Page 51 of Secrets of Ruin

“Fabian was a man of luxury; he craved the finer things in life. He didn’t get his hands dirty and wore gloves when he gardened.”

Brokk’s eyebrow shot up at this revelation. She knew what he was thinking; Fabian was the opposite of her, but she’d always known that.

“I see,” Brokk murmured.

“He was always immaculate and would never settle for anything less than the best.”

“Which is why he set his sights on you.”

Despite how awful Fabian made her feel, her heart warmed a little, and she smiled at him. “Others would disagree with you.”

“They’re all fools. So, you’re saying he’s most likely not in an outer realm.”

“Not likely. In the beginning, he probably glamoured himself into looking like someone else whenever he was around an immortal we might know. But few knew about our relationship, and the ones who did are gone now, or at least the ones who would have known the whole story and come to me are. The warlocks would never tell me if he was still alive.”

“No, they wouldn’t,” Brokk agreed.

“They’d all find it amusing.”

Red flashed through Brokk’s eyes. They couldn’t go out and try to destroy all warlocks, but she was certain they’d both like to try.

Unfortunately, it would start another war, and they already had too many battles ahead. She wanted peace, but the realms seemed determined not to let that happen.

She refused to give up on the hope that one day peace would rule. One day, we’ll know what it’s like not to fight.

“I also believe he was the one who came to tell me about his death and not his brother,” she said.

Brokk tugged on his other boot. “You think he glamoured himself into looking like his brother?”

“I’m not sure if he has a brother. He told me he did, but that could have been a lie… everything else about him was.”

“True.”

“Before that day, I had never met his brother, so he could have glamoured himself into looking like his brother or lied about having one. We originally bonded over our lost siblings, but I told him about Mina before he told me he had two brothers and one of them had died.”

Brokk inhaled deeply and exhaled it on an angry breath as he flexed his fingers. “I see. So, what makes you think he was the one who came to tell you about his death and not his brother?”

“Their eyes were the same. At the time, it upset me to see those warm brown eyes in the face of another as they delivered news of Fabian’s death, but I wrote it off as them being siblings and having the same genetics.

“Now, I think it was done on purpose. He wanted to be the one to tell me. He wanted to see my reaction and watch me suffer. Given everything he’d done before then, I have no doubt it was him.”

Brokk’s nostrils flared as another flash of red ran through his eyes before he suppressed it. He was doing his best to keep his rage over what was done to her concealed, but she felt it whenever they discussed Fabian.

She didn’t mind his rage; she would have stopped talking to him about it if he’d pitied her. She couldn’t handle that from him.

Instead of pity, she’d only ever seen anger and understanding, and she could handle those. She refused to be pitied.

CHAPTER FIFTY

“Do you think he could still look like his supposed brother?” Brokk asked.

“He could. I’ve never seen him again, but I retreated to the crone realm soon after receiving the news of his death. I didn’t see many immortals after that.”

Brokk sat back in the chair and clasped his hands on his stomach. “We’ll have someone draw a picture from your descriptions of Fabian and his brother. We can’t circulate it through the realms; if he knows we’re looking for him, he’ll hide, but we can send some immortals out to discreetly hunt for him. We might find him if he doesn’t know we’re looking. But no matter what, we will find him.”

She nodded as she rose from the window seat and smoothed down the front of her lavender dress. Brokk tried to hide his discomfort as he stood, but she didn’t miss his wince as his bones cracked.

He rested a hand on the chair arm to steady himself before rolling his shoulders to try to hide that he was still weak. He couldn’t hide it from her.