Page 18 of Little Wing (Shades of Fairhaven #1)

T he Royal Nomad was certainly busy for a late afternoon.

Typically, the merriment wouldn’t pick up until the later hours, often once I was done with work, so this was a pleasant surprise.

Kait was just starting her shift it seemed, because she looked just as startled to see me and Silas approach the bar.

“Well, isn’t this a nice surprise?” she grinned before she turned to Silas. “Assuming you’re not going to corner my best friend on the patio again?”

Silas rubbed the back of his head and turned to look at me. “You weren’t kidding.”

“Of course not,” Kait replied for me. “Buying Lo drinks is one thing, but chatting her up? You know I’ll do what I need.”

He nodded. “Understood. Then can we please order a round of drinks. AB negative for me and—” Silas looked down at me and smiled. “O positive for Lotus?”

“Yes, please,” I smiled.

With our drinks poured, I led Silas back to my usual booth. When we sat down, I couldn’t help but think that the last time we were seated there, our night got a quite heated .

“Thanks for coming, by the way,” Silas finally said, holding out his glass for me to clink against. “I know I really did come off a bit—”

“Stalker-ish?”

He rolled his eyes and chuckled. His laugh was soft and dark, and truly pleasant to my ears.

A laugh I wouldn’t mind hearing more of.

Perhaps our conversation would carry on in a more pleasant direction now that we were able to clear the air a little.

That talk we had at Little Wing was a start.

Hearing him open up about what he was working on and why he was doing it in the first place made me want to know more.

I admit I was hesitant about showing up after receiving his text messages.

Yes, I was curious about him, but I didn’t know what to expect beyond the small talk we entertained when we had some time to spare for each other.

His invitation insinuated an actual conversation.

From the way our last conversation went, I worried it could have been another scheme to get me to admit things I wasn’t even hiding.

Though I now believed that we were past that stage.

What I did find when I accepted his invitation was a man waiting and dreaming of something that appeared to mean more to him than a mere business venture.

He was seeking community, or rather a place where community could flourish. Much like the nest he told me about.

As we took our first sips of the sanguine liquid, I licked my lips and turned to look at him when I could have easily kept my head down. He shared something with me back at that lot. Something that tugged at him in a way that shattered the cool, calm, and collected persona I saw before.

His brows raised as my eyes didn’t leave his. Rather than speaking, he waited to see what I would do.

“I did not have a nest, but I had a brother. My twin, actually. ”

I watched Silas’s shoulders relax as he allowed himself to sink back into the cushion of the booth, positioned to listen.

“He was my family. He made me.” I couldn’t meet Silas’s gaze anymore when the words left my lips.

Luca’s story, his existence, was one I needed to take with me to whatever end, yet there I was wanting to share a slice of who I was.

It was an equal exchange. While I could not share everything, I felt the need to offer something to the man seated beside me.

So I tapped my nail against the blood-stained glass and told him everything that I could. Starting as far back as I could remember:

We lived in the Carolina’s, or at least the territories that would eventually become the Carolina’s.

It must have been the 1700’s. My memory is somewhat clear, but the true dates do grow fuzzy even now.

My family owned a small farm complete with horses, livestock, and even a few barnyard cats.

My brother helped my father manage it while I took care of the horses. I loved horseback riding back then.

We were not rich, but we managed to pay our taxes and keep our bellies full. The only time we faced true difficulty was when the rest of our community was hit with a sickness that wiped out nearly half the residents in our village. People would fall ill and disappear, some without a trace.

While sickness spread, I was forbidden from leaving our home while my brother and father continued to watch over our livestock.

They went on long rides together to ensure everything continued to operate as intended.

Their methods kept the sickness away from our property for months, yet as it swept through our community…

it was never going to be a matter of if, but when the sickness would finally land on our doorstep. In one way or another.

After a long ride scouting the perimeters of our property, only one rider returned—my father .

I forced an exhale and took a sip of my drink.

The beginning of this dark journey sent me on a path of memories that I could still recall vividly.

I could smell them… taste them. When I braved a glance at the man beside me, I saw that he was seated with his back still relaxed into the booth’s cushion.

