Page 3 of Worse Fates (Soulmates Suck #1)

Blood tastes sweeter when soaked in wine. It fills my mouth as I hold the struggling man, my fangs buried deep enough to hurt.

But he can’t scream with my hand covering his mouth.

“Are you done?”

Ramy asks. His voice is soothing, like a breeze on a hot day. Tall and lithe, he leans against a wall, arms folded. His brown skin catches the moonlight and returns its shine, while his long black hair seems to soak all light in so none can escape.

Dragging my fangs from the man’s neck, which will leave a scar and a reminder, I drop him next to the bins. Alive, but I’m not going to waste my time healing him. Maybe he’ll make it through the night, maybe he won't.

“You said you wanted to go out.”

My thumb runs across my lips, gathering the last drops of blood, the man at my feet already forgotten.

Ramy pushes himself up and moves with grace towards me.

“I said I wanted to do something fun.”

Together we leave the alleyway and into the ever-busy streets.

Cars honk, people pour out of clubs or restaurants. The combined noise is easy enough for me to withstand, but Ramy is still young, and winces.

Wanting to spare him the discomfort, I steer us away and into the back alleys. The walk home will be longer, but the wrinkle between his dark brows softens.

From the corner of my eye, I examine the young vampire. His features are soft, his expression blank and giving away nothing, but I know he’s upset. Again.

“Why don’t we go to the theatre tomorrow?”

I offer, even if it isn’t my idea of entertainment.

“That would be nice.”

The corner of his mouth lifts as he turns his deep brown eyes on me.

“And it was nice getting out of the club to stretch my legs.”

He’s too forgiving. I have to do better as the temporary head of our little family. No matter how much our bonds are already broken.

“When I was human, I hated the cold. Now I prefer it over the heat.”

Ramy wears simple black jeans and a white top with a wool coat like mine.

“I can’t remember how I felt about the heat,”

I tell him, trying to throw my mind back to hundreds of years ago.

“But I enjoyed the food more. I still remember a fish dish I loved. Though I can’t recall the name.”

“Is this what I should expect when I get over six hundred tears old?”

Ramy jokes.

I force a smile. I don’t tell him forgetting your human side is the least of your concerns. Its when all colours become grey, music sound with no joy, and losing minutes—hours, days—to numb silence.

Emptiness. Apathy. That is what Ramy should fear.

Instead, I say.

“Maybe your biggest concern is losing that pretty face.”

A passing man smiles low and suggestive at Ramy, who all but ignores him.

“Me? What about you, famous playboy of Spain?”

If only sex hadn’t lost all pleasure. Even a random face and a rough fuck against a wall has become a chore.

“Or are you too busy brooding to take notice?”

Ramy knows heartbreak has a tight grip on me, and I’m desperate to find my reincarnated mate, if he’s in this city at all. He might not even been reborn yet. I never get a warning when I should next reencounter him; it’s completely random, and the waiting is worse.

When we finally get to our club, Sucker, and go up through the private entrance to find Rurik. My vampire brother rutting against a man bent over a sofa. Fangs buried into the humans neck.

Ramy and I ignore him, and we’re ignored in return.

“I wonder if vampires can OD,”

Ramy asks as we enter my office and he drops onto a chair.

“That human smelt of drugs.”

“Rurik’s certainly trying.”

For all of Ramy’s jokes, he still turns back to the door, a wrinkle between his brow.

“Leave him to it, you know how he can be.”

I sit in the leather chair at my desk.

Ramy captures a strand of his long hair and twists it around his finger, concern for Rurik written all over his face.

“He lost his mate, Ramy,”

I tell him.

“There’s no fixing him. Rurik was like this long before you came into our lives. Nor are you responsible for dragging him from the brink.”

We’re both quiet.

No one speaks about Rurik’s dead mate, or the tragic events of his death nearly fifty years ago. Which is why being with Ramy is easier than with Rurik, who is a reminder of what I lost.

But unlike my soulmate, his didn’t die by natural means and will never be reincarnated.

“He’s improved,”

Ramy says.

“At least he stopped asking us to kill him.”

“Now if only Vidar would.”

I don’t bother hiding my bitterness when speaking of our Maker. Another touchy subject to add to the pile.

“You bought him this club to indulge him and he spends all his time in that dusty old mansion, locked in the basement like some ghoul.”

Ramy turns his nose up at the idea.

“Have you visited him recently?”

I ask, tapping my fingers against my dark wood desk.

Ramy’s silence is weighted. He’s the youngest of Vidar’s offspring and feels more responsible for our maker than the rest of us do. I’ve tried to pull that weight off him, but guilt is Ramy’s ever companion.

“Not in the last few weeks,”

Ramy admits, his stare far away.

“But I will, soon, maybe on Sunday.”

My tapping continues. I don’t want to see the state of our once great Maker. My friend. But as the leader of our family, reluctant as it may be, I can’t allow Ramy to go alone.

I still my tapping, and bring both hands together to rest on the desk.

“I’ll come with you.”

Ramy’s perfectly straight eyebrow raises.

I wave his confusion away.

“I can at least hold the grumpy bastard down while you force blood down his throat.”

“He’s not grumpy,”

Ramy defends gently. “He’s…”

“I know what he is. Apathy has ruined many a vampire. You can love him fiercely, as I still do, but he stopped caring about himself years ago.”

I turn in my chair to stare out at the wall length window, to the club below and writhing bodies dancing to music blocked from entering by the soundproof glass.

“Maybe we should bring Rurik.”

