Page 43

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Brothers

NYX

“ Y ou know.” Jedidiah stated the obvious, watching me. “I guess it’s about fuckin’ time.”

My heart cracked under the weight of betrayal. I shook my head, knowing damn well my mascara was streaming down my cheeks.

“Oh, that’s fucking rich, Nyx.” Deep, painful resentment thrummed in his tone. “You’re going to look at me like that. After everything, I’m the bad guy.” His eyes dropped behind me, to Solaris in the armchair. “Everything always works out for you, doesn’t it?”

“No,” I scolded, fists clenched, cheeks wet. “You don’t get to do that. Compare yourself to him. You’re not supposed to be like him , Jed. I don’t expect honesty from him. I don’t expect loyalty or kindness or basic fucking decency from him. But you—” My voice cracked and cut off. I shook my head some more. You’re good. You’re good.

“Harsh,” Solaris muttered.

“Shut UP!” I shrieked at him, my fists bursting into flame. My chest heaved, my hair lifting from the wind of my fire. “I can’t look at either of you right now. You can both go to the Seventh Hell.”

I stalked away, burning holes in the floor with each crack of my heel. One of them shot up and came after me, grabbing me by the shoulder and whirling me back around so abruptly my fire went out. Jed, of course. “No way, sweetheart,” he snarled. “You’re not going anywhere.”

“What are you even doing here!” I exploded, shoving him away with all the force I could muster. “You hate him. You don’t trust me. You resent the ever-loving shit out of me. Why did you come back here? WHY!”

He was breathing hard. High as fuck. His pupils, two black holes in his face, sucking me in.

Every moment we’d shared welled up my throat and hardened into a suffocating lump. Had he been high around me before and I’d never noticed?

Solaris rose to his feet behind us, a winged phantom. “He came back because it is inevitable. The three of us.”

Jed snarled with disgust. “Fuck that.”

“Why, then?” I challenged. He opened his mouth, but I didn’t give him the chance to answer. “You know what. I don’t even care. You’ve both been keeping this ginormous secret from me. This whole time, I—no. I’m done. Goddess, you’re fucking brothers. Leave me out of your little family feud.”

Jed’s hand latched around my throat before I was even done speaking. “Don’t you ever say those fucking words again.” He leaned down to be at eye level with me. My heart tumbled, air abandoning my lungs as his black-hearted glare ate me alive.

“Brothers!” I wheezed, defiant until the bitter end.

Jed squeezed my throat harder, putting his forehead to mine. “Shut your mouth right now.” His voice cracked at the end, and so did my heart. He pulled me closer with a slip of desperation. Pressed his forehead harder against mine, like he wanted to link our minds, so we were no longer bound by the tedious act of speaking. Words had always been daggers thrown between us.

My whole body tingled with heat, the edges of my vision going black.

Solaris appeared beside us in a flash, prying Jed’s warm fingers from my throat with his cold ones. Jed snarled intelligibly, shoving Solaris who hardly budged. He stayed immutable at my side. When he spoke, his voice was death. “That’s enough of that.”

Jed all but spat in his face. “Fuck off. She likes it.”

“Not right now she doesn’t.” Solaris moved in front of me, his wings a giant feathered wall.

“GET OUT OF MY WAY!” Jed’s voice came with a boom, the ground shaking violently under our feet. He charged passed Solaris, knocking him clear out of the way as he came for me.

His earthquake didn’t last, but the threat hanging in the air did.

“Of course I fucking came back to you! Do you really think I was in that shithole enjoyin g myself? Eyes wide open, and still, you don’t see.” He splayed his arms, putting himself on full show. “Whose blood do you think I’m wearing? I ripped that succubus’s heart out while she looked into my eyes and watched me take her wretched life. And then I left the place in cinders. You should have been there with me!”

His hand wasn’t even around my throat, yet I couldn’t breathe.

Could it be true? Were they really vampires? I hadn’t seen any red eyes… But perhaps I was foolish to think they didn’t have ways of altering their appearances.

Either way, Jedidiah had just slaughtered the lot of them.

