He grinned, making my heart strings near the snapping point. “I guarantee I’ve been waiting longer for you,” William said, looking at me in a way that made it seem he couldn’t get enough. “But I suppose since you’re here in my house, you mean you’ve been waiting for—or expecting—me in a different way than I mean it.”
“I don’t know what you mean—that’s nothing new—but keep talking,” I said, amazed how precisely my dream had replicated him. His voice, the curl of hair at the base of his neck, the way his eyes took me in. “I’ve missed you.”
“You have?” he asked, tilting a doubtful brow.
I nodded my head, hoping this wouldn’t be one of those dreams that seemed to pass in the snap of a finger. “You have no idea.”
“Then what are you doing here?” he asked, his voice breaking.
Before I could answer, Paul’s voice called out to me. I snapped my head to the hall without thinking, wanting to curse myself for it.
“I’m here, Paul. I’m coming,” I called out, fully awake now. I didn’t want to look back at the doorway, knowing it would burn like arsenic running down my throat when I found it empty. I took a deep breath as my eyes traveled back to the front door.
“What the?!” I cried, jumping out of the rocker. “William?”
“Last time I checked,” he said slowly. “Although most days I’m not really sure who I am anymore.”
The need to cry from joy, or from being overwhelmed, became so much I could do neither. “What are you doing here?” I asked. I didn’t care why he was, but it seemed like the right thing to ask.
“I’m here to make everything alright, Bryn,” he said, his forehead wrinkling. “You don’t have to worry about him anymore,” he said, starting for the hallway.
Before I could ask him what he meant, Patrick appeared in William’s pathway. “How the hell did you get here so fast?” he shouted at his brother, blocking him with his chest. “You got some private jet I don’t know about? How did you even catch wind of the Council’s decision before me?”
“Move, Patrick,” William demanded, setting his jaw.
“Yeah, that’s not going to happen. You’re gonna have to throw down if you think you’re getting by me.” Patrick lunged to the side, blocking William again.
“Move, Patrick,” William repeated, growling.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Patrick shouted in his face. “The Council made their decision and none of this pertains to you anymore. It’s none of your damn business.”
William’s movements blurred before he had Patrick pressed up against the wall. “I don’t want to fight you, Patrick, but I will if I have to,” William said, his quiet voice shaking. “No offense, little brother, but we both know who will win.”
Patrick rolled his eyes as he continued to struggle against William. “Why are you doing this? Why do you give a care anymore? She left you!”
William’s shoulder’s stiffened even more, but Patrick’s words had hurt him. His head went limp, falling forward. “They’ve told her no once already,” he whispered, releasing Patrick. “I’ll be damned if I’m going to stand by when they tell her no again.” He turned and sprinted down the hall, ducking into Paul’s room before either of us could stop him.
“William!” Patrick and I called out in unison, both of us chasing behind him.
I beat Patrick to Paul’s room, but just barely. He came up behind me, nudging me, but I was frozen in the doorway.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I asked frantically.
William slid a chair beside Paul, grinning the saddest one I’d seen. “Why do you ask so many questions to which you already have the answers?”
“No, William,” I breathed. “Please don’t.”
“I’m going to do something out of character and tell you to listen to her, William,” Patrick said over my shoulder, trying to shove past me. “You’re going to piss the Council off. You’re going to really piss the Council off.”
William looked down at Paul as he seated himself. “I know.”
“This isn’t going to win her back,” Patrick said through closed teeth.
I didn’t have enough time for hope to take hold before William replied, “I know.” One side of his mouth curled into a half-smile, confirming he was happy in not having me back.
He pulled Paul’s arm out from beneath the covers, pushing up the arm of his sleeve past his elbow.
“Don’t do it. Please,” I begged him, not able to shake the premonition there was more than one way I was capable of killing him. The list never ran out.
“I need to do this,” he said solemnly. “Everything inside of me is telling me not to, that’s how I know this is the right thing to do.”
“Yeah, those are your instincts, brother,” Patrick called out, pacing in the doorway. “You should listen to them sometimes.”
I knew what was telling him not to—the part that remembered how I’d hurt him, betrayed him, and left him at his time of need, but the goodness that oozed from every part of him couldn’t turn his back on Paul—or me—when he was the only one who could help us.
The thing that was tearing me up inside, though, wasn’t his selflessness—as legend worthy as it was—it was that I couldn’t justify William possibly losing his life in exchange for Paul certainly losing his. I knew rationally it should have seemed acceptable, but I was entirely incapable of accepting it. There was nothing rational about love.