“Oh yeah, that’ll cheer him up,”

Ramy snorts.

“Rurik the devastated, Lucero the brooding, and Ramy the perfect—”

“Perfect?”

I chuckle.

“—into the home of our Maker. Who’ll ridicule until Rurik will lash out and you’ll get in between them. Then I’ll end up having to smooth everyone's little egos.”

“I’ve never heard any complaint about my ego.”

My grin grows when Ramy scoffs.

“Besides, isn’t that all family gatherings?”

Ramy is quiet for a long time. In the window I see his reflection open its mouth, sigh, then finally say.

“It hurts to see him, Luc.”

Without his jokes, Ramy is a man who wished for family and found us. And then we, like most families, disappointed him.

“You should travel, Ramy. You wanted to see the world when you were turned. A big adventure.”

“Who will stop Rurik from killing himself?”

he asks, not unkindly, but to cut to the bone.

“And take you out of your own head, because you’re…”

“Say it.”

I wait for him to speak the words aloud, the ones we’ve all been thinking but too scared to voice.

“You are losing yourself to apathy, like Vidar.”

I’ve seen Ramy’s fear grow for me in these last few years. Fear of losing another to the nothingness of apathy, because if I lose myself, then Rurik won’t be far behind. Then who will Ramy have?

Not Vidar.

Not Sen, the eldest of our dysfunctional family, and who left before Vidar made Ramy.

“There,”

I smirk.

“Don’t we both feel better now the words are out?”

“Mostly, I feel like a jerk,”

Ramy admits, and softens my sharp edges.

Sometimes, I wonder if I should play Maker and turn a human into a vampire. A companion for Ramy. But the very idea of it twists my guts; it would be a betrayal of the mates I was too cowardly to offer immorality.

My phone rings and I pull it form my pocket.

“It’s Vidar,” I say.

Ramy is next to me within a second using his vampiric speed.

“Vidar?”

Ramy frowns.

“Has he ever called? I didn’t even know he knew how to use the phone I gave him.”

I shrug before answering. “Maker?”

“You sound surprised to hear from me, offspring.”

I flinch, his voice shredded.

Recovering quickly, I answer.

“Well, not hearing from anyone in two years will do that.”

“We’re immortal,”

he sneers.

“What's two years between us? Besides, I thought I should update you.”

Vidar rots away within the bowels of a mansion we let fall into ruin, so I can’t even imagine what his ‘update’ would be. “On what?”

My Maker moves, and I hear the cracking of his bones, like dry twigs underfoot.

“A human boy was living in the house for a few days.”

Closing my eyes, I let the frustration turn my voice into a growl.

“And you allowed this?”

“Why would I care?”

He laughs, and the sound harsh and bitter

“Then why update us?”

Ramy asks gently, carefully, as if talking to a wounded animal.

Deep hollow breathing follows. I try to remember the Vidar I knew, blunt, fun and a warrior at his very heart. Now he’s little more than a corpse barely holding onto life.

“I was curious,”

he answers.

Ramy and I share a glance.

In the eight years Vidar’s been holed up in that decrepit shithole, the only thing resembling an emotion he’s shown is irritation.

“Anyway, the boy saw me, dropped a candle and ran. The house is burning to the ground, by the way.”

He says with such little concern he might as well be telling me water is wet.

“For fucks sake! He saw you?”

I stand so fast my chair topples to the ground.

“Did you at least kill the human?”

“Why bother?”

he scoffs.

I resist the urge to punch my fist into my desk, and through clenched teeth, I ask.

“Have you seen what you look like?”

“Again, why would I bother, Lucero?”

I fix my gaze on Ramy, jaw aching and begging for some patience. He’s staring at the phone, brow furrowed in concern, hands wringing together.

“Vidar,”

Ramy implores, his tone soothing.

“You taught us to blend in with humans.”

“I didn’t have my fangs out. He saw nothing.”

Rage takes control, and my fist finally connects with the desk, the wood splintering.

“You look like a walking corpse,”

I snarl.

“A nightmare haunting that wreck.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he spits.

“If that boy speaks to the wrong person or reports to the police, then the blood mages could find out and come pay us a visit. What will you do then, Maker? You were a powerful vampire once, but right now? You. Are. Weak. And you put this whole family at risk!”

A sound like ripping sheet metal screeches through the line, and I realise with a glare that Vidar is laughing.

“I’m still strong enough to rip your heart from your chest!”

“You.”

I bite out. “Are not.”

Vidar’s raspy breathing from the speaker is the only tell my Maker is still with me.

So, like many times before, I swallow my feelings for Vidar like a bad pill. There’s no point in arguing, and nothing would come from it anyway.

“Rurik, Ramy, and I will come and clean up your mess, then move you to another home.”

“Leave me in the ashes, Lucero.”

Then the line dies before I can say anything further. I push my fist deeper into my desk until the wood begins to splinter.

“Lucero—”

“Go.”

Closing my eyes, I calm my anger before I look up at Ramy, hoping for softness but doubting I achieve it.

“Go get Rurik, I’ll join you shortly.”

Ramy nods, that wrinkle in his brow still there as he rushes out of my office.

I right my chair before slumping into it with a deep sigh, my fingers running across my face and through my hair. Vidar’s apathy was not a sudden thing, but a slow insidious smothering that none of us could escape.

And now Vidar brings another problem to our feet while I try to keep this family together. At least this one is easier to deal with.

We'll rip out the human’s throat, then I’ll set my family right.