Destructive Embrace (23 page)

I frowned, deciding that I
definitely would not be telling him that Elyssa was
pregnant.

"Nothing much else has
happened," I said with a shrug. "Just been trying to cope with your
death, really." Reid nodded his head slowly.

"Shall I assume that that
is what ... They were doing when they did what they did?" he asked
quietly.

Thinking about it, I
shrugged and nodded. "I think that would be the most logical
reason, yes. After all, it isn't like they have anything romantic
going on. But you really shouldn't be so hard on Elyssa, you know,"
I told him.

He scoffed. "What do you
mean, hard on her? Did you see something that I should know about?"
he asked, smiling widely.

Frowning, I shook my head.
"I didn't see a thing, actually, but I could easily tell that you
were either threatening her or already hurting her. Why?" Reid
stayed quiet for a short while and I made myself comfortable
leaning against the wall next to the bedroom door.

"Did you know that she's
the one who shoved the blade into my heart?" he murmured. Well,
when he put it that way, it sounded worse than I really thought it
was. Although, killing one's Mate was pretty bad as it
was...

"I know," I whispered. "But
she was doing it to set you free from Tywin," I said. "She did it
to help you." My baby brother laughed once.

"She couldn't have talked
to me about it? She couldn't have tried to wait it out, to see if
things would get better on their own? Was it really so
bad?"

I remained silent. I didn't
know what to say because I didn't encounter Reid very much when he
was under Tywin's control. "What all happened while Tywin was using
your body?" I asked. "I can't properly judge the situation without
knowing some more."

Reid sighed. "I think he
attacked her as me," he whispered, rubbing the back of his neck
with one hand.

I grimaced. "Then can you
blame her? You probably shook her up a lot, not to mention, who
knows how that might have ended?"

"She isn't dead, is she?"
he hissed, narrowing his eyes at me. "
I'm
the only one who wound up dead,"
he mumbled.

Shrugging, I sighed. "Yes,
but you're also alive again, aren't you?" I asked him. A thoughtful
expression crossed his face and then he nodded his head.

"Zeke helped her do it, did
you know that?"

This stumped me. For
someone who was all for the good of the family, killing a member of
the family shouldn't have been an option for him. Yet he'd helped
her...

"I'm sure he couldn't think
of another way," I said. Who knew I'd be defending Zeke one day? My
brother laughed again.

"Wow, things must have
changed while I was gone, for you to be standing up for something
that Zeke did," he said, echoing my thoughts. I could do nothing
but shrug. "I don't think I can forgive him, Dmitri," Reid
whispered after a few moments of silence. I nodded,

"That's understandable. And
Elyssa?" I prodded gently. He tensed up and I sighed. "I guess
not..."

After my encounter with Reid, I was
quite shaken. Not only did his actual assault bother me, but the
fact that he was covered in his own dried blood made it that much
more horrifying.

The hatred in his eyes was burned into
my mind, and I desperately needed to escape it. But what could I
do?

I didn’t want to be alone, but Dmitri
was with Reid, and I most definitely wasn’t going back there. Zeke
was probably still in his dungeons, but the question was, did I
want to intrude on his privacy after having to deal with such an
ugly ordeal?

He’d just lost his fiancée, and was in
the process of losing a brother. The only good thing that happened
that day was Reid’s awakening, but Zeke had yet to see
him.

Not to mention, Reid would surely hate
him as much as he hated me…

I decided to head down that way anyway.
There was no way I could stand to be alone, and I was dreadfully
curious as to whether or not Tywin was dead – and Wyatt by
association.

I moved as slowly as possible so I
could give Zeke as much time alone as he wanted, even though I
planned to break his solitude purposefully.

Besides, there was a lot going on in my
head anyway. Too much, even.

As I walked, I didn't even notice my
pace slowing of its own will, until I came to a stop in between two
windows on the second floor.

Reid was back. What was going to
happen? Surely he would find out about my newfound relationship
with Zeke at some point, and then he would find out about the
pregnancy, and that I had no idea at all who the father of my child
was.

"I have really screwed things up here,
haven't I?" I chuckled darkly, pushing my hands through my hair in
frustration.

I had to stop thinking about it. If I
let the guilt eat me alive, then I was bound to drive myself
insane, with no other option but to flee the castle.

At that thought, my breathing stopped
for a moment. "Tywin is gone, or, he will be after tonight... I
should be able to leave the castle now," I whispered to
myself.

The thought was exciting, although it
was a little terrifying as well. If I wanted to leave, I had to
execute it in such a way that no one would be able to find out,
lest Zeke discovered me leaving and put a permanent end to it with
something as simple as an order as the head of the
family.

Shaking my head, I began walking again.
I was getting ahead of myself. First, Tywin had to die.

But that also meant that Wyatt would
have to as well...

I quickly made my way down to the
dungeons, stepped through the still-open doors, and walked down the
stairs slowly. The whispering voices told me that Wyatt was still
alive, but when I stepped through the final set of doors, it was
just in time to see Zeke cut Wyatt's heart out with a silver
dagger.

"I'm sorry this had to happen," he
choked out, tears streaming down his face.

The expression on Wyatt's face told me
that he hadn't expected it to hurt as much as it did, but he also
appeared to be at peace; accepting of the fate he had chosen in
order to save the woman he was in love with.

"Zeke," I whispered, unable to tear my
eyes from the scene as both brothers dropped to their knees. One
continued to fall to the floor while the other remained standing on
his knees, the dagger still clutched in his trembling
hands.

