“You’re beautiful. You don’t know it so you’re not a high maintenance girl.”
“You can tell that here?”
“I could tell before, and you were Kates’s friend. They both love you—”
I gritted my teeth. My fingernails pressed into the palm of my hand. It wouldn’t be long before blood would start to drip down.
He continued, “—He loves you because you love him. Even now, you see his face every day, but you don’t flinch. You hate me with passion. You should’ve broken by now. You should be pleading with me, begging for your life. You haven’t done any of it.”
I clenched my jaw. Blood splattered onto my legs now. It made its way slowly down to the floor.
“Lucas was the quiet one when we grew up. Did he tell you that? Mmmm. I suppose not. I was the outspoken one, the leader. We had a group of friends and they did whatever I told them to do. Lucas didn’t like it. He said that I didn’t think ahead at times. He might’ve been right. I know he thought he was, but I never cared. I could’ve thought ahead, but there was no fun with that. There was no adventure. We weren’t tested then. We couldn’t rally and see who we could really be.” He laughed softly. “Our friends were weak. I never cared about them, but I loved watching my brother. Every time we’d get in trouble, Lucas would make everything okay. He always stepped in and got us out of trouble. He grew and grew every day. He became who he is today because of me. I made him. I created him.”
“A Roane vampire sired him.”
He sighed and stretched out his legs. “He has their blood. He became a vampire because of them, but he’s the man he is because of me.”
“Because he fixed your problems?”
“Because I tested him. Every time he didn’t think we could come back from whatever trouble we were in, but we did. He always found a way. I did that. I raised him.”
“You’re crazy.”
“I love my brother. He’s the only one I love.”
“And he’s going to kill you.” I looked over.
He did, too. Our gazes met.
I finished on a harsh note, “Because he loves me. He doesn’t love you.”
I waited. He’d become the enraged vampire again, but it never came. Instead, he smiled at me. “I would be honored if he was the one to kill me, but it won’t happen. He’s not coming, Davy.”
I looked away.
He leaned closer. His voice whispered to me, it teased over my skin. “He would’ve been here by now if he was coming. On the night I came for you, the Roane Army was at Benshire. They attacked the town when we were leaving. My brother is dead.”
This was a new torture. It had to be. “What are you doing?”
He stood and looked down at me.
I couldn’t look away. He wasn’t telling the truth. He couldn’t have been. Roane was alive . . . I felt it. I felt him.
Lucan smirked. “You can be with him. Just give me the thread.” He squatted at my head. “You see, I’ve started to think that maybe you’re the one holding onto the thread. I thought before that it was attached to you, but it’s the other way around. Isn’t it? You won’t let go of it, because of my brother. You think he only loves you because of the thread, don’t you?”
Shame filled me, but I couldn’t look away, not even when a tear came to my eye.
His voice grew soft again. “He loved Talia. She had the thread. He loved you. You had the thread. But you see that now it doesn’t matter. You don’t need the thread. And if you give it up, you can be with him again. He’s waiting for you, Davy. He’s been watching the whole time, waiting for you. He wants to be with you again.”
My stomach dropped. I’d been dormant for so long. My empathic abilities had died two weeks ago. I’d grown numb, but something sparked again. It was as if a hibernating monster had been poked too many times. It was starting to stir again. The Immortal was still inside of me. She was unable to get out, but she was there. She was angry again.
My body started to shake.
He didn’t notice. “I know my brother. He’ll still love you. If he had been alive, it might’ve been a problem. You know, if you hadn’t had the thread in you. Then again, he wouldn’t have even noticed you. There’s really nothing breathtaking about you. You’re beautiful, or you were before, but I think it was the thread that made you beautiful. I saw you before, too, when you went onto that roof with Talia. There wasn’t anything special about you. Meek. Dull. Your body is boring, but the thread makes you shine. Even now, you still shine.”