Page 98 of Our Sins in Shadows (Coven of Sin 2)

“Why?”

“For the longest time, I thought it was cowardice. I couldn’t stop thinking about Elizabeth. Your mother and I may not have been lovers, the babe in her belly was not my child, but the situation was too similar to what happened with Elizabeth. I couldn’t get that night I lost her and the baby out of my head. Only instead of my mate lying out on the floor with her stomach torn open, it was your mother. And when your father stood over her with the dead infant clutched in his bloody hands, it wasn’t my child he held, but his own. And it tore me apart, even more so than when I’d lost my own child. Which didn’t make any sense to me at the time.” Sterling’s voice broke with emotion, and he took a moment to collect himself.

“Now I know it wasn’t out of fear that I stayed behind. You were always meant to be my mate. I didn’t understand it back then, but on some base level, I knew I had no right to a life with your mother. It felt wrong. It’s like my instincts knew I would walk a different path with you.”

“So...” I had to fight to keep my voice steady. “Why are you so ashamed about not going with my mom if you now know it was the right thing to do?”

This would be too much information to handle for anyone. I loved Sterling, but his seemingly infinite capacity for knowledge and memories was a bit mind-blowing. Especially when he was unpacking memories that had to do with my history before I was even born.

“Because I abandoned her. She needed me. That should have been enough for me to shove aside my fear of repeating the night Elizabeth died. I should have ignored the instincts telling me it was wrong to start a life with her. No matter how platonic that relationship would be, no matter how loveless our partnership. She needed me. But I held out for my true mate to come along, knowing she would, even if I wasn’t aware that it was you at the time. I will never forgive myself for being so selfish.”

I was numb all over again, but this time it was a different cold than the chill that froze me because of Vin’s distance. It pained me to see Sterling so tortured.

With an anguished sigh, his fingers knotted in his hair, and he stared at the space of bed between us. “The only thing that got me through those months shortly after Sapphire escaped was not knowing what happened to you. I imagined you and your mother in a cottage somewhere, safe and comfortable. That you started a simple and normal life far away from vampires, from the Helsing Guild, and from this godforsaken house. However, those fantasies ended when she left you on our doorstep several months later.”

Everything inside me shriveled. My worst fears had been confirmed.

My mother didn’t want me.

I’d let myself hope?—something I was learning not to do in any story with my parents?—that Ster was going to get to the part in the story where the vampire king tracked my mother down and pried me from her arms. Like how Queen Ruby refused to give up her child in the old Helsing legend. Now it was just a slap in the face, knowing I was named after the woman who’d done all she could to keep her baby when my mother had just dumped me on the vampire king’s doorstep.

A horrible sensation gnawed at my guts. I dropped my attention to my hands where I wrung them, trying to work some blood flow back so I could feel anything besides this jagged ache in my heart.

“She gave me back to Thomas Knight.” It was a simple statement made contentious with the poison that bled off each syllable I spat from my mouth.

Sterling moved to take my hand in comfort, but I reeled away from him in anger. “Don’t touch me! Why didn’t you tell me?” I flew off the bed and stood over the ethereal vampire. He was so tall that even from his sitting position on his bed, we were still at eye level. His milky eyes drilled right through me, not a single emotion on his stony face.

“Ruby?—”

“And they knew, didn’t they? I know you guys keep Corry in the dark?—which is utter bullshit, by the way. But Eros and Vincent know all this! So why didn’t anyone fucking tell me?” My voice cracked, and Sterling flinched at the hurt so obvious in my voice.

“You weren’t ready to hear it.”

“Oh, so it was better that Dagon told me while I was his prisoner—”

“No.” Sterling thrust to his feet, his imposing presence pinning me down, as palpable as a touch. The demeanor he exuded at this moment was so domineering, I felt my monster raise from her slumber and peek out at the formidable male. He stroked my throat—over the place he proclaimed as his in the attic. My pulse fluttered beneath the caress of his fingers, a tiny purr rumbling from my chest in place of the words I’d been ready to say.

“Let’s get one thing abundantly clear, Miss Baxter,” the male snarled in a honied growl, as soothing as it was commanding. “First, I told you there’d be no talk of that despicable beast on your birthday. Do not disobey my wishes again. However, since you brought him up, know that there wasn’t an ounce of truth to anything he told you regarding your mother, save for her name. You were not born out of rape. And she loved you. I saw how she held her tummy when she spoke of you. I saw the fear in her eyes when she spoke of escape. And let me tell you, Helsings don’t fear death, and you know that. She feared for you.”

Sterling’s chest fell, his fingers curving around my nape to play with the coils of baby hair. “And it’s true what I said, as hard as it is for you to hear. I didn’t tell you all this sooner because you weren’t ready for the truth. All my brothers and I want is to keep you safe while you figure out how to control the thing inside you.

“Forgive me for saying so, but your hybrid abilities are fairly temperamental. Given your reaction to seeing your father’s mark, the way you slaughtered a dozen men in just a few seconds in Boston...” The vampire’s gaze narrowed to slivers. “How you almost devoured Alexandra in the hallway.”

Heat rushed to my cheeks, and the sensation was a relief even if it was borne from embarrassment.

“You’re getting stronger, love. But you’re also learning how to contain and control your monster. Because at the root of it, sheisyou. If we’d told you any earlier, I was afraid you’d be so angry with your mother that you might fall into another youngblood state, which is dangerous for a Helsing-Knight hybrid.”

“And now do you really trust that I’m gaining control, or is this because she’s mostly asleep at the moment?”

Sterling’s expression smoothed into something indecipherable. “I was planning on telling you this today regardless. I don’t fear you in any capacity. If anyone is a match to your true physical strength and power, it’s me.”

I blinked, caught off guard by this alpha-esque confidence the vampire was showing me. Humility was something that seemed ingrained in the very fabric of the priest’s nature, but now that he was shedding it, I found myself attracted to him more than ever before. And how that was possible was beyond me.

Smirking impishly, my tongue swiped over my bottom lip. “Feral would argue with you.”

I didn’t enjoy bringing up he-who-must-not-be-named, but I’d only done it knowing Sterling was just as annoyed with Vin as Eros. He just hid it better.

My silver prince glared right through me, his thin nostrils flaring. His hand slid up from my nape, and his grip shifted from soft and reverent to firm and authoritative as he fisted my hair. He anchored my head back and arched his spine, his lips so achingly close to mine.

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