Page 225 of Jagged Souls

As one, we all groan and shove him away from us. He laughs. Then he quiets. “It was pretty fucking terrible,” he says. He looks me in the eye, lets me see the honesty. “But I’d do it again.”

I nod at him, my throat too tight to speak. He would’ve been aware the entire time, locked in a form that couldn’t move. Completely in the dark and cut off from everything that was happening.

“How is she?” he asks. Micha hasn’t come downstairs with me. Her sister moves closer to us, needing to know.

“Tired.” My heart aches, the tattoo on my chest seeming to burn. “We just cremated our daughter.”

Mother pulls me into her arms, and I stiffen against her. I want to ask her how she managed it. How she kept having kids even though she knew she might have to say goodbye to each one. But that wouldn’t be fair. She stopped having them until after the treaty. She changed the world she lived in so her kids could have a better life.

And as I finally understand her sacrifice and pain, all the anger I’ve been holding on to, all the blame I’ve placed on her shoulders for making me paranoid enough to hurt my wife, eases from my chest. She fought to change the world for us. She’s only ever tried to protect us. It’s just... she’s still human. She still has faults. Still makes mistakes.

“I’m sorry,” I murmur as I finally hug her back. “I never should’ve tried to sell you to Aleric.”

“You did what now?” Ezriel asks.

“Say again?” Enoch demands.

“Bruh, not cool,” Maddox says.

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“And I’m sorry for being so secretive in my dealings. I should have come to you – or at least the reaper, with any concerns.” She sighs as she pulls back. “You think I would’ve learned from that given how many times secrets have hurt me.” She looks around the room. Straightens her shoulders and lifts her chin. “Aleric is his father.”

“What the fuck!?” Ezriel shouts.

“I’m going to kill him,” Enoch says.

Khalid simply heads for the door, and Mother darts in front of him with a shake of her head.

“Bruh, that explains so much about Varius.”

“What does that mean?” I ask, turning on Maddox. He holds up his hands in surrender, then uses one to give the ‘coo-coo’ sign at his temple.

My eye narrows, but the tension in the room dissipates, even though all the questions from my brothers remain.Did he rape her? What happened? Is Maddox also his?Out of all of us, he actually seems like Aleric’s kid. As if he calledmefucking coo-coo.

But now it isn’t the time for any questions.

It is time to take Rudy into our shadows. It’s the reason we’re all still up. The reason I’m not currently in bed with my wife, holding her in my arms.

As if they can read my mind, the mood shifts, becomes somber. Then everyone looks to Mother. I assume she has him in her shadows inside Maddox’s cage, modified to not let anything even reach between the bars.

She nods. Swallows. Then heads for the front door. There is a collective inhale of trepidation. Of hesitation. Then one by one, we walk outside, off the front porch, and through the blooming row of flowers.

We already held a passing for Krypto and Leno, taking them both into our shadows, and now, within only a few months, we have to do another.

Tears burn my eyes. I want to drop to my knees and scream. To rage against an uncaring world “watched over” by uncaring gods. Maddox turns to me and throws his arms around my waist. When he’d shifted into a tapeworm egg in the cave on Mljet, having pretended to go through the portal to Blo´dyrio´ so Khalid wouldn’t question his absence, he was so determined to not lose another brother. And I failed him.

“I’m sorry,” I croak into his hair as I hug him back. My chest swells with all the pain I hold inside. It feels like it’s going to burst, to explode. To kill me with the shrapnel that will pierce every inch of my soul.

“It’s not your fault,” he says. But he doesn’t know the choice I made.

I try to pull back –why should I be able to find comfort when Rudy is dead because of me?– but Maddox clings to me tighter. “I need this,” he murmurs. “Please.”

Closing my eyes, swallowing hard, I hug him back until he’s ready to let go.

When he finally pulls away from me, his eyes are wet, but there’s a fierce determination there. “You owe me for the tapeworm bullshit,” he says.

“Of course.”