Bound By Fate: A Novel of the Strong (33 page)

Steeling his strength, Toran quickly steered the conversation away from his faine.

“Did Kellen make it?”

“Yes.” Merus blew out a frustrated breath. “But he’s out for blood.”

“Mine?” Gods knew he deserved it.

“What?” Merus jerked his chin in confusion. “Of course not. He’s vowed to kill Narcyz for his role in the ambush, for killing his men.”

At that, Toran turned his head to study his cousin, working through something that had been niggling at him ever since he had awakened.
 

He’d been betrayed by his own kind––ostensibly by Narcyz.

But, now that Toran had time to think it through, he could see that there was no way that it could be true. The old daemon was nothing more than cunning and corrupt; he was a common thief. He had no ambitions to rule a kingdom. Whether Toran became king or not was immaterial––Narcyz’s riches weren’t threatened either way. Thus, he had no real reason to thwart the marriage between Toran and his daughter. In fact, it was now clear to Toran that Sarai becoming queen would just serve to further enrich her father’s coffers.
 

Besides, with his history of plundering his half of the kingdom, Narcyz could never have mustered the kind of loyalty needed for twelve Vimora Elden to betray their future king.

It made no sense, then, that Narcyz could be behind the ambush.

Only a select few could wield that kind of sway.

Diogo.

Or Toran’s uncle.

“If Kellen kills our father,” said Merus, oblivious to it all, “he will seal his fate.”

“Your brother’s fate was sealed centuries ago.” Toran grimaced as he continued to work through the possible permutations of the plot against him. Rubbing his aching gut, he added, “Let him have his revenge.”

“You know the murder of a council member will not stand, no matter how much that fucking bastard deserves it.” Merus spit out the last of his words. “The Elden will rise up. They’ll demand retribution.”

“They will indeed.” Toran turned his thoughts for a moment away from betrayal. At least for this, he could see a path forward––a
way to spare his best friend from pain. “Thus, once Kellen takes your father’s head, you will bring him to me.”

Merus sucked in a breath.

“Are we seriously back to this, Toran?”

Toran raised his palm to stop him. “Merus…”

“You cold son of a bitch. You would cause my brother’s death to appease their thirst for blood?” he accused. “To solidify your rule?”

Toran felt a stab of pain, his chest constricting at his oldest friend’s censure.
 

“Once you bring him to me,” Toran answered with as much calmness as he could muster, “I will take his venna and exile him to the human ‘el.”

“You might as well just fucking kill him!” Merus cried. “He’s half human, Toran. He’ll die there. Especially without his venna.”

Another stab.

“Yes, he’ll die… eventually.” Toran closed his eyes. When he opened them, he pegged Merus with a hard stare. “Taking his venna will hide him from the Strong. If I don’t kill him outright, nothing will stop them from hunting him down––even when I’m king. The Vimora and their vengeance are like buzzards on carrion. You know this! He’ll never be safe! He’ll never be left in peace unless I kill them all. Is that what you want for me? After all we’ve been through, you want me now to kill what’s left of my own people?”
Unless, of course, they’ve betrayed me.
To those, he’d have his revenge, no matter the cost to him.
Toran took a steadying breath before adding, “Sending Kellen to his mother’s plane will also give him a chance to find a fucking life outside of this shit.” He threw out his arms, his voice rising. “You want me to save him? Well, fucking hell, this is the best I can do!”

Toran's words settled like ash in the room.

“I’m sorry,” Merus whispered. “I see what you’re doing for me.”

Toran didn’t answer.

“Thank you for showing my brother mercy.”

Toran once again gave no answer.

After long moments, Merus dragged a chair over and sat across from him. He leaned forward, his forearms across his knees.

“Anara’s been on the warpath,” he said. “Says she needs to speak with you immediately. I’m surprised she’s not here now. From what I hear, she’s been parked outside the gates every day since the ambush.”

“Whatever she wants can wait.” Toran shook his head, unable to deal with yet another crisis piled on his cracked and splintering plate.
 

Merus cleared his throat.

“Earlier you said, ‘when you’re king,’” he ventured with caution. “Does that mean you’re going through with the marriage?”

Toran stared into nothingness.

“What about Liv?”

