Immortal Confessions (25 page)

“Were you seen?” I said as I dressed.

“No. No one is about.”

“I’m going to bed, it’s nearly dawn.” I cast
a look at the lightening sky. “We’ll get jewelry tomorrow
night.”

Rip nodded and vanished.

I squared my shoulders, walked inside, and
opened my bedroom door to find Anna gone.

I was so shocked I blinked my eyes, and
looked again. But she was still not there.

She always waited for me in bed, always.

I went looking for Levi. I finally found him
cowering on the top of the cellar stairs, an empty bottle in his
hand. He wouldn’t meet my eyes. I closed my eyes and staggered
unsteadily, because I understood what had happened.

I sat down beside him, before I fell. “When
did they leave?”

“Just after dark,” he whispered. “She took
almost nothing with her.”

“Where did they go?”

“I don’t know.”

I grabbed hold of him, and hauled him to his
feet. “Where did they go? I know you know!”

“I don’t!” he whined. “I told them not to
tell me! I couldn’t stop them by force, knowing you loved them
both—”

I shoved him hard down the stairs. I heard
Eva cry out and run to his side, but I paid little attention. He
would heal.

I needed to meet with Uther. He would help me
decide what to do.

* * * *

We sat in his cave for a long time that day,
after his man carried me to him wrapped in a thick blanket. We
drank at least a bottle of blood, his laced with scotch. Uther
always had a taste for alcohol.

“Technically, you can kill him,” Uther
rasped. “But then you have to kill her, too. He’s a thief, and
she’s an oathbreaker.”

“I do not want to kill her,” I said for the
fifth time. “I want her back.”

“Why?” Uther said, taking a drink. “She ran
off with your brother. Why would you want her back?”

“Because I love her,” I said passionately.
“She is mine, Uther. She belongs with me.”

“Rene can find her,” Uther rasped finally.
“She’ll look into her crystal, and find them. Rip can likely take
you there, if he sees where they are in the crystal.”

I nodded. “Will you come with me?”

“For what?” Uther rasped, fixing me with his
black eyes. “I’m not going to kill your brother, or hurt Anna. So
what good would I be?”

“I need you,” I whispered softly. Then to my
utter shame, I began crying.

Uther did not hug me, as I hoped he would, or
tell me it was okay, as I also hoped. He merely waited until I had
control of myself, and then he sighed.

“I’ll come with you.”

* * * *

That night, Rene found them for me. Rip took
Uther and me there a few moments later. Together, we went to the
door of the room they had rented.

I put my shoulder through it with a loud
crash, and walked in to find Danial naked in bed with Anna. Her
choker with my symbol was in a pile on the nightstand. She looked
at me in shock, and then away, her face scarlet.

Danial met my eyes and to my disgust, he
grinned. “So you found us,” he said with relish. “My God, it took
you long enough. I thought I might have to stay with her here
another night!”

I stared at him, my lips parted, because I
could not believe this was my brother, the one whose welfare I’d
tortured myself so mercilessly with over the years.

“Do you love her?” I got out somehow.

“No, of course not!” Danial said, giving me a
wicked grin. “I don’t care for dull brunettes, as you well know.
I’ve always preferred my women to be pretty—”

Anna let loose a sob, and bolted from the bed
into the sitting room, slamming the door behind her.

“How could you marry a woman so unattractive?
Could you not find one whose body had a face to match?”

I had up until that point stood there
motionless, as I just could not believe what I was hearing, that
Danial, my brother Danial, could be so cold. But I wasn’t the only
one hearing his cruel words. Uther roughly grabbed hold of Danial,
and threw him through the front wall. Danial snarled, crashing
through to land out in the street in a naked jumble of legs and
arms. Passerby looked up, saw us, and ran for their homes.

“Do not speak about her thus,” Uther hissed,
his fangs bared wide.

Danial got to his feet, baring his own fangs.
“I am speaking the truth, batman. It’s sheer relief to know I’ll
not have to bed that cow again—”

Danial’s words cut off as he let loose a
scream. Uther had slammed into him, sunk his fangs into Danial’s
throat, and then ripped outward. Blood fountained out, and then
spattered everywhere, as Uther bit deeper.

