Page 46 of Angel's Fall

“So they inherited idiocy with their false titles, how lovely.” Erik knew Christine didn’t really think that of her handsome knight, but it made him happy that she was willing to pretend.

“I almost feel sorry for her to be marrying an ass like Antoine de Martiniac.”

Christine jumped as Erik’s cup clattered to the floor. He stared at her, an electric shock echoing down to his bones. “Who?”

Christine rushed to put down her cup so she could take Erik’s now-empty hand. “Antoine de Martiniac. You know him. Don’t you? He was Adèle’s patron until she came to her senses. He’s a cad. Even Raoul dislikes him.”

Not even the sound of the boy’s name spoken with such familiarity could startle Erik from the shock of hearing the other name. “I never pay attention to those pigs, you know that.”

“You’ve met him. He was the one who tried to grab you at the masquerade who you frightened out of his wits.”

Erik remembered the fool who had sought to touch Red Death and looking into icy eyes behind a black domino. Eyes that had been so familiar. He had forgotten them in the chaos of that evening, but now they burned in Erik’s memory. “I thought I was dreaming. Is he a Baron?”

“I think so. Erik, what is wrong?” Christine asked, her hands on his wrists the only anchor as his mind spun with fresh horror.

“De Martiniac...was my father’s name. Baron Alfred de Martiniac.” He hadn’t spoken that title in decades, perhaps ever. It tasted like bile on his tongue to name the creature who had raped and destroyed his mother; the noble scion who Erik had left to die burning in his own manor.

“Oh my God. Does that mean Antoine is—”

“I never considered it,” Erik cut her off, not ready to hear the word yet. “And that makes me a fool. I knew my father married. Some poor woman was bought off to be his wife. I never thought he’d breed another monster.”

“Erik, you are not—” Christine stopped when he looked at her, face stricken.

“Is he? This Antoine, is he a monster?” Erik asked, trying to think if he had ever seen the man’s face. Every pompous, leering patron looked like his father when he bothered to glance at them, maybe that’s how he had missed it.

“He’s an odious scoundrel, but not a monster.” The feel of Christine’s hand on his face brought Erik back from his thoughts. “And neither are you.”

“I’ve always known I had family, out there in the world, but never thought about a brother,” Erik whispered. “I don’t know what to think.”

“The only family that should matter to you is right here, in this room,” Christine broke in, once more steering his thoughts away from the abyss. “Stay with me, right now. Just breathe.”

Erik didn’t resist as she pulled him into her arms, wrapping him in tenderness that was safe and solid and real, her bare skin against his as warm as the life in her steady breath. He tried to match her inhales and exhales to stop the shadows and ghosts in his head from rioting. He concentrated on the texture of her hair, the smell of their sheets. He held onto her as the world he knew melted and reformed around him.

He had a brother. The monstrous father had an heir who meant to marry into the very family that wanted to steal Christine away. He had a brother who had no idea that his bastard sibling had ended their father’s life in merciless flames.

7. Cloak and Dagger

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