My stomach rolled. “Goddess, Jed…”

“Why the fuck are you looking at me like that?” he demanded.

“You…You can’t just go around senselessly killing! That’s not you!”

“They’re vampires , Nyx!”

“They looked like people to me, Jedidiah!”

“Yeah, that’s what they want you to believe! Who gives a fuck about any of that anyway! I’m here for you! I’m not going to let him take you . That’s all he fucking does is take . My penthouse, my city, my school, my father, my fucking death , my girl.” Jed veered away from me, the movement sharp and impulsive.

His rage took over completely, and he charged Solaris at full throttle. “You can have it all, I don’t care. But you don’t get her.” Jed grabbed Solaris by the front of the cloak, gripping him and roughing him up as he snarled in his face. “Everything else is worth nothing . But Nyx? She’s the fucking world, and you don’t deserve to breathe the same air as her. Let alone keep her as some caged bird. You’ll have to fucking kill me if you want her. Do you hear me? You’ll have to kill me! I’m never going to get out of your way, so you can cut this bullshit reverse psychology, thinking you’re going to break us apart by putting us together. Even if it works, I don’t care how she feels about me. I won’t stop protecting her from you.”

Silence.

My lungs remained robbed of air. Solaris’s face, as always, remained a mask of stone.

A war broke out in my soul. Every one of those words was a weapon, laying waste to everything I thought I knew.

“Jed,” I whispered. The ache in my chest nearly brought me to my knees.

“Always begging for death,” Solaris muttered darkly before a whir of black and silver lashed between them. Solaris moved like lightning, tearing free from Jed’s grasp. Jed wasn’t quick enough to react, and it earned him his own jagged dagger to the throat. The one he’d given me .

My stomach plummeted. What ? My eyes and hands dropped to my thigh where I’d had the dagger. It had been glamoured. How would he have—

His hands on my hips.

I’d been straddling him, giving him perfect access. He not only sensed it there, but he stole it. And I didn’t even notice.

Jed’s eyes lit up with betrayal.

No.

Solaris pressed the gnarled blade into his flesh, drawing blood as he forced him back. Back to the ledge of the terrace. The double threat rang through the air like a doomsday alarm.

I crossed over the ruin of broken glass, wailing as I tried to rip them apart. But Solaris had Jed in an iron hold, and Jed didn’t fight it. His fingers were back where they’d been before, clasping Solaris’s cloak. Neither of them paid me any mind. They were locked on each other, two vicious beasts out for blood.

It was like I wasn’t even there.

“You can hate me all you want,” Solaris snarled. Words he’d said to me a thousand times. “You need it. You need a target for all that rage you’ve always carried inside you. You can’t aim it at Aries because that would mean you’d have to step up. There’s no taking him down without taking his place, and you don’t want that. You’re a loner, not a leader. And as much as you wish the vampire slaying would satiate you, you’re proving right now that it doesn’t. So, it has to land on me. You need me like she needs me. Don’t you see that? Without me, your fury is meaningless.”

Jed roared wordlessly, his throat drenched with spilled blood, but Solaris went on without missing a beat. “You’re back because you can’t escape it. No matter how hard you try, every road will lead back here.”

“NO!” Jed’s voice shook the world.

“Open your eyes! I’m not taking anything from you. It’s our city. Our father. Our girl.”

Goddess damn me .

Jedidiah’s earthquake was going to bring down the entire building. But it was nothing compared to the cataclysms going off inside me.

Solaris did not relent.

“Stop!” I screamed. “Fucking stop it! SOLARIS!”

They’d fought before. I hadn’t feared for them then. But this time was different. This time was fueled with a thousand lifetimes of rage and hate and betrayal. Like the old gods themselves had inserted their ancient karma into their bloodline, giving it form and play out between them.

Solaris may not have been able to die. But Jed could.

I tried to use kinetic power to tear them apart. Cold dread filled me when my magic hit a wall. Their shared wrath hardened into a shield around them, blocking me out.

