Page 63 of High Stakes and Soulmates
“Yeah,” I say as I grudgingly start the car and pull away. I glance in my mirror to see if he’s still there, but he’s already heading back into the house. I long to go back to him, but I know that I can’t.
I quickly drive to Casimir’s, and when I pull in, I see that Julian’s not here yet. Even though I’ve known Casimir so much longer, I find myself wanting to lean on Julian because he’s easier to talk to than Casimir when it comes to things like this.
I get out of the car and head inside, where Gustov greets me.
“You alright?” Casimir asks the moment I enter.
I give him a smile, like that’ll make everything better. “Fine.”
He watches me for a minute, clearly wanting me to willingly say something more myself. “Cyrus told me what happened. I promise I’m doing everything I can on my end to try to track down whoever the fuck is involved.”
“I know it’s not him. I just… it got in my head,” I say, petting Gustov who seems to know something’s up as he leans against my legs.
“Okay… do you want to talk?”
“I don’t know what I want,” I admit. Honestly, I’ve already told him some of what has happened; he knows more than anyone else, at least. He knew some from many years ago, and the rest, I’d told him in a moment of vulnerability after he’d dealt with the masked man who was trying to tear apart his life. I think the two of us had needed someone to rely on who’d gone through shit that they were still dealing with. “I want… to have not fucked up so badly in the past.”
Casimir laughs. “So do I. But no matter what we do, that’s not going to happen. I ended up having to kill people who were like family to me. People who… were all I really ever had. I wish I could have done something to save them. But the shitty thing about life is you don’t know how it’s going to go until it happens.”
“I know…”
“But it’d be nothing like… losing Julian,” he says. “I don’t even know how you kept going. I don’t know how I’d keep going without him. Knowing that Julian literally has silver inside of him that could kill him if we simply fucked up is bad enough… I can’t imagine how hard it was for you to have lost someone you loved.”
I sink down on the couch where Gustov climbs onto my lap and reveals his belly since he thinks I should pet it. “It was really fucking hard. I think… my rage kept me going. This idea that I could kill his killer… kept me moving forward. He’d turned me into a vampire, and I knew it was to torment me. It was to make it harder for me to die so I could continue being tormented by him for years to come. What if he’s not dead?”
“What do you mean?”
“This man who killed Arturo… what if he’s not dead? I… there were three of us who went to kill him. I was an extremely young vampire and he was hundreds of years old, so I knew I couldn’t do it myself. He nearly killed me within minutes. Theonly reason I survived was because one of the two others, a woman named Caterina, shielded me from an attack and drew me back as I nearly bled out. The man who assisted us is the one who killed him.”
“If the three of you went to kill him, why would any of them lie about him being dead?” Casimir asks.
“They wouldn’t. I don’t know, I’m just… my mind is all over the place.”
“Just… stop beating yourself up over it.”
“If Arturo had never met me, he’d have lived a good life.”
“If this man was so quick to kill him, you don’t think he’d have killed him over something else?” Casimir asks. “Monsters like him… they look for ways to manipulate, to push you, to see how far you will go. He was never going to let him live a good life. When you told me about your past, it was quite apparent that the man who owned him was never going to let him have the life he deserved.”
“I know,” I say.
“Pet Gustov… oh! I know what will make you feel better.” He hurries off and when he returns, he’s holding a brush. “You may brush himwithsupervision.”
“You think brushing your dog will make me feel better?”
“Do you want to hold a Gustov painting? I will permit it,” he says before he pulls one off the wall and holds it out to me.
I reluctantly take it, but evidently, I’m not holding it right, so he makes me cradle it while helping me brush his dog. “Does… any… of this make me feel better?” I ask as he gives me a disapproving look when I hit a snag in Gustov’s fur.
“All of it,” Casimir assures me as Julian walks in and gives me a questioning look.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CYRUS
“Okay… so we were in the car for almost an hour, and youjustremembered the part about a werewolf running an agility course? You didn’t think that could have been entertaining to talk about?” Joaquin asks while he parks the car in front of Donovan’s club.
“I don’t know. I was too enthralled by your tales of this woman you’re wooing.”
