Page 90 of Taming His Vampire Mate

“You’re not mad?” His head rested on his arms, his expression more open than I’d ever seen it.

“No, I’m not angry,” I said softly, though my chest roiled with emotion. The enormity of what he’d done—what he was doing—was still sinking in. I only knew I wanted to help him. To undo the cruelty the universe had dealt him and so many others.

“You’re planning to save him, aren’t you? Nicolas.”

“You’re half right.” Thierry’s gaze dropped. “I did this for him—so I could save others like him. But my brother is beyond saving.”

My heart broke right down the center at those words. “Why?”

“Because I finally found him two centuries ago. And I stabbed him through the chest with a silver knife and set fire to the room while he couldn’t move. His body burned to ashes.” Though he said it mechanically, something crumpled in Thierry’s expression, some long-buried emotion wrenching itself free at last. “I killed my brother.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR || THIERRY

Ijust love having a middle-of-the-night meltdown. It’s so romantic.

But Jeremy just sat there beside me while I bawled, the first trickle of tears giving way to ugly, racking sobs that tore loose everything I’d spent years burying. I’d learned long ago to cry in silence when I had to. First under my father’s hand, then under Magnus’s even crueler tutelage. But I couldn’t bring myself to do that in Jeremy’s arms.

He wrapped me against his chest and held me. No empty platitudes. No false comfort. Just silence—steady and solid—as he let me bleed it all out like poison at last, the tears burning hot trails down my cheeks.

Jeremy’s freshly cut-grass scent still conjured the happiest memory of my childhood, as vivid as if it had happened yesterday. For the first time in years—maybe ever—I let myself feel it fully.

Nicolas was gone.

And he had been gone for a very, very long time.

Even if those visions from Poppy’s spell were true—Magnus in chains, my brother alive and killing—even if he wasn’t dead the same way Godric wasn’t, even if he could somehow be brought back…

Eight centuries stood between us. Centuries of blood and cruelty he’d dealt out for pleasure. How could he ever come back from that and still be a person?

My brother—the boy from my best memories, the twin I’d clung to even after all this time—no longer existed.

Before Jeremy, I hadn’t cried in decades. And yet I’d already done it too many times on his shoulder to count, as if all my grief had been waiting for him before it could finally escape.

When it was over, I felt hollowed out—but in a cleaner way. Like a bone re-broken so it could heal properly. Yes, it hurt, but maybe this time it could mend. And that was because of him. I felt safer with Jeremy than with Simone. Safer than with Nathaniel.

And ridiculously grateful to him for letting it happen.

But now we were going to have to talk about it, weren’t we?

I waited for him to push, to make me lay out my heart piece by bleeding piece. But the minutes stretched in silence.

I frowned at him. Why wasn’t he speaking? Why was he torturing us both like this?

He gazed out over the city. The moonlight caressing his skin made him seem almost luminous. For a moment, I could almost believe him a dark, surly Fae king come to steal me away. Timeless, inhuman—and still driven by the desires of a man.

“Well?” I prompted.

He turned, met my gaze, and said quietly, “I know that wasn’t easy to share. Thank you for trusting me. I’ll help you however you need. Anything.”

My eyes burned again. “Fuck,” I whispered, voice rough. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to push him off the roof or kiss him some more. “Jeremy, I hate you so much.”

“You’re not used to talking to people, are you?”

I was too raw to lie. “No.”

This was the longest I’d truly spoken to anyone in… longer than I could remember.

He nodded. “If it helps, I’m not either.”