Page 11 of Inevitably Yves

“Why would he want you to die?” Thorn asks.

Yves’s brow creases and I doubt that he’s ever told the story before. “I betrayed him. I had to.”

“The rumors are true then?” Paolo asks.

Yves nods, tearing his gaze away from me. “I remember as if it were yesterday. He…lost his way.”

“Mindless killing,” I continue. “Arrogance. He drew too much attention to us. He destroyed an entire village. Women, children…”

“No one could stop him,” Yves says. “I tried…” He shakes his head to avoid the words, so I brace myself for a truth I may not know. “I did everything I could. I devoted myself to his happiness. I gave him everything at the expense of others. He loved me the most.”

“And it wasn’t enough?” Clyde asks.

“‘Enough’ doesn’t exist to him,” I reply. “He was mad with power. Frustrated with hiding. He wanted us to be out, dominant, not only part of society, but in charge of it.”

“At a time when the Church was still burning women for perceived witchcraft,” Yves says. “Ahead of his time, perhaps, but the nightly attacks on us were devastating. We lost many. Hadrian didn’t care. He just made more, often by force.”

“Turning people and abandoning them,” I explain. “He dishonored us and broke the rules he himself had made.”

“How did it end?” Thorn asks.

Yves glances at me again before turning away. “He took everything from me.” When he looks up, his eyes are glowing with barely contained rage, the irises tinged red. “He stripped me of my dignity, my autonomy, my love.”

“Cillian,” I whisper the name, barely able to speak it.

“He isolated me,” Yves continues. “I was forced to stay and appease him. It was the only way to stop his rampaging. Every time I tried to leave, his anger was terrifying.” Yves blinks away the emotion causing his voice to shake. “So when the mob of vampires showed up at our home, I distracted him, fed him dead blood, and let them drag him outside where they beat him, bled him, and finally, burned him.”

Meredith, a southwest vampire, gasps, clutching her chest.

“I stood by and watched them.”

“They would have killed you if you had intervened,” Paolo notes.

“I know, but do you think Hadrian cares about that?”

“No.”

“No,” Yves repeats. “He saw it as the act of betrayal it was, I’m sure.” He wrings his hands together. “But I should have known it wasn’t enough to kill him. I’m responsible for what’s happening now.”

“No, Yves,” I say. “You couldn’t have known.”

“Couldn’t I? He told us how indestructible we were. He told us there are only two ways to die, and one of them didn’t work on him.”

“Dead blood and decapitation.”

Yves nods. “I didn’t let them take his head. I couldn’t.” His voice breaks. “I felt as if I was burning on that fire. His screams tortured me.”

Syn grips his maker’s hand, arousing my jealousy. “Yves,” he whispers.

“While they killed my coven off, I stole Hadrian’s body, and I ran into the forest. I buried him and hid out until morning when I could return for a box that would become his coffin.”

My eyes sting with tears that stopped flowing centuries ago. Yves’s pain, his guilt, all of it is mine.

“I returned to our home to find my coven obliterated. Beheaded, burned, staked to the ground. I took the few things of value I could find and I left.”

“What did you do with Hadrian’s body?” Paolo asks.

“Pushed it into the sea. I thought we would be safe that way. There was nothing there for him to eat. Nothing to restore him. He would simply float to the bottom and stay there. Or so I thought.”

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