Page 51 of Temptation Unleashed (Talaenian Fae #3)
Another fist met his other cheek as an answer, flinging him back to the mattress. Cael pounced, his hands wringing Thaddeus’s neck, cutting off the air from his lungs.
“You fucking bastard!” Cael lifted Thaddeus from the mattress, then punched him back down, his fingers digging into his throat.
Thaddeus grabbed Cael by the shoulders, wedged his leg between their bodies, and shoved his brother back with all his depleted strength.
Cael scowled as he stumbled away, his face twisted with anger.
“How the fuck could you do such a despicable thing?! How could you stab Dagda in the back with his own dagger for a fucking whore and sacrifice your fucking life for the likes of that worthless, selfish bitch?!” Cael grabbed one of the teapots from the nightstand and pitched it at Thaddeus’s head.
He flung up his arm, deflecting the object, but the force of the contact still caused it to break around his wrist. “ You ! Fucking ! Fool !”
Thaddeus lowered his arm, composing himself, shutting away the warring emotions to level a flat gaze on Cael. “I told you once before, ’twould be unfortunate for you to learn the truth of whence I come, and the past I’ve hidden from you.”
“How could you do such a reckless thing, Thaddeus?”
The anger melted away, exposing a facet of his brother that lanced through his heart with the force of a magic-driven sword.
No arrow could hurt the way his brother’s helpless grief hurt.
Naught could bring him shame the way Cael fell to his knees, shoulders slumped, palms raised to the ceiling in a motion of hopelessness.
Naught, except the impending reaction he’d face when he delivered his dark past to the one who mattered to him most.
Pressing his lips together, Thaddeus slid off the mattress to the floor before Cael, the throbbing pain in his face muted by the suffering Cael did naught to hide.
He knelt before his brother, witnessing the strain of emotions tormenting his expressions, twisting, straining, melting from one feature to another.
His breaths came hard and sharp, then ceased on bated breaths before trying to gain composure, only to begin the cycle again.
There was naught he could do to comfort him, for the truth had been exposed and there was no changing the past.
Cael shook his head, his forehead deeply creased. Loose strands of golden hair fell over his face when he finally lifted his shimmering silver eyes to Thaddeus’s. Thaddeus clenched his teeth, a knot swelling in his throat at the sight of his brother’s tears.
“Two hundred years I’ve never lost hope in you.
I never believed for a moment you couldn’t find yourself and break free of her fucking hold on you.
Two. Hundred. Years. I waited for my brother to return because you were all I had left of our family after our parents’ deaths.
You, my big brother. The man I admired most in the world and wanted so much to be.
I loved you and when you turned your back on me to follow that fucking whore, it broke something inside me.
That the brother who would go days without nourishment while healing Fae who fell to ailments or nurturing orphaned animals back to health, who tried to bring the dead back to life to cease the suffering of the living in their grief, who took upon himself pain and suffering to ease the burden from others in their times of mourning could so coldly walk away from me without as much as a glance back. ”
As heavy as Cael’s words weighed on his conscience, he maintained his brother’s narrowed gaze, absorbing his agony through the restraints of the shackles at his wrists. The foul, tarry essence of unspeakable sorrow seeped into his body, diluted by the shackles but sickening nonetheless.
“Then you came back. Dagger to my neck, I was simply too happy that you’d returned to care.
In my excitement, I could never imagine you’d actually try to take my life.
You drew blood, but I held onto the hope that you hadn’t become so lost in her madness.
Then Rori came in and I knew, Goddess hear me, I knew my brother wasn’t lost. I saw the fracture in your expression, the tremor in your gaze.
I saw what she did to you before the effects had time to take hold.
It had been instantaneous. And with her, nothing could make me think for an instant that you wouldn’t find yourself.
That I’d finally have my brother back, even if he was scarred by a dark past.” The corner of his mouth twitched.
His nostrils flared. “I just never imagined how desolate and black your past could be that you’d do something so…
unforgivable as to stab the king of our Fae realms in the back to give that crazy whore the power of the crown and facilitate the destruction she caused.
The upheaval of the Fae realms. Grison’s movement would never have come about had you left her in exile, where she fucking belonged.
You wouldn’t have your death warrant si gned and sealed had you left her in the human realm, as a mortal. ”
Cael released a shaky breath, hastily wiping a stray tear from his cheek.
“What hurts me the most, though, is what this will do to Rori. My pain aside, she is your soul mate, Thaddeus, and she’s inevitably going to lose one of the Goddess’s most precious blessed gifts any of us could hope to receive in our lifetime.”
“If you believe for a moment I haven’t considered the pain my past will cause her, you’re wrong.
’Tis why I said I’ve naught to offer her in this life.
’Tis why, despite my own desires, I’ve tried to keep her away, make her loathe me.
’Tis why I shall never share a blood bond with her and make her endure lifetime after lifetime of emptiness and desolation.
Reincarnation doesn’t occur for the Fae, and I would never curse her to live an eternity of lives, searching for the completion she knows only with me. ”
Cael tipped his head, his eyes narrowing to accusatory slits.
“Do you believe she won’t suffer in her next life?
Having crossed you in this life?” He scoffed.
“While you’ve been healing these last few days, I’ve reconnected with Shaye and Rihanna, and I’ve spent time with Moira and Bryce.
Bryce, who was murdered in his past life after bonding with Rihanna.
He bore the scar of their blood bond in this life as a birthmark on his hand and suffered nightmares of his past with Rihanna from the time he was a child in this rebirth.
Their bond followed him through death and into this life. ”
That unnerved him, the mere thought of Rori carrying the burden of loneliness through each reincarnation without ever understanding the significance.
“There will be no blood bond, Cael. ’Tis the least I can do to spare her any suffering in the future. ”
“And who’s to say that’ll be enough to protect her from strife?” His lips pulled back as he hissed, “How could you do what you did when you knew that bitch wasn’t your anam cara ? That there was a chance you’d one day come across the one you were meant to spend the rest of your life with?”
Thaddeus sighed with a resigned shrug. “I fancied myself in love with her, only to learn how blinded I had been by so much.”
Cautiously, he reached forward, toward Cael’s hand. When his brother didn’t pull away, he gently took his hand and squeezed. Cael’s expression shattered. He witnessed his brother’s vulnerability in the quiver of his chin and the fierce battle to maintain his composure.
“There is no changing the past, Cael. Naught I can do can make up for what I’ve done. I have accepted my fate, only to have the Goddess complicate matters. ’Tis why I once said this would be a lesson learned.”
“The Goddess wouldn’t be so cruel. At least not to Rori, and I believe, deep in my heart, not to you either.”
“Don’t allow yourself false hope. I don’t.”
He leaned forward only to have Cael throw himself into Thaddeus.
His arms wrapped fiercely around Thaddeus, and Thaddeus relinquished any and all restraint to embrace his brother.
Two centuries had passed since he last held his brother in any sort of embrace.
As fulfilling as it was, it opened another door to a new regret.
“I’ll hold onto every ounce of hope, Thad. I’ll hold hope for you and me and Rori. I’ll hold all the hope in the universe if it’ll keep you from dying.” Cael’s fingers fisted in the linen at his back. “I’ve been without my brother for far too long. I’m not willing to lose you again.”