Long seconds passed before Toran answered.

“I can feel her,” he found himself confessing, “long after she feeds.” Opening himself up just the barest amount, he slid his gaze away. “It’s like she’s a part of me.”
Now more than ever.
Toran closed his eyes and rubbed his chest. “This closeness I feel… her very being calms me.”

She is a balm to my soul.

At his quiet confession, his cousin sat stunned and silent, unsurprisingly shocked that Toran had deigned to share even a hint of his inner anguish.

“I am happy for you, my cousin,” Merus said at last.

“I can’t see how it changes anything.” Eyes still closed, Toran nodded his head, his actions at odds with his words. “The prophecy… I can’t see how I can possibly square what it is
I want
with fate.” He paused, his eyes now open to the stark truth at hand. “But I also can’t see how I can possibly give her up.”

He met his cousin’s searching gaze.

“Help me, Merus,” he whispered. “I can’t live without her.”

A female’s shout rang out from the great room.
 

His blood ran cold.

“Oh, shit,” said Merus. “What the fuck is Sarai doing here?”

Springing from his chair, Toran bolted to his office doorway.

Merus followed close behind.

They watched as Toran's longtime housekeeper, arms spread wide, danced backwards trying to hold Sarai at bay as the female charged towards the throne room entrance.

“I apologize, my lord,” she cried over her shoulder. “I tried to stop her at the castle gate.”

“I suggest you get out of my way, old woman,” answered Sarai, “lest you find yourself on the bad side of your queen.”

“It’s okay, Wynda,” Toran said, his voice raised over Sarai’s grumblings. “I’ve got this.” When Wynda hesitated, he prodded gently, “Go on, everything’s fine.”

When the old woman was out of earshot, Toran whipped around.

“What the hell, Sarai?”

“I need to speak with you.” The daemoness tilted her head in Merus’s direction. “Alone. It’s important.”

“Until the public announcement is made this evening, there’s nothing to discuss,” Toran said in answer. He had a good eight hours ahead of him––time he desperately needed to figure a way out this mess…
to find a way forward with Liv somehow at his side.
“Until then,” he bit out, “you have no claim on me.” Jerking his head towards the door, he ordered, “Merus, get her out of here.”

“What’s going on?” Three sets of daemon eyes snapped over to where Liv stood on the steps of the landing. Her hair was tousled and bed-wild, her lips still pulpy and slightly bruised from his kisses.

A wave of his venna concussed the air.

Fuck.

“What claim will she have on you, Toran?” Liv’s voice dropped to a whisper.

The look on her face almost ended him.

With a helpless growl, Toran pushed Sarai aside and rushed over to the staircase. Standing on the second step up, Liv’s eyes were near level with his own, a storm brewing within them.

“Liv, go back upstairs and wait for me,” Toran said, nearly choking on an onslaught of emotion, emotion he knew his faine could feel in her very soul, her eyes growing wider with every intake of breath––eyes that filled with the bleak recognition of his betrayal.
 

“Go upstairs,” he whispered. “I will explain everything.”

I promise I will make this right,
Toran desperately wanted to add but couldn’t.

Gods help me, there has to be a way…

“Well, there’s not a whole lot to explain,” Sarai raised her voice to say. “I’m here to prepare for my wedding night. Which just happens to be tonight.”

“What the fuck?” Toran whipped around to face his would-be bride. He dropped into a battle stance, his arms held out to protect the female,
his female
, behind him.

“Surprise.” Sarai laughed a wicked laugh. “My womb will be ready for your seed much earlier than expected.” She pressed a palm against her breast and raised an innocent eyebrow. “Did Anara not tell you?”

Shit.

Toran’s mind raced back to the missed meetings, the unreturned phone calls, the days of brushing the doctor off when it was now so clear she had had something critically important to tell him.

“Her womb?” Behind him, Liv breathed out a low, agonized whisper. “Oh my gods, this is what everyone’s been hiding from me.”
 

Whipping around, he watched as she tripped a heel on a step. He lunged forward to steady her only to cry out as she jerked her arm away.

“This is why you’ve needed me since the very beginning,” she said, her eyes brimming over with tears.

“Liv, please, listen to me…” he pleaded.