I remembered my battle with the goblin last
night. Danial was struggling, but Uther was much bigger and
stronger. He’d kill him here and now, if I didn’t stop him. As much
as I hated him at this moment, he was my brother.

“Stop,” I said firmly. “Release him,
Uther.”

Uther moved back, and let Danial’s body fall.
My brother was breathing still, and his throat healed over quickly.
He lay there covered in his blood with hate in his eyes, too weak
to move.

“Take Anna home, please,” I said, my eyes not
leaving Danial’s. “I’ll be there shortly.”

Uther spat on Danial, and then walked back
inside.

“How could you do this to me?” I said softly,
still staring at Danial.

“Do what to you?” Danial said, rolling on his
side in the mud, and spitting out some blood. “We’re even.”

“And how do you figure that?”

“I had a wife,” Danial growled. “I had a son.
I had a life, a good life, Dev! You ruined it! You took it from
me!”

“I did not,” I whispered. “I didn’t
know—!”

“You knew!” he screamed. “I went back to our
village! I found out from our father that you knew that there had
been attacks on that road! You knew we might be attacked! And you
let us take that road anyway, because you wanted the renown of
killing whatever it was that was making a legend for itself!”

“I didn’t know you and I…that this would
happen to us,” I stammered.

“You did!” he shouted. “You wanted our father
to be proud of you, it wasn’t enough you were the legitimate one,
the golden son! You had to be a conquering hero! I have been paying
the price for your pride and arrogance these past two hundred
years!”

I should’ve apologized, or told him the past
didn’t matter and punched him for being an asshole. Instead, I
stood there and did nothing, because true or false, the guilt in my
heart said he was right, that it was my fault and I deserved to
suffer.

Danial got to his feet. “I am leaving
France,” he said. “I am not going to be at your beck and call,
brother. I’ve had enough of being a servant, or your student.”

“Where will you go?” I whispered.

“America,” Danial said, striding back
inside.

I followed him. “With what? You have no
money.”

“I have enough from my investments,” he said
flatly, as he pulled on some clothes. “You also paid me to help you
in the beginning, and I saved most of that. It’s enough to get far
away from you, and that’s what matters.”

I swallowed my bitterness and anger. “How
long were you planning this?”

“Since the beginning,” he said, throwing
things in a bag. “Since you told me there was someone you actually
cared for.”

“How long, brother?”

Danial paused, and even though his back was
to me, I sensed a sadness about him. “Tonight,” he said finally,
turning his head a little. “Only tonight. She was not an easy
conquest. I never had her blood, if that matters to you. She
refused to let me take it.”

That was something, at least. “Does she love
you?”

“No,” he said, again not facing me. “I don’t
think she does. This was never about love, brother.”

He left without looking back, striding away
into the night.

I stood there for a long time after he’d
left, wondering how I’d thought for months everything was good
between Danial and me. It had all been a lie, and I hadn’t even
suspected. How did something like that happen?

And what of Anna? She’d broken her vow to me,
after all I’d done to remain faithful to her. I felt like I’d been
immersed in sunlight. The same was true of her, that she’d acted as
though things were fine between us, and they really weren’t. How
could she love me, and do that to me?

I felt betrayed. I felt absolute fury. And
the first stirrings of what I would become told me to go out, and
share my pain with others.

* * * *

I burned that house, and walked off, even as
it set fire to other houses. I came upon a couple looking much in
love, and killed them both, ripping their throats out, leaving them
weakly moving in the gaslights as their lives emptied onto the
ground.

I entered a house a block down, and killed a
man sleeping alone, before he woke. I fed from him, and then
torched his home too, also setting other homes alight.

I did that many times that night, sometimes
drinking, but more often killing brutally just from the sheer
desire for it. It was good that the fire brigade was well trained;
else that section of Brittany might have been nothing but smoking
ruins by morning.

