Page 57 of This Blood That Breaks Us (This Blood That Binds Us, #3)

Forty-Eight

Zach

When we reached the cathedral, my ears were ringing. My body buzzed with anticipation of Her. If She wasn’t a person, killing Her didn’t matter. She wasn’t some innocent deer or bunny. She was a predator lying in wait for Her perfect moment to strike. She had no feeling. The only thing She cared about was Her own priorities. I guess I could relate.

“Leave us.” She faced away from us with Her hand on the throne.

Their footsteps echoed into the ceiling and the door shut behind me. The only sound was the rain pouring over the roof and hitting the stained-glass windows.

She was beautiful, and She’d be even more beautiful when She was dead.

When She turned, I stopped. Something about taking on the fullness of Her image made me want to bow, but I didn’t, and I wouldn’t ever again.

She closed the distance between us and placed a hand on my cheek. It was cold on my flustered skin.

“You’ve come to kill me.”

“You had to know this was coming. Can’t you see the future?”

“I can. But could you really do it? I thought you wanted to be the good guy.” She gazed up at me beneath Her lashes.

“Come on, you can drop the good girl act with me. Whoever you’re pretending to be. The sweet blushing girl act doesn’t work on me.”

Her soft coy smile faded, and another took its place. One sultrier and more sinister.

“Finally,” I said.

“I’m not surprised you like me better like this.”

“I like you better when you’re not pretending to be some poor, weak girl. We both know you’re not.”

Every minute that passed strengthened my resolve. If She ever was a normal girl, that day was long gone. I was face-to-face with evil. The same evil thing in me was in Her too. And I was ready to snuff it out with my own two hands.

Was I finally going to add murderer to my list?

She licked Her teeth and ran Her black nails over Her palm. “Do you really think you’ll be able to kill me? I don’t think your brother would approve. Do you?”

“My brother would never hurt you. But I’m not my brother, and you took him from me.”

“Did I? I didn’t do anything but show him love. It only bothers you because it’s stronger than your bond with him. That must be disappointing for you.”

Her smile mocked my pain.

“Fuck you.”

She stepped forward. “What makes you think I’ll go easily?”

Something shifted in the air. My perfect image of Her morphed. The veil was torn, and now I could see Her as She truly was. Shiny, beautiful, evil nothing .

“You like me better like this because we’re stitched from the same cloth. You don’t have to be anything more than what you already are. You’re not like your brother. You can’t make goodness from nothing.”

“I know.”

“Did you really think this is where your journey ends? This is only the beginning for us.”

“Why me? Why do you need me if you have Luke?”

“Because you were meant for this. For destruction. Carnage and rage. Because you’re not weak like your brother. You have real strength.”

She placed a hand on my chest, and I pushed Her away.

“Get the fuck off me,” I spat. “My brother isn’t weak.”

“You both have weaknesses. And I’ve spent time ensuring they’re purged. He was afraid of failing all of you, so I made sure he faced that fear head-on. And you . . . afraid of what would happen if you lost your brother. So afraid you couldn’t see what was right in front of you. This place was made for you. And that thing you’ve always wanted is already yours. Luke will be with you forever. Safe and sound with you as his valiant protector.”

“That’s why you killed that girl. As a test?”

She rolled Her eyes. “You only listen to what you want to hear. The girl was in my way and the perfect opportunity to help him face that fear and squash all that hope lingering inside him. You’ll realize some people have so much hope you have to nearly kill them to extinguish it. But not for you. You have no hope left. Only anger.”

Her hands made their way to my chest, and I grabbed Her wrists.

“But I thought you came here to kill me? You’ll need to be closer.” She pressed Her chest up against mine and looked up at me. Taunting. Fucking beautiful.

“Don’t you wish I’d let you kill me?”

She ran Her fingers up my arm. I said nothing, focusing instead on the rage building in my gut, but it got drowned out by the euphoria of Her touch.

She moved my hand to squeeze Her neck. “Come on. Kill me.”

A fluttering pulse thrummed underneath my fingertips. All of Her blood could be mine.

“Did you really think it would be that easy? Darling, you should know better.”

That was the last thing She said before I bit into Her neck and I was lost in Her again.

I was at the bottom of hell. The room grew colder. The more I let Her have, the more numb I felt inside. My chest wasn’t hurting anymore. I let Her pull me under the frozen lake. The inferno of frost and deception.

She moaned for me. Take all you want, Darling.

I moved Her to the throne and dropped to my knees while loosening my tie. Her foot rested on my shoulder, and She looked down at me with hungry eyes. I was beneath Her. Not even good enough to be trash. Just dust and old rotting bones. And that’s exactly where She liked me to be, crawling and groveling for Her.

I didn’t care anymore. Let me be nothing. It was all I was good for. All I was destined to be. I brought my lips to Her thigh while Her hands knotted my hair, and She pulled me higher.

Good boy.

I bit Her. The blood trickled down Her inner thigh, and I used my tongue to taste every glorious drop. My whole body buzzed with the feeling of Her in my veins.

I wanted to hide in the shadow of Her darkness.

I was always going to betray my brother. I prayed to Her in silent devotion to let me hide and be nothing in quiet peace. She was my god.

My trance broke when Luke barreled into me and threw me across the altar.

“Don’t touch Her,” he growled.

There were no traces of my golden brother left in his brown eyes. Something foreign and feral ripped through me. Why did he think he could have Her all to himself? She was as much mine as She was his.