Amid the tremoring chaos, the potted tree at the entrance of the terrace grew and morphed into a ravenous creature, thick and lashing. Solaris fell victim to its hunger, his eyes bulging as it latched onto his legs like a giant serpent. Jedidiah thundered a laugh, his fingers curled inward as he commanded the ficus tree to attack. Solaris lost his grip on him and was yanked backward. The dagger flung from his hand, whipping past my face. He hit the ground hard, the tree multiplying into a mob of vines that dragged him over the shattered glass.

I dropped into a desperate crouch and snatched the wicked blade. I had no idea what to do. I just knew the demented weapon needed to be off the board. I did not trust it or Jed’s intentions when he’d given it to me.

My heart slammed under every inch of my skin. Solaris fought against the vines, but they had him like a fly in a spider’s web. Wrapping, devouring, suffocating.

Jed stood over me, deathly silent, his hand out expectantly.

“Give me the dagger, Nyx.”

Shit.

“Jed,” I rasped. What could I say to a jumped-up homicidal maniac to talk him down?

“Give me the fucking dagger. Now. Don’t make me take it from you.”

My cheeks were hot, sticky, and damp. I rose shakily to my feet, thunder ringing in the clouds above to match the pandemonium in my chest.

I’d known from the moment Jed gave me this dagger that there was something warped about it.

“He can’t die,” I argued ineptly. “There’s no point.”

“Give. Me. The dagger.”

We stared at each other while the sky warred with itself.

I searched his face, desperate to find traces of the man I thought I knew. He would hardly meet my eyes—he was too focused on the damned blade. Hyper-fixated like a dog waiting for you to throw a bone. He’d been teetering on the edge of madness for a while, I realized and he’d fallen into the bowels of it now.

“You can’t give it to me,” he accused, shaking his head while disgust coated his features. “You have to protect him.”

“You gave this dagger to me,” I rallied, trying to grasp a semblance of dignity. “It’s mine and you can’t have it.”

“You gave it to him !” The ground convulsed under my feet as he abandoned reason and rushed at me.

“No!” I shrieked, whirling out of his way. I wasn’t quick enough. He yanked me by the shoulder and ripped the weapon from my hand.

It all happened so fast.

I darted into the penthouse with the enormous ground-shaking man on my heels. My hand swiped through the air of its own volition, summoning flames over the vines that were eating Solaris. My fire burned them to ash within mere seconds, the earth element powerless against me.

“NO!” Jed exploded.

The freed shadow shot up from the ground, massive wings splayed, his face carved into a mask of pure savagery and vengeance. Veins of black rippled down his cheeks, his cloak billowing around him. His blazing glare flew right past me.

This wasn’t going to end until one of them was a writhing mass of blood and bone.

A magnet latched onto my heart and flung me out of the way like I was a fucking rock in a slingshot. A cry of shock and pain escaped me when my back smashed into the stone by the fireplace. My brain caught fire as I thrashed against the kinetic hold. But the magic binding me was cast out of hate so passionate and potent, that it tainted the air red. Jed’s power had mine in a chokehold. I couldn’t even summon a flame.

All I could do was watch.

Watch as they charged each other, full force. Became a blur of black, red, and silver. They didn’t fight like men or gods. They fought like wild animals. Vicious and messy. A storm of snarls and wings and blood, destroying the place.

They hurled over the bar, crashing onto the caved-in floor behind it. Jedidiah pinned Solaris to the ground and pressed the tip of the demented blade to his heart.

I felt the blade on my own chest. Sinking into my flesh, carving out my heart.

If Solaris couldn’t die, why was my entire being screaming with the instinct to protect him?

“Go ahead,” Solaris spat. “I escaped one astral prison before. I’ll do it again.”

What?

“She won’t save you this time,” Jed promised, his eyes full of murder. He snarled as he applied more pressure, the dagger tip disappearing into Solaris, who kept his jaw clenched, features schooled.

Pain struck me in the same spot as if the dagger had stabbed me too.

I tried to scream. No sound or air left my lips.

Please stop. Please stop. Jedidiah, please stop.

But he didn’t. They looked directly into each other’s eyes while Jed began to sink the blade into Solaris.

Something exploded.

Again. And again.

My eyes landed on Christina, standing in the bedroom doorway, pistol pointed forward.