Page 503 of Fated to be Enemies

“So, if enough people say it to you, you’ll actually believe it? Because I’ve been watching you two, and whatever you’re carrying? It’s hurting you both.”

Chapter Nine

RHYS—1855

Helplessly, I tensed as I watched my brother arm himself. When he’d first told me of his mission three days ago, I stood there in shock. His face was so animated and joyful as he calmly discussed the planned assassination of a woman who had done nothing wrong.

I’d always thought phoenixes were indestructible. My parents dying so unexpectedly convinced me we were not. The right blade in the wrong hands could steal our lives just as easily as a human’s.

We were supposed to be good, meant to keep the balance—to ferry souls on to be reborn.

Never to fight.

Never to steal life.

Where Julian lost his way, I hadn’t a clue.

Only ten years my senior, he’d known our parents better than I ever had, but I remembered them well enough. They never would have allowed something like this. I’d been fifteen years old when our parents were killed—the circumstances of which were still a mystery. We never got the full story from Iva or the head families. We never got to put them to rest. One day they were here, and the next we’d become orphans.

Overnight, Julian became my only family, and then he started to change.

It wasn’t the metamorphosis of a man losing his loved ones. It was the change of a man losing his mind. Brick by brick, stone by stone, everything that had once been my fun, good-natured brother was lost as soon as he became a soldier.

But tonight was different.

It wasn’t until I’d become a soldier myself, that I realized just how wrong everything we’d been told actually was—how wrong Julian was.

Tonight he armed himself—not to protect but to murder. All because our Primary told him to.

Taking everything we stood for and throwing it away like garbage.

I tried talking to him—tried getting him to see reason—until I realized what I had to do as soon as the word “kill” passed his lips.

I only hoped I had the courage to do it.

“Jules?” I called as we walked from our modest house into the neighboring forest, staying on the path that led to a steep cliff.

“What is it, Rhys?” he barked as he adjusted his blades, picking up the pace. “I don’t have much time.”

It was now or never.

“I want to go with you,” I lied, hoping he didn’t see through me. “Keep an eye out for you. This isn’t what we usually do. I’m worried.”

As his little brother, I always tagged along, so my behavior could be attributed to that instead of my real purpose—being a Judas.

His steps stuttered, and he glanced back at me, relief instantly washing over his face. “Sure, little brother. I’d love to have you with me.”

His easy agreement was worse than a knife to the gut.

Because the relief I heard in his voice hadn’t been because I was coming with him or that I accepted his mission. It was because I was falling in line. He’d been worried he might have to end me because of my behavior.

Because I wouldn’t conform.

I forced a tremulous smile as I waited for the ache in my chest to ease. “Jules, did they ever tell you why? I understand following orders, but this is so far out of our norm…” I trailed off as he turned back to me, leveling me with a single venomous glance.

“I don’t need to know why, Rhys,” he hissed on a harsh whisper, as if someone might hear him on this secluded hilltop. “It is not my place to know. It isn’t yours either.”

The brother I knew was truly gone. My eyes stung with the tears of a boy who had just lost the last of his family.

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