“Just go,” I said, fighting tears at every word. “We’ll be alright. Really.”
A look of hurt flashed over his face before he ironed it out. “And I thought I was a bad liar.” His hands gripped around Paul’s arm, his fingers melding into the flesh. “It will be alright soon, and then I’ll go.”
“William said everything will be alright. Oh good, I feel so reassured right now,” Patrick rambled to himself, but his words got lost, because William’s eyes gripped mine, causing something inside to throb. His face became peaceful, and then his eyes closed in concentration as I dropped to my knees.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
SACRIFICE
It was like watching a flower blossom in fast forward on the nature channel, seeing Paul transform before me. Ashen, sunken skin plumped to golden bronze, atrophied muscles burst to capacity against the glowing skin, and his fallen expression filled with vigor and youth. He was like looking at a bronze statue of a Grecian god, but as impressive as Paul’s change was, I noticed it for all of a heartbeat.
As time had proven on every occasion, it was impossible for my interest to be held by anything else when William was in the room. As instantly as Paul had been injected with vitality, William’s left him. His expression fell, right before his body started to crumple out of the chair. I leapt over Paul faster than I could stop to feel guilty for trampling over a man who had been on his death bed moments ago. My arms were ringing around him, preparing to break his fall, when I was thrown backwards with such force I smashed into the wall.
“Don’t touch him,” Patrick commanded, sounding frightened—for the first time I’d ever heard. “You could be zapping like a live wire right now and in his present condition, you’d kill him for sure this time.”
I shook my head, shaking the stars away. “I’m sorry,” I said, thankful Patrick was there to be the responsible one—and yes, I couldn’t believe I was thinking that. “How is he?”
Patrick grunted, hoisting William in his arms. “Other than having a bad case of damn-fool syndrome?”
“Please, Patrick,” I said, rubbing the bridge of my nose. “Please don’t play games with me right now. Is he alright?” My throat caught around the words as my eyes wandered over William’s limp body. Seeing him like this once had been enough to send me over the edge. Seeing him for the second time, knowing I’d been the cause yet again, threatened to unravel everything I’d ever known to be true. What sickly hollowness had left Paul had been redistributed to William. Yet even in this ghostly paleness, he was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, his sacrifice making him even more so.
“The queen of games declaring no more games. Seems hypocritical,” Patrick jested, steering out of the room with William in his arms. “He’s going to be fine. It takes some time for him to get back to normal. Just stay here and let him rest awhile.”
No sooner had he said it than I was up, following him down the hall into William’s room, the one I’d ransacked for the past month.
“Thanks for listening to me,” he snapped back to me before resting William on the bed. “I’m afraid you’re relegated to the couch. Since this is his house, his bed, and he just risked his neck for you, I think that’s a small sacrifice to pay.”
“That’s fine,” I said automatically, watching William’s arms swing limply to the side, falling in awkward positions over the bed.
I rushed to him, looping my fingers through his.
“Is it some sort of life mission you have not to listen to anything I say?” Patrick asked, repositioning one of William’s arms over his stomach. Peeking through the cuff of William’s shirt, a dark braid of leather still circled his wrist.
I gasped, loud enough for Patrick to take action, pulling William’s sleeve over it. “He still has it on,” I breathed. Hope was the most amazing thing. Even the smallest bit had a way of chasing away an infinite amount of doubt.
“Yeah, well, he’s probably been too busy to even notice it,” Patrick snarled. “Or maybe he’s keeping it there for the same reason people put rubber-bands around their wrists. To remind them not to do something, like cursing or biting their fingernails or whatever bad habit”—his eyes narrowed on me—“they’re trying to break.”
And just like that, hope rushed through the exit doors, letting the darkness creep back in.
“Do you really think that’s the best idea?” Patrick said, glaring at where my fingers circled his wrist, fingering the bracelet.
“I’ve got this,” I said. “I can feel it coming on. I won’t hurt him.”
Patrick snorted. “Of course you won’t. It’s not like you have a track record of doing anything but hurting him, right?”
I ran my hand up his side, settling it over his heart. I never thought I’d touch him again, but here I was, pressing my flesh to his, pretending away the disaster I’d made of things since I’d left him.
However, Patrick was glaring at me, whipping me back to reality. “I know you hate me for what I did to him, but if I told you why I did it—the entire truth start to finish—you’d probably hate me more. So please, just give me some time alone with him?”
He scoffed the carpet with the toe of his shoe. “Let’s just hope you can’t break the same heart twice.”