"I am such a monster," he breathed,
staring directly at the wall in front of him. He thrust the dagger
away from him and it clattered along the floor until it collided
with the dead body of Roxann.

My eyes were stuck on Roxann for a few
moments after that. She looked awful. Covered from head to toe in
her own blood, and then there was that hole in her
chest...

I couldn't bear to look at
her any longer.
That could have easily been
me,
I thought. The thought terrified me,
and I placed my hands over my stomach gently.

There was something inside me that was
already becoming adjusted to the feelings and thoughts that came
with being a mother. The sudden relief that I had managed to
protect my offspring – along with the help of my child's family –
was overwhelming, and tears filled my eyes.

"She shouldn't have died," Zeke
croaked, interrupting my tender moment with my fetus. I snapped my
gaze back to him, sniffling to control the sudden flow of emotions.
"It should have been someone else, or no one else. She should have
been able to escape!"

I walked over to him and dropped to my
knees as well, grazing my fingertips along his shoulders. My caress
made him snap his eyes to mine. Their red-rimmed appearance broke
my heart, and I knew that it would take quite a while for Zeke to
get over this hardship that his father caused him.

"Why didn't I let her go sooner?" he
demanded, glaring pitifully at me as I knelt beside him.

"You loved her," I murmured. It was
both an answer to him, as well as an explanation that I needed to
hear. His tears, his anguish over her death... Both were proof
that, no matter how he felt about me, he had come to love her.
Another human woman that had managed to escape his clutches
somehow...

"I'm sorry for your loss," I whispered,
wrapping my arms around his shoulders in a tight hug. He tried to
jerk away from my touch, but I held on tighter, unable to allow him
the escape he seemed to want so desperately. "No," I said into his
ear, running my fingers along his scalp. "I'm here for you. Let it
out."

After another moment where he seemed
hesitant to take me up on my offer, he finally relaxed against me,
placing his full body weight into my hold. The force of it sent me
dropping from my knees so that I was sitting flat on the floor with
Zeke halfway lying across my lap, but it wasn't
uncomfortable.

"I didn't want her to die," he said.
His voice sounded dead, and if it weren't for the tears still
streaming down his face and onto my shirt, I wouldn't have thought
that he actually cared at all about what had happened to
Roxann.

"I know you didn't," I replied, still
running my fingers along his scalp. He leaned his head back into my
hand and I paused to let him relax again. Silence fell around
us.

"I didn't love her, though."

This shocked me, but I didn't press him
to elaborate on his words. Instead, I held him still, trying to
keep him calm with small touches.

"I know you think I did. I know
everyone thought that I was in love with Roxann, but," he paused,
shrugging one shoulder. "I didn't. I couldn't. There was still too
much space in my head being taken up by you."

I wanted to feel guilty by this, but
something inside of me prevented it. "That's your head, silly," I
said shakily. "Your head was consumed with thoughts of breaking me.
Your heart was full of Roxann, though."

Zeke shook his head, prying himself up
from my lap and out of my hold so he could glare at me again.
"You're an idiot, no matter the circumstances," he accused,
sighing. It was my turn to glare.

"No, it's true," he insisted, sitting
up on his own. "No matter how much I tell you how I feel about you,
you always deny it. You push me away and that's what made me seek
out Roxann's embrace in the first place. But, no matter how often I
was with her. No matter how much I enjoyed spending time with
her..."

He sighed, looking down at the floor.
"You were still the one woman in my mind."

I nervously ran my fingers through my
bangs, not talking.

"And now you have nothing to say," he
chuckled. "That's fine. I didn't intend to tell you any of this
anyway. I just can never hold my tongue around you...

"Don't you worry, though, my dear.
Sadist Zeke will come back with a vengeance now that there is
nothing around threatening his family and making him go soft," he
said with a wink.

I scowled at him and fought the urge to
hit him.

I knew he needed to convince himself
that he was going to be the same vampire that he used to be, but I
wasn't buying it.

She held me against her
chest, where I could hear the faint beating of her heart. How could
I
not
tell her,
again, what I felt for her?

In the end, I also told her that I
would be returning to who I was before. That wasn’t a lie, either.
I fully intended to become Sadist Zeke again, even though that was
what led us here in the first place, to her being in the state she
was in now.

I didn’t want her to see me in the
state that I was in, but I knew that neither of us could really
stand to be alone.

And since we were being exiled by the
rest of my family for the actions we performed in the wake of
Reid’s death…

We had only each other to turn
to.

As I tried to convince her that I was
fine, that everything was going to be alright, I was trying to
convince myself of the same thing. The only way that I was going to
be alright at that moment was if…

“Elyssa,” I said suddenly. “Would you
care to accompany me to the attic?” I asked.

She appeared confused for
a moment before it dawned on her. “
That
attic,” she murmured. “Are you
sure you want to go there with me?”

It felt like she was asking me if I was
certain that I wanted her to be the first person I bring back there
after Roxann’s death, but there was no way that she could have
known that I brought Roxann there…

Except that she knew me fairly well,
and she would know that if I wanted to impress a woman, I would let
her in.

“I would never have brought it up if I
was unsure, Elyssa,” I chuckled.

She sighed softly and rose to her feet,
holding out a hand toward me as I’d done so many times for her when
she needed it.

I stared at her hand for a few moments,
trailing my gaze up her arm until it landed on her face. A small
smile lingered on her mouth, but her eyes carried the pity that
first set me off that night in these dungeons.