Page 54 of Blood Claims
“Peter was my dog and I… I killed him before my father could.” After which I then…
Told them everything.
Once my grimtale was told, both men looked halfway between committing murder and falling even more in love with me. And thankfully, they held me close throughout it all. Their arms keeping me held between them.
They comforted me though all my tears and all my pain.
Of course, they said all the right things. How none of it was any of my fault. How I was struggling in my grief and fear of what my father would do. How I thought that I was saving my beloved pet, afraid of the beating my father would have given him.
And I knew it all.
A part of me even believed them when they said this.
But was it powerful enough to get the memory out of my mind…?No.Was it enough to rid me of my father’s voice, mocking and cruel, calling me a dog killer for the next ten years…? No, it was not.But then, I didn’t think anything would be.
Although, that didn’t mean that it didn’t ease my fractured heart and help heal at least some of the cracks. It also didn’t mean that getting it all out hadn’t eased the weight of that guilt I had carried for so long. Because it had. And, for once, someone else knew of the pain I suffered. Knew why I had such trust issues. They knew my baggage of self-doubt and lacking confidence, with a bitter hope that such cruelty wouldn’t find me again.
But more than anything…they hadn’t once judged me.
Which meant that they both understood me better. Understood every time I wanted to run. Understood why I put so much faith in the witch’s words about the curse. Because it was easier for me to believe. The bad was what I expected. And it was fucked up, but there was a kind of safety in knowing it…
It was so that nothing could sneak up on me ready to rip my heart out.
That was until I met two Vampires who had claimed my heart, despite the fight I continued to put up in trying to keep it protected. But they had fought harder and now I was willingly under their spell…and they were keeping me there.
Starting with replacing the nightmare with a far better dream…
Victor picked me up and walked with me in his arms back to the bedroom we had shared. A room I could tell he didn’t want me to fear. Tal followed behind, his stern expression only leavinghim once he had finished his phone call. One I didn’t even see him make.
“Why are we back in here?” I asked in a fearful tone, because I wasn’t sure how I felt about being back in this room, seeing it was where the nightmare had started. But Victor had a determined look on his face. One I understood the moment he told me,
“Because we have a nightmare to eradicate and replace.”
To which, he then placed me down on the bed before he crawled over me. Then while straddling my hips, he pulled his T-shirt over his head, at the same time his brother did the same. My eyes drank in the gorgeous sight of them both and, soon, Victor was right.
They each eradicated anything that remained of the dream, quickly rewriting one to replace it so it could be acted out in great detail.
Addictive, mind consuming, heart soring detail, that had me…
Begging for more.
19
FIXING FIREFLY
VICTOR
Pain and suffering.
This was a currency my brother and I often dealt in. It was an inevitable part of our dark and dangerous world. And like most empires, ours had been built on blood-soaked ground. Blood we had been all too happy to spill. It was a necessary evil, and one that continued, to this day, as one of the Fondatori. The Kings of this world who held the sacred dagger as proof of their position. One my father held before I did.
A crown to keep and an empire to rule.
Yet in all my sinful years, never had the pain of another affected me like this. A pain that with every word spoken, had carved deeper and deeper into my soul. And I was not alone in this, as I knew how my brother also struggled.
Because we had prepared for some kind of tale of woe. Knew that it had been bad,we just didn’t realize how bad.How much of a tortured soul our Fated was. A fractured soul we were determined to fix, to mend, to heal. And like I said, we had our suspicions that her childhood hadn’t been a happy one, but we never could have imagined the things she told us.
And now…we had someone else to kill.