“What are you going to do about it?” The words came out quick and with no thought behind them.

I stepped forward. My body was full again. Full of Her and ready for anything.

“Don’t.” Ezra stood by the door, letting the moonlight in. The smell of rain wafted in, and the candles in the cathedral flickered.

“No, let them work it out.” Sirius smiled, watching me while he tended to the bite mark on Her leg. A mixture of disgust and jealousy twisted in my gut.

Luke pushed me and I pushed back.

My brother was a monster, and I’d let it happen. There were fates worse than death, and Luke knew that. The thing I’d tried to run away from was finally snarling in my face like a rabid three-headed beast about to consume its prey.

No matter what I did, I couldn’t save my brother.

Her blood surged in my body and made my vision feel strange and dreamlike. Luke was the last thing standing in my way. The last thing that made me feel anything. I’d dragged my brother to hell with me, and like every time before, I didn’t protect him.

That left only one final thing. My brother needed someone to save him, and there was only one way to do that.

He had to die.

That’s the brother I needed to be. It’s who I was. She’d said so Herself. Carnage was basically my last name. It all made sense.

I, Zach Calem, would kill my brother. That’s what I’d be remembered for.

Luke threw me across the room, and the force buckled the marble. The wind blowing through the doors was cold. Sirius closed them and disappeared out of sight.

I could do it. I could make it quick, then he’d be free. My brother was a great fighter, but I was better.

I charged him and slid under his legs faster than he could turn. It wasn’t a fair fight. He was weak from sparring, and I’d been healed.

That would make it easy for me, then.

Wrapping my arm around his neck, I bit into his throat. I felt the pain too, as the bond flared.

His blood stained my shirt as I spit it on the floor. The last thing I needed was more of Her in my system, muddying my thoughts and confusing me more. He grabbed the edge of my coat and lifted me over his head to toss me to the floor. The marble design cracked all the way to the door.

I twisted him into an arm bar. The imbalance left him on the floor. His blood stuck to my hands and chest and caused my hold to slip. Luke took a chunk out of my arm, and black blood spewed over the floor and into the cracks of the marble.

“Would you like me to stop this?” I barely heard Ezra whisper to Her.

Luke picked me up and slammed me into the marble again.

Focus. I could do it. I could kill Luke. It was saving him. It had to be me. No one else would do it except me. The one who loved him the most in this world.

“Patience,” She said.

This time I was faster as I dodged Luke and pinned down his leg. That, or he was getting slower. Weaker. But I could go for days. My heart beat loudly in my ears as I knocked him on his ass again. The pain of it shot through my back.

Luke’s movements were sloppy. He wasn’t thinking straight. He was thinking of Her.

I would win.

It’s better than the alternative , I told myself. Watching Her take advantage of my brother and bind him into servitude.

I put distance between us to wipe my brother’s blood off me and make eye contact with Her. “Enjoying the show?”

She smiled. You’re such a fool.

Luke charged me again, and I let him take me down and pin me to the marble.

I stayed for you.

Luke’s words felt like a scorching hot iron to my chest. I don’t know why they popped into my head when they did, but the memory of them burned into the edges of my skull.

I stayed for you.

My brother stayed on this hell of a planet for me.

Despite knowing what awaited us.

Despite the pain of losing Sarah.

Despite knowing he’d never forgive himself.

He did it all for me.

A lump formed in my throat as my brother bit into my neck, and I wrestled away and pinned an arm behind his back, then bit into his shoulder.

The weight of the love I carried for Luke was my undoing. I wasn’t nothing. I was a brother. I had a choice, and I couldn’t let him corrupt himself. His suffering needed to end, even if it ended me.

I shifted my weight till I was on top of him and pinned his arms at his sides, all while struggling with the wetness of blood coating my fingertips. He wasn’t fighting hard enough.

If loving my brother to the extinction of myself was a sin, I’d have done it again and again. This place would continue on without us. They’d find another set of twins to fill that spot. We weren’t so chosen after all . That’s what they’d say, anyway.

We were too broken.

I was unraveling.

It was all meaningless.

All of it was for fucking nothing.

My hands shook around his neck, and fresh tears stung my eyes.

I could do it. I had to.

Memories of my brother flooded me. My Luke. Back when we were happy. We were once, and I wanted us to be again.

“Luke, listen to me for a second, please!” I held him down in a flurry of blood spilling over my hands. He tried to lift me up, but he’d lost too much blood. Tears fell from my eyes onto his cheeks. “Please. Come back.”

For the first time in my life, I prayed. Not the forced ones I’d do with Mom at dinner or whatever the hell I sat on my knees for and said for the queen. I’d never begged so earnestly in my soul for anything else to whoever was listening. God, gods, the stars. Any or all.

Please, don’t make me do this. Anything else. Give me something. Help me.

The door opened, momentarily stopping us both.

I didn’t know if it was the wash of cold that fell over us or the sound of a new distinct heartbeat. The only reason I heard it so clearly was because the rain had stopped.

We halted our fighting.

Our savior had arrived. The one person I never thought I’d see.

I let go of my brother. My muscles weren’t working. I wasn’t sure my heart was beating.

Do you see now, Darling? Sometimes you must let go to see your true potential and the person you’re foretold to be. Your family needs you.

“I understand,” I said in a whisper.

It had never been clearer.

I had a family to protect, and whoever tried to hurt them would get no mercy.