“Right, then do you need my blood now, or can I give it to you tomorrow?” Abel asked, and I stopped watching his profile and started staring at it because he was taking this in stride and this was pretty fucking huge news.
“As Yuri and his witches need some time to prepare to approach this coven, tomorrow will do. I’ll dispatch it by courier to Yuri as soon as it’s drawn,” Gregor said.
“Great. Now, can these witches be trusted?” Abel asked.
I heard the stiffness of mild affront in Gregor’s tone, so I looked back to him as he answered, “If they could not, Yuri wouldn’t be working with them.”
“Right. Then good. ’Preciate you comin’ up to tell me this. I’ll get one of the nurses to draw my blood tomorrow,” Abel replied, and when he did, I saw Gregor was just as surprised by his non-reaction as I was.
“Uh…” I started but didn’t get any further because Abel kept talking.
“Or is there something else?”
“No, Abel,” Gregor said quietly. “That’s all we have for now.”
At that, Abel disengaged from me and moved to the door. He opened it and turned back to Gregor.
“Then again, appreciate you tellin’ me this. Now, we all got a big day tomorrow so we all should rest up.”
I pressed my lips together and turned my head to give big eyes to Gregor.
He took in my big eyes and his face got slightly soft before he looked to Abel and nodded. “You’re right. We all should rest.” He looked back to me. “Good night, Lilah.”
“Uh, ’night, Gregor.”
He tipped his head to the side, then walked to the door. “Good night, Abel.”
“Later,” Abel muttered.
Gregor’s gaze came to me once more before he walked through the door.
Abel closed it on him and turned to me. “You need the bathroom?”
I stared.
“Lilah?” Abel prompted.
“You have a brother,” I blurted.
“Yep,” he agreed, then started striding toward the bathroom.
I watched him do this. When he disappeared in it and I saw the light come on, but he didn’t close the door, I moved that way.
When I was in the door, I saw him bent over the sink, splashing water on his face.
“Baby, twenty years ago, he saved your life,” I said gently.
Abel turned off the taps and muttered, “Apparently.”
I watched him reach for the hand towel, nab it, and use it to dry his face.
“This is kinda huge news,” I pointed out.
He kept his eyes to the mirror as he said, “Kinda.”
“Okay, no,” I stated. “It’s not ‘kinda’ huge news, honey. You have a brother and he saved your life.” My voice had risen and it, or my words, finally got me his eyes.
“Went over that, Lilah. Now a coupla times.”
What was going on?
“You have no reaction?” I asked.
“What reaction do you want?” he asked back.
I threw out a hand. “I don’t know. Something.”
“He saved my life,” Abel declared.
“Yes, honey.”
“And they think he’s been lookin’ after me.”
“Yes,” I repeated.
Abel held my eyes and decreed, “He sucks at it.”
My head jerked. “I—”
Suddenly, he twisted his torso. Bunching up the hand towel, he threw it violently across the long vanity. It flew, opened, and fluttered, landing on the far edge of the other sink.
Just as suddenly, he twisted back to me and bit out, “All my life, thought I was a monster.”
There it was.
I started to move into the room.
Abel’s voice kept biting. “All my life, thought I was the only one, alone in who I was. Deviant. Abnormal. Wrong. Wondering where I came from. Wondering how I could even be.”
“Honey,” I whispered, getting close but stopping when his long legs took him a long step back.
“Watched people I love die. Not one. Not three. Generations of them. When I found the woman for me, didn’t know I could keep her alive.”
“Maybe your brother doesn’t know that either,” I suggested carefully.
“And maybe he does. At least if he’s lookin’ after me like they think, he saved my life, he knows what I am, what we both are, he knew he wasn’t alone.”
“Perhaps you should wait to be this angry after you hear what he has to say,” I offered, keeping up with my suggestions.
“And perhaps you know me enough to know that if I had a brother, I would not ever leave him hanging,” Abel shot back, and he was right. I knew him enough to know that for certain.
I lifted a hand toward him and said, “I don’t know what to say to make it better.”
“Bury my cock in your cunt. That’d work,” he clipped, and I didn’t like that, what he said or how he said it.
Therefore, I told him, “That part of what we have is not about you being angry and spewing asshole remarks.”
“Okay then, Lilah, how ’bout you give me a minute to wrap my head around that shit Gregor just shared without you up in my face about it,” he fired back instantly, his aim true and hurtful.
I took a step back. “You need a minute, you only have to ask.”
He stared at me before he inquired, “You got any siblings?”
“You know I don’t,” I answered.
“I didn’t either, until five minutes ago.”
“That isn’t true. You’ve had generations of them. I know it hasn’t occurred to you because you’re too busy being pissed, but do you think your brother, in looking out for you, maybe didn’t have even that?”