Page 84 of Inevitably Yves

“Hadrian,” I say, drawing his manic attention back to me. “I’m afraid you won’t be responsible for any more deaths.”

I launch myself forward, throwing my body against his. We tumble to the floor again, quickly surrounded by my brothers and sisters, Paolo, Hemsley, Horus, Tiago and Hale. It’s understood that this is my fight, and as I struggle, I remember everything we’ve discussed since learning he lived.

I let the centuries of pain and loneliness rise to the surface, drawing my beast with it, feral and hungry for my maker’s blood. I slash his throat, gagging as the remnants of rotting magic and dead blood seep from his veins, but he claws at me, desperate for my blood in turn.

Suddenly Kyson jumps in, biting my maker’s hand, and Justice quickly joins him. The mates descend on Hadrian like rabid piranhas, biting and nipping at him, while my brothers enter the fray and plunge daggers into his chest.

It serves only to enrage him, but it does keep him from getting his teeth into me, which is not nothing. Damiano falls to the ground and wraps his arm around Hadrian’s neck, only slightly restraining him. The angrier our maker gets, the stronger he becomes, and I know we have mere minutes before everything could shift in his favor.

I search the floor, finding a long, sharp knife, much better than the daggers for my task. After grabbing it, I straddle Hadrian, meeting Damiano’s eyes. He nods, determined to hold him down with the help of my brothers and their mates.

I shift my gaze to Hadrian’s, and he hisses, trying one last time to mentally break me by showing me the love we once shared before Damiano entered our lives. It sways my heart for a second before I refocus.

“Tonight, I finish what I started five hundred years ago. I was too weak to see it through then, but I’m not that man anymore. You need to die, Hadrian. Your soul is dark and foul. You have no good to offer. Not even love.”

“If I die, part of you dies too.”

“I’ll be okay.”

I plunge the knife into his neck, getting splashed with his blood. A foulness like nothing I’ve ever smelled before rises up from his neck and he convulses.

“You could save me,” he whispers. “Your blood can save me.”

“Why would I do that, Hadrian?” I lean close to him as I drive the knife into the other side of his neck. “Why would I save you when all you’ve ever done is try to destroy me.”

“You…you have…love… Kill bad magic.”

I brush his hair off his forehead, recalling how it looked like silk once, but is just stringy and thin now. “I used to wish for how we were—you, me, and Lorenzo, and all your dreams for what the world could be for us. I did love you once, but you killed that love with your jealousy and hatred.”

He grips my bicep, his eyes flickering from cloudy to blood red. “I am the original. You cannot kill me.”

“Your legacy continues in me, in Damiano, in my coven. I am what you should have been, but you couldn’t let yourself be loved enough to reach your potential.”

Blood trickles from his lips as he chokes slightly. A strange noise, almost like a bitter laugh, leaves his lips. “It’s my curse. Your fated love…it’s my curse.”

“What does that mean?” Damiano asks.

I put my hand on his chest, compelled somehow. He focuses on me, sending me a vision. Hadrian, in our villa from long ago, sits before the fiery vision of a demon.

“You fool,” the demon says. “I gave you everything and you squandered it.”

“You gave me nothing,” I hiss. “I am lonely. I need companionship. I need someone to love.”

The demon chuckles. “Oh, it is love you seek? Immortality is not enough. So greedy.” The demon moves around me, floating closer, then farther back. “Tell you what, bloodsucker, I will give you the ability to make your own love, to give your gift to others, but to keep them, your heart must be pure. If not, you will lose them and their soul will find another. They will be united, unbreakable, and will never, ever love you no matter what you do.”

Hadrian blinks and the vision ends. “I spent years and then centuries wanting you to love me,” he whispers, his voice weakening now. “Why? Because I made you and you should adore me for it. I brought Lorenzo to us to give us more love, but…” He coughs, choking up blood. “But the demon already played his game. He bound your heart to Lorenzo’s and left me out.”

“Because your love was not pure,” Damiano says, provoking an angry growl from Hadrian.

“So you sent Damiano away. You compelled us to believe our love wasn’t real.”

He laughs weakly. “And it worked. Even as I rotted at the bottom of the sea you put me in.”

“How did you get out?” Damiano asks, drawing a hiss from our maker.

“An archaeological dig. They brought me up and put me in a lab. Their blood was my first meal in centuries.” He barely shakes his head. “But I am not restored completely. I went…” His breath rattles. “Found a witch.”

“That’s where you got the black magic,” I say.

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