Page 15 of Inevitably Yves

“Brilliant,” I whisper. “You manage your bloodlust that way?”

Yves nods. “Yes. The innocents of the city are safe from us.”

“Your humanity lingers still, Father Cillian.”

“Hardly. What lingers is the need for peace. We stay in the shadows, hiding in plain sight, but it keeps us safe and happy.” He searches my eyes. “No one has called me that in centuries.”

“Do your brothers even know of your past?”

“Bits and pieces. Not that. I forget myself sometimes. It was a lifetime ago that I wore the collar of the Church.”

“A lifetime I remember well.” My chest tightens as my next, most pressing question rises up. “Why did we part, Yves?”

“I don’t know why you’re asking me that when you’re the one who left. I still have your letter.”

“What letter? It was you who sent me away.”

Yves stares at me like I’ve gone mad. “No, Damiano, no. Your letter told me that your heart belonged to another.”

I pull my head back. “I did not write that. Your letter told me that only Hadrian had your heart. My presence distracted you. It broke my heart, but I would never stand in the way of your happiness, even if it meant my destruction.”

Yves scoffs, fixing his eyes on our entwined hands before drawing them up to my face again. “He manipulated us. I wrote no letter. You wrote no letter. I would have burned the world down to follow you, but he made me believe…” He shakes his head. “He made me believe you never loved me.”

“How could you believe him?”

“How did you? He had total control over us, and our love defied that.”

“Bloody hell, Yves. We lost centuries because of his lies?”

Yves rubs his chest as his eyes cloud over. “Gods, Damiano, what he put me through after you left. He was relentless in his punishment.”

“Punishment? For what?”

“For loving you. Betraying him. He believed we should only love him. I paid with my body and soul for giving you my heart.”

“Yves—”

“I would do it again. You were worth it.”

“What did he do to you?”

Yves shakes his head. “For months, he kept me locked in his room. He fed me, washed me, fucked me. My release was dependent on his believing I loved him again, and that I wouldn’t search for you. He spent nights filling my head with all the things he said you told him. He said you met a man, a traveler from another village, and that your heart was fickle. You never loved me. You were passing time.”

Rage simmers inside me. “That bastard. He was jealous of us. We always knew that.”

Yves nods, rising. He turns his back to me, gazing out the large windows on the city below. “He told me he would fuck your memory out of me, and if that didn’t work, he would beat it out of me.” Yves turns to face me. “And if that didn’t work, he would find you and kill you and give me your head.”

“Fuck.”

“So I pretended. I showered him with affection and love I no longer felt. I locked away your memory, knowing someday I would get away from Hadrian, and I would find you, and I would beg you to love me again. Because he didn’t fuck away my love for you. He couldn’t.”

“Yves, my beautiful man.”

“I have searched for a love like ours for centuries. Those men I call my brothers were my attempts at filling the void you left. I gave my heart to so many, but none compared to you. I finally gave up decades ago. My last attempt nearly destroyed me. I resigned myself to feeling love through my brothers and their mates, and I hoped it was enough.” He shakes his head. “But it was never enough.”

I rise and approach him. “I never stopped loving you. Not a single day. I never even tried to. I knew it wasn’t possible. Not you. Not what we had.”

“I thought you were dead.”

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