Close to dawn, Rip found me and teleported me
back. I was too exhausted to argue. When I stumbled into my
chambers, smelling of smoke and blood, I found Anna waiting for me.
She was not in bed, but dressed, sitting on a chair before the
fire.

I thought her sure to recoil from me, but she
came to me hesitantly. I let her lead me to the washbowl, and help
me get clean. We said nothing to each other, as she wiped the smoke
and blood off my body, and washed it out of my hair and beard.
Finally, I was clean, and she took the dirty towels, and the soap,
and placed them beside the bin and turned to me.

“Please forgive me,” she said, tears in her
eyes. “I’m sorry.”

I looked at her there for a second, and then
I enfolded her in my arms. She began sobbing, and I held her,
sobbing too, telling her it was all right, that I forgave her, even
as she told me over and over she was sorry, that it had been a
mistake, that she’d hated herself for being weak enough to believe
that the lies he’d told her were true…

“What lies?” I asked gently, pulling back
from her.

“He said you’d been with your new blood
donor, Jezebel,” she whispered. “That you’d loved her as you drank
from her.”

“That is untrue.” We’d come very close last
night, of course, but I hadn’t actually done it. “I have been with
no one but you.”

“He said you were going to relinquish me as
you did Eva,” she sobbed, hiccupping a little. “That I wasn’t
pretty enough to hold your interest—”

“You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever
known,” I said lovingly. “There is no one I know of that I desire
more.”

Anna turned from me. “Devlin, please. I know
what I am, and what I am not.”

“What you are is my Oathed One,” I said,
picking her up, and taking her to bed. “What you are not is anyone
else’s, ever, Anna, because I am never relinquishing you.”

“Promise?” she said, tears again in her
eyes.

“I promise,” I said hungrily, and then I
covered her body with my own.

* * * *

That night with her was one of the best. We
made love frantically, as we had not since the beginning, and I
drank from her again and again, at her request. I didn’t wonder why
she asked at the time, but she said she wanted me to, and that was
enough for me. To my surprise, she did indeed get weak, but her
body healed fast, without me sharing my blood with her. There was
no scent of turning about her, and her blood remained sweet. Again,
I thought it was destiny, and thanked God for giving us a second
chance.

The next night, it was as if things the night
before had never happened, save Danial was missing. Uther was
there, being his usual gruff self, and Levi was also, being
helpful, Eva at his side. Quentin was also there, to report on
money matters.

“Your brother took some of your money,” he
said, clearly nervous as to how I would take the news. “But he had
access to all the accounts, Dev, even the more lucrative ones that
were solely in your name.”

Danial had known lawyers. Now I understood
why he’d made the effort. “How much is gone?”

“Fortunately, he cashed out only his own and
your smaller investments, so most of your fortune is intact.”

“Fine,” I said with disinterest. “Remove his
name from the rest.”

“Already done,” Quentin said, nodding. “I
have another few papers for you to sign, to make that
official.”

I signed them. We headed out after to get
some refreshment, which failed to help our glum mood.

“I suppose I’m second again,” Quentin said
grumpily, as we rode down my driveway in the carriage. “At least
Louis will not bother us for a while.”

“Jezebel will be ready to see us in a week,”
I said, trying to cheer him. Yet all I could muster for that
creature now was annoyance and ill trust.

“Yes,” he said eagerly. “That’s good news.
Things will be fine now, in time.”

I opened my mouth and then caught sight of my
mansion in flames.

I jumped out of the carriage and ran inside
the burning house, yelling for Anna. The smoke was choking and the
heat blistered my skin, but I kept looking for her.

She was not in the bedroom or the library. I
looked next in the safe room, my eyes tearing, and found L’Amour
cowering beneath a chair. I grabbed hold of the cat, even as it
hissed and raked my face with its claws, and ran upstairs with it.
I grabbed up the bearskin and wrapped the cat in it quickly,
swearing as it fought me. When it was wrapped enough to stop it
clawing me, I grabbed the yowling bundle in my arms, and ran into
what had been our living room.