“To serve you
and your household
.”

“Please…”

“How could I have been so stupid?”

At her whispered words, the crest on the castle floor cracked clean down the center.

Toran went to take the steps in one quick leap, desperate to get Liv alone, to tell her everything.

To plead his case.

But before he could make his move, she evaporated into the thinnest of air.

All that was left of his faine was the glittering remnants of Toran's discarded energy.

In the span of that heartbeat, Toran lost his mind.
 

The castle’s foundation shifted, the outer walls trembling under the weight of his distress.

Oblivious to it all, violence shimmering from without and within him, Toran tensed to pulse, no doubt intent on finding his faine. Before Toran could lose himself to the Mythos, Merus lunged forward and grabbed his cousin’s arm.

A beam crashed down from the ceiling, then another, the oppressive chill of the gray winter sky crowding in from above.

“Calm yourself, Tor!” Merus cried as he pushed Toran under the curve of the stairwell, out of the way of danger as chunks of the castle’s framework rained down.

He pinned his cousin against the wall. Toran's entire body shook with tension, every muscle strung taut as wire, his venna a seething wave of fury.
 

Merus grit his teeth against the electric pulse that roiled off of Toran at a rapid boil. Pressing a forearm against his cousin’s throat, he tried with all his might to force his will upon him, to make Toran succumb somehow to reason. “Listen to me…” he said, trying to smooth out the panic in his voice. “I know you want to go to Liv but you need to get a grip.”
 

Despite his efforts, the stone floor beneath them continued to crackle like melting ice over an early springtime pond. Like this, Toran could rip open a seam that could never be undone––a catastrophic tear that, unlike the one his father had caused, could never be patched over by paid-for magic.

Toran’s kingdom would forever be exposed to its enemies.

The shaking intensified.

“Fucking calm yourself, Toran!” Merus repeated. “Do not follow her like this! You know it’s not safe.”

Throwing his shoulder into his cousin’s body, Merus took a desperate shot. He wrapped a hand tight around Toran’s neck and opened himself up wide to the fury. Though Toran had, for his entire life, shut Merus out from everything, Merus’s half-faine nature now begged to ease his cousin’s pain.

He, at last, discovered the truth about Toran’s ways.

For all those years, it hadn’t been a deep-rooted aloofness that had kept Merus at an arm’s length away.

It had been
mercy.
 

Crying out, Merus staggered under the weight of Toran’s agony. Gulping down a ragged breath, he beat back a wave of nausea as he was assaulted by centuries of rage––a rage made all the worse by longing, despair, and loneliness, all wrapped tight in a blinding sense of futility.

Intertwined through it all was Toran’s hopeless love for Liv––a longing so acute, so desperate, Merus feared for his cousin’s life.

“I’m so sorry, Tor.” Bending forward, Merus pressed his forehead against Toran’s own. He opened himself as wide as he could bear, trying to syphon off as much as he could of his cousin’s pain. “I’m so sorry for everything you’ve suffered. But you’re not alone. You’ve never been alone. I’m here for you always… we’ll figure out a way through this, I promise.” He cupped the sides of Toran’s head in his hands. “But listen to me,” he whispered, “you have to get a hold of yourself. Now.”

A sound of raw, naked anguish tore from Toran’s chest.

Pulling back, Merus watched as Toran squeezed his eyes shut. Against Merus’s steadying hands, Toran strained his neck as if… searching for something.

Then, as quickly as it had started, Toran's temper subsided. The turbulent air around him downshifted to a hissingly fragmented static as something very tangible… and eerily right with the world… clicked into place.

When Toran opened his eyes, Merus tightened his grip. He blinked in stunned confusion.

“Toran, your venna…”

Upstairs, outside the royal bedchambers, Kellen sat silently in the shadows, praying that Toran’s pique would pass. His back was pressed against the wall, his knees drawn up and casually wide. His eyes, however, were locked on Arman’s lackey who, at that very moment, cowered against the balustrade. Diogo whimpered like a child as the castle disintegrated around them.

Shifting on the floor, Kellen barely suppressed a groan, his tired and aching body protesting against the slightest movement. He’d been injured in the ambush, having taken a sword to the side as he had screamed to the Tenn to save himself.