Page 121 of High Stakes and Soulmates
“You son of a bitch. I will fucking kill you,” he growls before he heaves and throws up more of the blood, his body rejecting what I’d put in it. It’s not like it’ll kill him, but I just need something to distract him. Something to knock him off guard long enough I can finish what I started so long ago.
I step up behind him and as he’s throwing up, I reach around and slit his throat. “It wasn’t Jack,” I say.
He jerks back from me while he grabs his neck in an attempt to keep the blood in, but I rush forward and drive the stake I’d stolen from one of his children into his chest. He’s not youngenough to die instantly. He tries to tear it out, but I ram it in deeper. He claws at me, slicing into my flesh as he rips my cheek open and cuts across my eye, blinding me from the right side.
Louis appears almost in shock that I’ve gained the upper hand, and he doesn’t seem to know what to do about it.
“This is what I’m good at,” I snarl as I pull the stake out and drive it in again. “I’m good at sneaking in when no one is looking and tearing them apart when they’re in their weakest state of mind.” I slam it into his chest again. “When the fight is not fair, but it was never fair when it came to you.”
I slam the stake in again and again, even though Louis isn’t moving any longer. It almost seems too simple. Anticlimactic for a monster who I thought could never die. I’d built him up to be this untouchable nightmare… but really, all I needed was for him to not expect me.
“I just needed that single moment when you were distracted. That single moment when you’d let your guard down. And that’s all it’d take. Because in their home is when someone is most vulnerable.”
His hand claws me on the way down, but I stake him again as I hold him against the ground, pinning him down with my body. Still, I stab him again and again while his blood sprays out. I don’t know what I hope to accomplish, but even watching him die doesn’t fix everything. It doesn’t fix the pain; it doesn’t fix the mental torture. But I know that everything in this moment decides how safe Cyrus will be.
Still unable to see out of my right eye, I don’t see the person, but I hear him when he rushes up to me, and the sound of his footsteps is unbelievably familiar. I can close my eyes and justfeelArturo running up to me.
“It’s okay. He’s dead, it’s okay,” Cyrus says as he pushes the stake out of my hand and wraps me up in his arms. “It’s okay.”
My body is wound tight. I want to drive the stake into Louis until I can’t even identify him anymore. I want to rip his head off. I want to burn him and spread his ashes and?—
“It’s okay, it’s going to be okay,” Cyrus murmurs, voice gentle when he takes my outstretched hand that still seeks the stake. “He’s dead. He’s dead, and I’m okay.”
“Are you really Arturo?” I whisper.
Cyrus is quiet as I reach for his face, but do I even deserve to? What I did to him was worse than anything Louis could have done. I don’t deserve to touch him.
He sets his cheek in my hand since I’m unable to extend it to him. I don’t deserve to.
“I… I don’t know what I remember… but I remember screaming for you. I remember the sea and I remember knowing you were dead. But I don’t know… I really don’t know, Ezio,” Cyrus says, voice so soft.
I never told him about the day Arturo died. Unless Louis did… how else would he know that? “I left you. I left you behind. I’m so sorry. I can never forgive myself.”
Cyrus squeezes my hands. “I don’t understand it. I don’t… I know you would never leave me on purpose. Don’t you even dare act like it was your fault, Ezio. It wasn’t your fault.”
“I left you,” I whisper. “How can you even still care for me?”
“I love you. I love you. I love you so much. So please. How could you have ever known? If you saw Arturo die… if you saw me die… why would you ever think I was still alive?”
“I don’t understand, though… what are you?” I ask.
Atticus stops examining the body to look over at us, and I realize that Cyrus didn’t come alone. The whole group is here witnessing the awful person I’ve become. “Hold on… are… you… you guys don’t know what he is?”
Casimir looks at him sharply. “You know?”
“Of course I know. He’s a dhampir. I could tell the moment I met him. Jesus, have you just been wandering around starving yourself to death? No wonder you’re so damn weak. I thought you were just dissing the blood I gave you at my house.”
“I’m… a what?” Cyrus asks.
“You never thought to tellany of us?” Casimir hisses. “As we ran around assuming he was human, you never stopped and thought, ‘Maybe I’ll tell him’?”
“Did I turn to you and go, ‘Hey, did you know you’re a vampire?’ Of course not! Why the hell would I tell a clearly older dhampir what he is? I didn’t know he didn’t know!”
“I don’t even… I’m a what? I’m…” Cyrus stares at Atticus before looking over at me. “What’s that mean?”
“You’re half vampire,” I say.
Cyrus’s eyebrow shoots up. “How?”
