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Luca kissed her forehead. “I love you.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Therian Palace, Tuesday, January 22, 2013, Dawn
Luca woke shortly before the sun peeked over the horizon. Ash was still asleep, so he got up carefully to avoid waking her. Vague unease gripped his mind, and he stretched his awareness to locate its source. It didn’t take long to find it. Viktorija was deeply upset, and her unhappiness blazed through their family bond.
Luca followed it like a beacon and found his younger sister atop one of the palace’s towers.
Without turning around, she groaned when he stepped onto the roof and stopped next to her. “What are you doing here?”
Luca smirked. “Your mental bitching woke me up. Are you okay?”
Viktorija snorted. “Sure. I’m great.”
Luca bumped her shoulder with his, drawing her gaze away from the misty horizon in the gathering dawn. “Seriously, Vik. What’s wrong?”
“It’s nothing. I said I’m fine,” she growled.
Luca chuckled. “You know, that’s super believable when you say it all growly like that. Come on. I’m your big brother. You can talk to me.”
She finally faced him, and he was shocked to see tears in her eyes. “You want to hear what’s wrong? Fine! I overheard Sasha and Anya talking about what a monster I’ve been in the past and speculating on how long it would be before I tried to kill you or Ash. I can usually let shit like that slide, but this time…”
Luca’s smile faded. “Oh, shit! Vik, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“Why would you? They aren’t likely to express that opinion to you, are they?” she muttered bitterly.
“Do you want me to talk to them?”
“No, I don’t want you to fucking talk to them! I can handle those petty bitches, and I don’t give a shit about their opinions. That’s not what got to me.” Viktorija’s face crumpled.
Luca felt helpless. “I can feel your distress. What is it?”
“Yebat menya,” she muttered, whispering something else.
Luca grinned. “What was that?”
“I said, ‘Eat a bag of dicks,’ brother,” Viktorija glared at him. He’d heard her perfectly, and they both knew it.
“Look, Sasha and Anya will back off as time passes and they see things are different now. Even if I can’t fix whatever’s bothering you, I’m there for you if you’ll let me be. I see that you’re struggling, but you’re not the same person you were a few years ago. You’re not even the person you were a few weeks ago. You have changed, and part of keeping that going is opening up and letting other people in.”
Her dark eyes sparked with emotion. “I just need to open up? Throw the doors to my soul wide? It’s that easy, huh? Do you have any idea what I had to do to survive at his side?”
Her tone reflected her inner torment, and Luca’s stomach dropped. He’d known that this reckoning was coming, but he didn’t know how to help. Maybe silence was the best route for the moment. His sister needed to express the feelings she’d repressed.
“Everyone thought I was the loving and obedient daughter, just as sick and twisted as he was. I wasn’t, Luca!” She lowered her head and whispered, “I wasn’t.”
He nodded to show that he was listening but didn’t interrupt.
“My entire life, I suffered at his side, but I did so in silence. I kept my horror to myself because I was terrified of what he would do to anyone I asked for help. You were the only person I could count on, and I couldn’t ask you. He would have used it as an excuse to kill us both. I fucking knew that.
“Then you left. You left me all alone with him. The others, they all think…thought I was scary and hated them, and they stayed away from me.”
Her voice broke. Luca offered her a hug, but she flinched away. “Don’t. I need to get this out. Part of me hated you for leaving. Gods, did I hate you. I only recently realized that most of it was jealousy. You were exiled to the human world without protection, but you were free. You didn’t have to watch him sink deeper and deeper into insanity. You didn’t have to kill innocent people and justify it by telling yourself that one day, you’d stop him. You didn’t have to lie to yourself day in and day out to survive your guilt for the horrible crimes you committed.”
She turned away and fixed her gaze on the brightening horizon but continued speaking, “Even our mother changed. She went from loving humans and believing in them to thinking they were cretins. I think it was just how she coped because she’s back to her old self again. When you left, we all fell apart. I’ve been closed off for so long that I don’t know any other way to be. Tonight, when I overheard them talking about my greatest shame, it was too much. I know people think I’m a monster, and maybe I am.”
Viktorija’s admission overwhelmed Luca. He hadn’t considered how terrible things must have been for his sister. She always seemed so strong. He rested a hand on her shoulder, and she didn’t stiffen or back away, so he turned her to face him. “I’m so sorry I had to leave. I hated abandoning you and our other siblings. I regretted it every single day.
