With a resigned exhale, he leaned back, draping his folded hands over his lap. “Rori dismantled a monster and freed the captive within. Unfortunately, they have been one and the same. Two different facets of the same being. Of me.”
He pressed his lips together, dragging his gaze from Shaye’s turmoil to fall victim to the dancing flames.
“There is no reason to dwell on things in the past. Still, I have come to wish things could have been different. For Rori and I, but also between you and me. I wish more than anything I could have seen through Daeanna’s deceit from the very beginning. Alas, I’ve always been too kind, too trusting, utterly, foolishly gullible. The curtains have been pulled from my eyes over these last few days. The man I became fills me with more shame and regret than any living creature has the capacity to endure.”
His shoulders slumped, defeated. He faced his childhood friend and witnessed a familiar softness he’d not been granted liberty to experience since the times of old.
“She broke me beyond repair. Twisted me into knots I’ll never be able to undo in this lifetime. I allowed her to play me in the worst possible way, and now I shall bear the consequences.Alone.” An unsteady curl touched the corner of his mouth. “I’m still a monster, Shaye, undeserving of all kindness. Rori has patched me together, made me feel more like my old self than I have in two hundred years. She replenished my sight, making me yearn for how things once were. Make me dream of how thingscouldbe. I’m not a person to cling to foolish dreams. ’Tis why I believe this shall be the quickest, easiest, and least painful way for everything to come to a close.”
“Daeanna destroyed so many lives,” Shaye said quietly.
Silence stretched, a storm of torment darkening his face as he lived his own memories. Nightmares. Goddess, so many nightmares.
A short eternity passed before Shaye took a sudden, sharp breath and pushed to his feet. He stepped up to Thaddeus and held out his hand. Slowly, Thaddeus stood, glancing at the hand held before him.
“Let’s end this, shall we?”
“Shaye, no!” Cael shot up out of his chair, sidling between them, his back to Thaddeus. “Are you fucking serious? You’re going to agree to this suicidal plan? You’re going to hand him over to Dagda?”
Thaddeus gathered his resilience, grabbed Cael’s shoulder, and shoved him aside. Cael spun on him, raw shock in his face. “I warned you to stay out of my plans.”
“This is asinine, Thaddeus. You’re going todestroyRori!”
“I’msavingher.” He bared his teeth, narrowing his eyes. “It’s my blood promise to myanamcara. To protect her and keep her safe,whateverthe cost to me. Herheartwill neverbe safe as long as I live. It has been my plan from the moment I fell in love with her the day she came to your home, bloodied and bruised at the hands of her ex!” Ignoring Cael’s gaping mouth and wide eyes, he twisted back to Shaye and grasped his hand tightly. “We end this, once and for all.”
33
Rori’s head spun. Her stomach rocked, bile rising in the back of her throat as she ran through the corridors.
“You’ve got to talk sense into him! He’s planning to turn himself in!”
Cael’s panic struck a shocking chord in her chest. Like an arrow through her heart. He didn’t even give her a chance to try and surmise a reason for Thaddeus to suggest such a thing. Cael rambled breathlessly, the air stirring with his power. Plates had rattled, papers flew from tables, her bed shook, the gauzy curtains billowed.
She’d never witnessed Cael in such a frenzy. Not even Cassy could calm him, watching helplessly as he paced Rori’s room, tearing his fingers through his hair over and over. The raw strikes of desperation and disbelief cut across her nerves like a white-hot whip.
“This plan is suicide, and Shaye is allowing him to do it!”
She ran. Frightened it would be too late. Sick that he truly believed this was the only way. The only end.
All afternoon yesterday, and most of the day today, sheand Cassy threw around every possible idea with Rihanna and Moira, trying to come up with a different outcome. One that would save Thaddeus. She felt in the depths of her soul that they were closing in on a solution. Both women were eager to help, which boosted Rori’s confidence that even the monster of a man Thaddeus had once been could be redeemed.
Moira told her everyone deserved a second chance, when earned.
Had Thaddeus not earned his second chance?
What more did he have to do?
The door to his room was ajar when she finally arrived. She burst into the room, twisted to take the empty area in, and almost left when her attention hitched on the doorway to the bathroom. Her feet carried her across the room within seconds, and she caught herself on the stone archway.
Her angel.
Arms spread over the wall of the bathing pool, locks of his hair draped over the edge while others disappeared into the water. Soothing music as water trickled down the stone-and-moss wall, dribbling into the pool along multiple places.
“Cael will never learn how to keep his mouth shut,” Thaddeus murmured, his voice deceptively relaxed for a man walked alongside death. “Come, love.”
“Why would you do this?”
She shuffled over to the pool, treading a dream on the verge of transitioning into a nightmare. She braced her hands on the wall beside his forearm, clinging to the peaceful vision of his face as his eyes remained closed, head leaning against the stone.
