gritted my jaw. “No.”

She’d actually wanted to keep the blood-giver contract secret, so others wouldn’t find out. So she wouldn’t be the subject of idle gossip in the kitchens, of people she’d once considered friends.

And one of those same friends had sold her out.

“They share a family name,” I said. “They took it together. Denoren. They grew up together at an orphanage here. Something about the way she talked about it…it just felt so permanent. How can I compete with a bond like that? Some bonds go beyond fate.”

“You never even tried,” Thaine accused, softening his tone. “You cared more about what the nobles would think. You’re embarrassed by what our uncle did here. You’re trying to save yourself the humiliation of the same thing, but you pushed away your kyrana to do it. You gave up. And now you look as defeated as you must feel.”

I rasped, “Your comfort is really making me feel better.”

“I’m not here to comfort you,” he snapped. “I’m here to pull your head out of your ass and make you see reason —something, up until recently, I thought you understood.”

I blew out a harsh breath. “I suppose I’m not as intelligent as I think I am. When I came here, Vyaan expected me to be a womanizing freeloader, benefitting off my family name. Might as well prove them right after all these years.”

“You don’t believe that,” Thaine said, dismissing the words readily. “Stop feeling sorry for yourself, so you can help yourself. So I can help you.”

I took another drag on the lore , the tip lighting up a bright blue, making the night sky appear luminous.

“What do you want?” Thaine growled.

“I want her back,” came the easy words. The simple truth came tumbling out from me. Shockingly effortless.

Thaine’s shoulders released their tension. He seemed pleased with the answer. Relieved.

“But she doesn’t want to see me. The things I said to her…”

“She won’t see you if she believes you think this of her,” he finished for me. “So tell me now, right here…do you really believe she’s just using you? Do you really believe what her friend said about her?”

“No,” I said gruffly. Another simple and sudden confession, pulled from me like a prayer. “My instinct tells me otherwise.”

All of my interactions with her told me the truth of what I believed—I just hadn’t listened. I’d been so hell-bent on believing the worst of her, believing that she would be the end of me, that I’d trusted those I shouldn’t have.

I’d met my fair share of social climbers in my lifetime. Not once had Erina ever sparked my suspicions…until that night with Velle and Lydrasa.

I thought about her simple pleasure of getting lost in the gardens all day, her notebook spread open, a pencil tucked behind her ear. She was passionate about her stories and drawings, so lit up with delight when she talked about them.

She wore hand-me-downs. She didn’t seem to care overly about her appearance to others, which was so unlike all the females I’d ever known. Maudoric had only ever said good things about her, unlike some of the other keepers in my employ.

Not only that but she’d returned the credits I’d given her. If she’d been in it for the money, she never would’ve done that. It didn’t make sense.

She was kind. She was forgiving, even when I’d been cold. She’d soothed a frayed, restless ferocity in me, made me feel like I was finally at peace in those rare moments where I’d let myself sink into her.

The only truth had been about Luc, hadn’t it? She did love him. These last few weeks, I’d started to consider she might be better off with him. I’d only given her pain.

“I wanted to believe the worst about her. I’m the one who drove her away. I did this,” I confessed to Thaine quietly. “And she hates me now.”

I remembered that night in the study. It seemed like a lifetime ago. I remembered her hurt, which at the time I’d thought she’d been faking.

I’d said all kinds of things about her, to her. Accused her of things I now didn’t believe to be true—that she was greedy and ambitious.

You’re not anything like I’d hoped you’d be, she’d told me that night with sad, defeated eyes.

Her only crime had been loving someone else, and I’d vilified her for it. Because I’d been jealous. Because it hadn’t been me .

But if everything she’d said was the truth that night…did that mean she’d been a virgin when we’d had sex?

It didn’t make any sense.

Yet I closed my eyes, knowing I’d left swiftly in the aftermath of that night. I hadn’t been gentle, I’d been taking out my frustration on her, using my body like a weapon. And then I’d avoided her for days…only for her to then hear my words to Lydrasa, telling her that the sex had been merely “fine.” She’d heard Lydrasa’s delighted laugh over that detail.

“I think I really fucked this, Thaine,” I said quietly, my gut roiling. “I really fucked this up. From the very beginning.”

“Then fix it,” my brother said simply.

“If only it was that easy,” I said. “There’s too much to make amends for, especially when she loves someone else.”

“Did you ever ask her about him? About her relationship with him?” he asked.

Discomfort wiggled in my chest. “No,” I admitted.

“Then you know nothing at all. Get your head on straight,” Thaine told me. “Because if you go after her, you need to decide what she will be to you. Just your mistress? Or everything?”

The blood bond had made a complete fool out of me. It had brought me to my lowest point, made me realize how very mortal I was. The gods had shown me their true power. I’d spat in their face in rejecting the gift of a blood mate. Now they were punishing me for it.

And worse yet, Erina had been hurt in the process. I’d been cruel and callous to her. She hadn’t deserved that.

“I’m done fighting this,” I said.

“Did you try to find her?” Thaine asked.

“I sent scouts to Laras,” I said. “No luck.”

“And this Luc Denoren?”

I shook my head. “He changes employment so often, I haven’t been able to track him down. Especially if he’s not recorded in the archives. I’ve checked three of his last jobs and rooms where he’d been staying. He’s not at any of them.”

Thaine blew out a breath. “Have you told Azur? He won’t stop until he tracks them down in Laras. You know that.”

“No,” I clipped out. “Leave him out of this. He has enough to do. This is my mess, my mistake. I’ll fix it.”

“He made plenty mistakes himself with Gemma,” Thaine reminded me. “He would understand.”

I shook my head. “I only want you to know right now. And only because you barged in here uninvited.”

“Good thing I did,” he replied. “Whatever you need, I’ll do it.”

“I know,” I said. “But go back home. I don’t need you here.”

“I beg to differ,” Thaine said. He sighed, stretching out his wings. “I’ll stay in Vyaan for a few days. It’ll make Maudoric feel better.”

I huffed out a sharp breath. “It would.”

“What’s your plan when you finally find her?” Thaine asked after a long moment of silence lapsed between us.

I suddenly felt incredible tired, the last few weeks having caught up with me.

“Not be a conceited and self-serving elitist fool?”

“I’m serious,” he drawled.

“So am I. ”

Tilting my head back to look at moon, I saw it was almost full. No wonder the winds were picking up. I’d let the world skip by since Erina had left. Since even before then. I hadn’t been right since I’d discovered her, right underneath my nose.

All the time I’d wasted…

“I’ll do what I should’ve done from the moment I knew she was my kyrana ,” I told Thaine seriously. “I’ll give her every reason to stay.”

Determination began to burn in me. An ember that was being stoked, carefully and purposefully.

“I need to go find her myself,” I said quietly.

“Wait until after the moon winds,” he advised. “They’re strong. Use the time to get your head on right and clean yourself up. Your keep is in disarray, and Maudoric is trying her best to hold it together.”

Logical as always.

“But after the moon winds,” Thaine said, his eyes glowing green in the moonlight, “go bring your kyrana back home.”