Page 76 of The World Undone

“It’s beautiful here,” I whispered, the sacredness of the setting washing away any lingering anxiety, at least for a moment.

Charlie’s features softened as she turned to me and nodded, that soft expression of pride that parents often get when someone compliments their children evident on her features, that pleasure at watching someone else see what they’ve always known.

“It is.” Darius picked up a small rock, then tossed it into the lake, watching the small circles form across the surface as it hopped. “Something about this place has always pulled me here.”

“I never asked,” Charlie took a deep breath, studying him, “what brought you to this place, of all places, so many years ago. From what I understand, vampires usually prefer heavily-populated cities, don’t they?” She ran a finger unconsciously, over a small, nearly invisible scar just above her collarbone. Darius tensed next to me, his fingers twitching over mine. “I’m sorry you lost so many years of your life imprisoned. I know it was a complicated time, but I always believed you weren’t evil, even then.”

In all the chaos of everything, I’d nearly forgotten that this was where The Guild had captured Darius all those years ago, that Dani had been the one to bring him in.

I knew that Bishop and Darius had a complicated relationship, and as I tried not to stare too closely at the small marks marring the smooth column of Charlie’s otherwise smooth neck, pieces started to stitch themselves together.

“I was running.” Darius gripped my hand tighter, threading my fingers through his, like he was worried I’d slip away. “Something about this place called to me. For a moment, I’d let myself pretend that I could live here, that I could live a regular, human life, if I simply tried hard enough. Obviously, I failed very quickly at that.”

They both fell quiet, sandwiching me in their silence, their memories fading and reshaping at the edges.

Darius studied me, his stare shifting to Charlie, then back again, his curiosity and encouragement lapping against my skin like a rough tongue.

“This place.” I cleared my throat, then turned to her. “You inherited it from your family, right? A protector lineage?” I took a deep breath, trying like hell not to want too badly, not to hope too hard that she had the answers I sought. “I was wondering if you could tell me—if you knew the line of protectors, your ancestors?—”

“I did.” Charlie’s lip twitched, half in sadness, half in empathy, like she could feel the yearning stumbling in my voice. “But I’m sorry, Max. I didn’t know that side of my family. My parents never mentioned—I didn’t even know about the supernatural world until years after I’d started working at the restaurant, until Bishop—” she shook her head, an emotion I couldn’t parse taking shape in her dark eyes, “Evelyn mentioned you were looking for your family. I wish I could help, I really do. But I’d never even met the uncle I inherited this place from. He was my mother’s half brother. She was half-protector, but I don’t think she even knew that. She was raised outside of the community. I don’t think she’d ever even met him. And by the time I learned the truth, it was too late to ask her.”

I nodded, swallowing back the lump of disappointment lodged in my throat. Even knowing this was a dead end, I felt an overwhelming kinship with Charlie. Her ties to her own history, to her family, seemed just as convoluted and difficult to trace as my own. I saw my own grief reflected in her features now. A gentle but pervasive longing, lodged in the knowledge that we’d never fully know where we came from, our stories gently erased at the beginning.

For the first time, I was almost grateful to Lucifer, for having access to the knowledge about at least some of my history, however stingy he was with sharing it. Especially so, now that I had zero access to him.

“Maybe it wasn’t just this place.” Darius turned, his eyes darting between us as indecision crossed his expression, like he was making sense of something beneath my skin, something I couldn’t see. “That drew me here.”

“What do you mean?” Charlie asked.

His bouncing stare and assessment settled on her for a moment. “I mean, that, yes, this place drew me here. But when I met you, it became more than that. A yearning I hadn’t really felt before.”

My stomach clenched as Darius’s words sliced through me. I knew that he’d been with many people before me, but the thought that he and Charlie had that kind of a past, that he hadn’t told me—no wonder Bishop hated him so much.

“There was a rightness about you. I’d planned on killing you.” He shook his head, “well, not planned per se. It usually just happened. Especially in the particular state I was in at the time. But when I bit you, something shifted slightly, coming into focus, and I knew that I couldn’t kill you. That’s why?—”

Charlie’s fingers danced over her scar again, her brows twisted in confusion as she stared at him. “That’s why you saved me that day, on the ledge. Why you let them take you in?”

“The uncle,” Darius nodded, leaning forward, towards us both, “the one who left you this place. What was his name?”

Charlie’s eyes narrowed as she considered. “It’s terrible, but I don’t know that I even remember it. Like I said, I’d never met him, never even heard of him until I was told about this place.”

“The name Sayty, does that ring any bells?” Darius asked, and my breath lodged in my lungs at the sound of my mother’s name.

Where the hell was he going with this?”

Charlie thought for a moment, like she was rifling through an invisible filing cabinet in her mind, trying to chase the name down. “I’m sorry, it doesn’t.”

I exhaled, trying to understand a wave of disappointment I didn’t fully understand.

“What about Saif?” Darius asked.

Charlie’s expression softened, her brows raising. “That’s it. Yes, Saif. That was the name on the deed. He was my uncle.”

I choked on my voice as the realization struck through me.

Darius nodded, like a picture was shifting, refocusing, coming into clarity finally. He licked his lips, lost in thought, like he was tasting a memory. “It was Max.”

“Me?”

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