His attention was fully on me. I continued:

My brother did not return that night. My mother was distraught while my father was barely able to utter a word as to what happened.

Where was he? Where was my brother, my twin?

I believed in the connection we shared, that if something tragic were to happen then I would feel it.

I’d know it in my bones that I was the remaining half.

Yet, I felt nothing.

Days went by before my father began recounting what happened. His retelling was scattered, manic, and fragmented. It became a puzzle that I needed to solve. After a few weeks of staying huddled at home, living off the reserves we kept in our pantry, I was finally able to understand what happened.

My brother was only about a mile ahead of my father when a diseased animal tackled him to the ground.

He didn’t see it happen, but heard the shouts of struggle from his direction.

When he made it to him, the creature was gone, but my brother was wounded.

A deep gash on his forearm and side that trailed blood behind him, even as he was mounted back on his horse.

It was only about ten minutes out from our home that my father noticed the absence of my brother’s labored breathing behind him. All that remained was his horse free of its rider.

Worried about the sickness, my father didn’t dare venture back out, not even to recover the body of his only son. Fear paralyzed both my parents. But not me .

I was finally able to sneak out of the house. While I did not venture far past our home, I still held out hope that I would soon spot my brother coming home. Alive and well.

That night, I saw no one approach our home and decided to seek comfort in our horses in the barn.

I took another sip of my drink, now noticing that my knee was no longer bare, but covered by Silas’s hand.

It was a reassuring presence, a comforting one, so I allowed it.

I watched him motion to Kait for another round of our refreshment.

My mouth was dry. The memories were fresh, immortalized.

Even as centuries went by… I could still feel the sting of betrayal, sadness, and just… so much pain.

Upon opening the barn doors, I expected to hear the gentle neighs and huffs from our two horses, but what met me instead was a pungent stench of iron. Blood. I rushed to light the lamp in the corner of the barn and immediately regretted it upon seeing the scene before me.

“Fuuuck! Turn it OFF!” A hiss pierced the silence in the barn.

There was blood everywhere. Puddles smeared across the floorboards and in the middle was a man who looked so much like my brother, yet not at all.

His hair was matted with blood that made his black hair shine.

His skin was sickly and drained of color.

When he looked up at me, I knew something was terribly wrong.

His soft amber orbs were now a frightening ruby red.

“B-Brother! You’re alive!”

“Go away. Stay away. I—I cannot have you here!” The creature, my brother, demanded. His voice was guttural, strained, and heartbreaking. Like every word that left his lips was inflicting physical pain.

“No, I will get Father and he will bring you in. We will find a healer to tend to you,” I commanded .

He dropped to his knees and wheezed, digging his nails into the wood.

It was then that I allowed my eyes to land on the corpses around him.

Our horses were dead, their necks limp. Their large bodies were covered in many punctures, which made me wonder where the blood was.

There should have been so much more from such large creatures, I thought.

“Lotus…” my brother groaned. “I am so sorry.”

Before I could peel my eyes away from the poor creatures, I felt a terrible sting on my wrist. My brother had yanked my arm and pulled me to him before he bit me.

My skin was pierced with teeth so sharp I thought they were needles.

And as the blood began to spill, I watched my brother lap it up.

His eyes wild with a hunger that terrified me.

When I tried to pull away, I… I….

Silas squeezed my knee gently. “You don’t have to keep going, Lotus. I-I’m so sorry.”

I bowed my head and turned my wrist to show him the two marks across my skin. A memento from my final moments, my branding in addition to the dashes below my collarbone. “He broke my neck to finish what he had started.”

The air between us was thick, but as the words finally settled, I looked up at Silas with a small smile across my lips.

An offering of a piece of me to him. Despite his interrogation the last time we were here, he now sat stiff beside me.

His hand didn’t move while his eyes lowered from mine.

I didn’t know what he was thinking. I was trying to settle my own mind from retracing the memory further.

I could never forget that night. I could never forget my brother, but I hoped that the fragment I shared would settle any lingering suspicions that Silas had about me .

“I hope this is enough for now,” I said before bringing my glass back to my lips, finishing the last drops of blood before swiftly moving on to the next glass beside me.