Gods, I hope you’re right about this, Val…
In truth, Emre needed to collect himself for what was about to unfold and Val was helping him along. For what his entire second life had brought him back for. For what his rebirth’s flames were to wreak.
Emre felt a pair of lean arms wrap around him. “I forgive you, you know,” Finn said softly into his ear, followed by a gentle kiss on the back of his neck.
He grabbed Finn’s hands and pulled him closer, engulfed fully within the elfir’s embrace. With his head resting on Finn’s shoulder, he smiled. A gift for his impending sacrifice perhaps. “For what?”
“For whatever you still have planned with my scheming sister and not telling me.”
Emre chuckled and intertwined his fingers into Finn’s. “O really? I’m glad you’ve finally come around.”
“And I’m sorry, too,” Finn said into the curls of Emre’s hair, kissing him gently, “for getting in between you two.”
Spinning, Emre’s hands went to Finn’s face, while the elfir never let go. “Never think that. Never.” A wetness threatened the corners of his eyes. Steel it, Benld. Not yet. Not now. Stay the course. “What we had, Cadrianna and I, that will never go away. I love her, Finn. And I love you. Both of you share my heart, both know a different Emre. Two halves to two people.”
“You should be with her.” There was sorrow building at the edges of Finn’s voice, a misery that Emre had tried to shield, what Val had kept from him, her own brother. The path that Finnus Dunleith needed to walk. Gods, how unfair it seemed, this burden the carefree, mischievous elfirish princeps was soon to undertake. “Like one happy family. You deserve it, Em.”
“No, Finn. You mean too much to me.”
“You want to share?” The elfir’s lips curled upward. “No, that won’t do. I know I’m a catch and all, but I don’t know if I can share you.”
Gods above, Emre didn’t know if he could miss the man more than he knew he would. “It’s not in your nature,” he said with a laugh, “but who knows what the Pentax will bring with Zenith’s dawn.”
“We could fight over you. She might be scourge and all, but I’m not helpless.”
“You helpless? I would never say such a thing. Frustrating, but never helpless.”
The taller Kanjan drew Emre into a kiss, a slow yet passionate kiss. Memories came of their first meeting after Val and Tevun had brought him back to life. To their first foray under his new moniker of the Gutter King. To Finn’s first injury during an attack on a Bar Stock factory, the moment Emre knew losing the elfir would tear him to shreds. To their first kiss, their first nightturn wrapped in each other’s arms, a new passion filling him. To the moment Emre knew he loved the big, snarky, irritatingly handsome man.
He savored every memory while he kissed Finn, for it might be the last time he would have the chance. O Finn, I… I love you.
Finn pulled back, his eyes finding Emre’s, locked, they were, in a place of love. Of kinship. Of family. “You come back to me, hear?”
Emre opened his mouth, but the words died on his lips. He should tell Finn the truth, tell him everything right then and there, and yet, he couldn’t bring himself to do so. It felt like betrayal, another on the long list he was compiling.
Instead, he nodded. “This won’t be the last you see of me, Finnus Dunleith.” ‘In Life or Death’ he left unsaid. He would leave that up to Brynn.
“Emre, a moment?”
“Speak of the daemon,” Finn said as Cadrianna stood in the doorway. The elfir leaned in and brushed his lips to Emre’s, whispering, “A fight it might come down to, love.” Then he let go, his familiar scent drawing away as he moved to seek out his sister. Emre locked in his memories the scent, the outline, the sardonic grin. Everything. He wanted to immortalize everything, just in case. To Cadrianna as he passed, “He’s all yours… for now.”
When elfir was out of sight, Cadrianna edged closer. “He’s… something.”
Emre smiled. “Yes, yes he is. Dare I say it, though?”
“Say what?”
“You’re going to make me say it, aren’t you?”
“Lu Har?”
An awkward silence settled between them, a silence that had never been in their past lives, always were they able to converse. Even if only mundane, or like now, meant in jest. But those times had long since passed.
“Cad, I’m sorry. I should never have left you with him. I should have come for you first right after I was brought back. I left you to bear such an onerous burden.”
“Yes, you should have.” Her hand glided toward the daemon blade sheathed at her hip. Like Val had said, the blade was a comfort to her, almost as if without it, she would wither away. “But what’s done is done. We both made mistakes, I know that now. It was all an illusion. A spell to bind me to him. Brynn was, no, is the most important thing. Always has been. Between us…”
Gods, she’s so strong. Always was. He reached toward her, she went stiff as a plank but didn’t move back. Was it hesitance borne of anger, or perhaps of shameful regret? He didn’t know, didn’t care. They both needed this catharsis. Emre pulled her into his arms, and like he had done with Finn, he devolved into his memories.
Of their first meeting when they were ten, at a party hosted by Cadrianna’s parents in Oldport Basin, an arena they owned called The Arbiter’s Axe. Of the mischief they got into over the many years of friendship before they had expressed their love for one another. Of their marriage, their life as a couple ended so soon. Of the difficult nightturns aching to free her from Lu Har’s clutches.
No matter her thoughts, he had failed her on so many levels. And that failure had torn their family apart. He would see it rectified any way he could.
Emre was tired. Everything was catching up to him. It’d worn him down like a dull knife edge. “Gods, Cad, I’ve missed you.”
Her head nestled into his shoulder. She didn’t speak, but after a few moments, he could hear her sobbing. He held her tightly, fighting the tears himself. He had to be steel. Finn would be fine, Bliss had shown Val, but Cad? He needed to keep it together for her. Until the end. He owed her at least that.
It seemed like hours but only mere minutes before Cadrianna, O, his beautiful Cadrianna, drew back, her face stained with dried tears. Again, like he did with Finn, he memorized every detail of her face—not that he hadn’t already done so the day Lu Har cut his throat. She was every bit the woman he had loved, every bit the woman she had been forced into.
“Cad…” Where to even begin? he thought. Would words even matter at this point after all they’ve been through?
Her all-onyx eyes searched his. “Tell me she’s going to be fine, Emre.”
“She’s stronger than both of us.”
“She is? Did you see her? Did you meet her?”
“I did. And she is everything we ever could have imagined and more.”
