Page 147 of Cursed to Be Mine
A stab in the back over something he doesn’t even know about.
Talon’s eyes drop to the blade, and his anger flees under the approach of fear. “You’re really just going to turn me into another one of your marks?”
“You did that yourself when you tried to remove me so Antonio could kill Varius, when you told him about my girl, when you threw her into your shadow, almost got Mother killed, and stood aside while Micha got tortured. You are not my brother, but you can take comfort in the fact that I promised Maddox I will killyou quickly.”
Ignoring the blade, he shoots a bolt of lightning at me. Anticipating it, I’ve already thrown up a shield and kicked the table into him. He grunts as it hits him in the stomach, bending over from the force. I jump over the table, sliding across its surface and snap up the knife. I stab him in the side of his neck as I land on my feet.
His fingers sizzle with another spell. His eyes grow wide, then dim as I jerk the blade out of him just like I did with Daniel at Hannah’s house.
Blood sprays across the table in a fountain of choices he shouldn’t have made. Slumping to the ground, Talon hits his knees, then his face.
I lean down to wipe my blade on his back, cleaning it of blood before dropping it back in my shadow. Closing my eyes, I take off my mask, and with its removal comes a flood of pain that brings me to my knees beside him.
He was my brother.
A traitor or not, hewasmy brother.
I told myself what I needed to in the moment, lied under the protection of the reaper. But with the mask gone and the deed done, I am left with nothing to protect me from my grief. Dragging him onto me, Irub at his skin, making it move, making him move from his eternal stillness. It won't bring him back, I know this, but the grief doesn't care about logic. It just wants my brother back.
Iwant my brother back.
Curling my arms, I hold him tight against me, my body shaking with each exhale of my breath that highlights the stillness of his.
Talon is gone.
He was gone the moment Vlad arrived at our house.
Was gone when he learned Mother’s secret. He just didn’t know it yet.
Closing my eyes, I scream out all my pain.
The gentle touch of my girl envelopes me, and I grasp at it with my missing hand. A phantom touch against a phantom touch as a shudder rips through me, and I rock Talon on my lap.
But the movement doesn’t make him move.
Nothing will.
Scarlett pushes more love down our bond, convincing me I’m not the monster I am. But a reaper is not a hero. We are not a savior or a protector. We are the hand of vengeance and pain.
More love. More understanding. More acceptance of who I am. She sends it all, sitting with me patiently as I cry clinging to my brother. I hug him tight.
But he does not hug me.
Vlad appears as the night turns to morning, smelling of whiskey and sex. “We have to go,” he says. “The owner comes in every morning to have an affair with his sister-in-law.”
I don’t move for a moment, as still as Talon. Then I squeeze him one last time before dropping him into my shadow. The monsters will tear him apart, returning his magic to where it came.
Without a word, I hold out my arm. Vlad takes it in a matching silence, for once not being his arrogant self.
The world disappears.
But the pain tearing me apart does not.
We arrive in the middle of the night. The house is asleep. Vlad leaves as soon as he deposits me on the living room floor. I lie curled there for about an hour, masking myself from Scarlett so she doesn’t come down, needing to first see my mom alone. Hot shivers rake me as I finally regain the strength to stand. On wobbly legs, I stagger to Mother’s room. I don’t bother knocking; she wakes the moment I enter – a habit she gained during war and never lost.
“Oh, Khalid.” She throws off her covers and comes towards me, but I step back with a shake of my head, the thought of her touch sickening me when she’s the one who caused all this. She stops, and I seal her room insilence.
She flips on the light, and tears fall down her cheeks as she looks at the blood of her son on me. “Was it quick?” she asks.
