Page 53 of Seared Fates

A hard laugh leaves Rurik. “‘Spent time with’, I know you’re old, but c’mon.”

“I wanted to speak,” I grunt.

“Want pointers on where to find the prostate?”

My fist connects with his forearm, and more laughter bursts out of Rurik as he catches himself from toppling to the dirty ground.

“I’m trying very hard to be a better Maker, Rurik,” I snap, his husky laughter only making my irritation itch. “You aren’t making things easier.”

“Should I?” he asks, righting himself.

My shoulders drop, and after a pause where I swallow my rising pride, I say, “No.”

“If it helps, I can sleep with Kai again.”

I grab a laughing Rurik, ready to put him in a headlock. But he manages to slip out of my hold.

“I forgot what you’re like when you’re in a good mood,” I grumble.

Rurik grins, tucking his large hands into a pair of black trousers. A memory rises of when I first met Rurik, drunk off his ass, bloody and ribs bruised. He’d been grinning then, too.

“Me too.” He looks at me with a lightness I thought had vanished when he buried Apollo. “Listen, Maker, I know you want to beg for my forgiveness for the way you acted when you were apathetic, yes? Well, I do. I forgive you.”

Stunned, I study his face to find the lie. But his expression remains unguarded.

Rurik’s always been a hard man, his human life having demanded it. Where Lucero is quick to charm, my second youngest is quick to anger. Which is the direction I’d assumed we’d be heading.

“That easily?” I ask when I can finally find the words.

Rurik sits next to me. Legs wide and forearms balanced on them.

“Maker, Apollo is somehow back from the dead. For fifty years, I thought he didn’t survive turning into a vampire, and for every painful moment of those fifty years, I knew I was the cause of my soulmate's death.” The look he sends me is one of complete awe, his trembling words tender. Years—centuries—lift from his immortal face, making him appear even younger than when I turned him at age twenty-nine. “My little star is really back.”

I rest a palm on his shoulder, squeezing. “I’m happy for you, offspring, as strange as it is. Truly. He does seem to…” I trail off.

“He hates me.” Rurik drops his head between his shoulders, smiling. Small and quiet, amused. “He’s also a little crazy.” He waves that off, as if to say, ‘what can you do?’. “So if you can move on from me fucking Kai—”

“Watch it,” I snarl.

“You were an asshole!” Rurik grins, shoving me hard. “But you were lost in a depression for ten years, probably longer. But for fifty years, I was killing myself as slowly as I could. No more looking behind or holding onto old grudges, Vidar.” He runs his hands through his hair, letting loose a long-buried breath. “I blamed you for his turning failing, even more than I blamed myself.”

Turnings can go wrong, we both know this. Golden still pretends it didn’t happen. Lucero’s brother couldn’t survive the pain. Some don’t even wake up, and for so long, that was Apollo.

“Turning into a vampire takes seconds; you stayed with his body for days.”

“Weeks, Maker. I stayed with my Apollo for weeks,” Rurik bites out. “I don’t know how Apollo came back or why he never searched for me. Or why the pull of our soulmate bond is…”

“Is what?”

Rurik shakes his head. “I can’t feel it. Maybe due to his amnesia, or a thousand other things, but I won’t tempt Fate in questioning it. Apollo is back—alive.”

“Don’t you want to ask Apollo how he’s here?”

“I don’t care. This is a gift, and I’ll accept him no matter what. As you should with Kai, Maker.”

“A male soulmate is hard to accept.”

Rurik waves that off as if irrelevant. “You’re not accepting a male soulmate. You’re accepting Kai.”