Page 112 of Tethered Fates

It was a terrible way to learn.

“Brother.” I stand before him.

Rurik glances at me, relaxed with his hands tucked into his jeans. “I’m leaving.”

“So soon?”

“Being here is…” Rurik looks beyond my shoulder. His smile is heartbreaking. “Difficult.”

I think back to when he’d lost Apollo, I hadn’t been there but returned when Vidar called me. Rurik had been a mess; he didn’t move from the place where he buried Apollo for weeks, and even after he left, it was like his spirit stayed behind.

To think Apollo had been alive that whole time…

I should’ve done more to help Rurik. “I’m sorry I left when you needed me most.”

The corner of his lip ticks up, and he neither forgives nor faults me. “Apollo still doesn’t remember me, not really. And I don’t want him to.”

Only a few weeks ago, when Apollo helped Kai turn into a vampire, Apollo revealed the horrifying truth—remembering Rurik forces him to remember being alive, unmoving and trapped inside the coffin that his beloved soulmate buried him in. My anger at Bran for allowing this to happen swells hot in my chest.

I want to tell my brother the truth, but that would do nothing but cause more harm.

“What made you come back, anyway?” I ask.

Rurik looks at me like the answer is simple, before clapping my shoulder, pushing himself up and strolling down the semi-destroyed hallway, towards the hole that used to be the entrance to the mansion. “See you around, asshole.”

I can’t imagine the gulf between Rurik and Apollo will ever shrink, so while I know that Rurik will never forgive himself, I hope that by keeping this awful secret, my brother can find a way to move on.

When I enter the kitchen, I see why Rurik didn’t want to come in. Apollo is perched atop the pockmarked island, wearing a punk T-shirt and tattered jeans, his neck and arms covered in forget-me-not tattoos.

“You’ll never guess what Luuk did while the studio’s been closed?” he laughs with his audience of Kai, Golden and Ramy. “He got bloody married to Ari!”

“What?” Kai chuckles. “Good on them.”

“No way, I can’t believe we missed it,” Golden complains.

Apollo swings his feet, excited. “In fucking Las Vegas, lads. We missed out big time.”

“We have to call him,” Golden declares, and the three of them hurry out of the kitchen.

“You aren’t going with them?” I ask Ramy.

Ramy loosely folds his arms. “Later,” he says, and looks to the other side of the kitchen. “I think some other things need to be discussed first.”

On the bench, behind the smashed window, sits Bran chugging a glass of blood, surrounded by at least five empty bottles and two full ones. Luc stands on one side of him, Vidar on the other.

The ancient vampire sets his glass on the table. “Can’t a man recover before he’s interrogated?”

“We’ve waited long enough,” Vidar remarks.

“And we’ve been patient,” I tell him as I approach, swiping one of his bottles to fill Teagan’s mug.

Bran sighs dramatically as he pours himself a fresh glass. “Ask your little questions.”

“You can touch the First Blood Mage Tome.” Luc stares Bran down. “How?”

The spellbook currently sits outside, the stink of rot too cloying. Curiously, it hasn’t tried to find its way back to its current owner, Summer, like it normally would. Like it did when Kai owned it. Perhaps Summer is dead.

But we all know better than that.