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“Tell that to Elijah.”
Doubly confused, I gawped at him.
“You had a brother, too?” I breathed, awed.
Siblings were so rare amongst magical beings, but I had to remember that his family was human. This was so much to take in.
Ash waved his hand. “Elijah wasn’t my brother—at least not by blood,” he muttered.
I could see he wished he hadn’t said anything, but it was too late. He had opened the door, and I wanted to know it all now.
“But I failed him, too,” Ash explained. “On the battlefield.”
“On the same battlefield where you were all turned?” I asked, trying desperately to follow the story.
“No, this was many years later. I should have protected him. I mean, he was an Original. He shouldn’t have died, but when one Original takes on another…”
He wasn’t making a lot of sense, but I didn’t want to push him. I was glad he’d told me anything about himself at all. It was the most I’d gotten out of him in weeks, and I held it all close to my heart.
“I’m sure you did all you could for Mathilda and Elijah,” I offered softly. “You shouldn’t blame yourself.”
“I don’t!” Ash fired back, irritation flooding him. Abruptly, he stood and shook his head. “I’m trying to enlighten you.”
Blinking, I peered at him. “Enlighten me?”
“As to what you’re in for if you continue to push your way into my life. Nothing good comes of those getting too close, Briar. You’re apt to end up just like my sister and best friend if you keep it up.”
With that, he whirled and stormed out of the dining room, leaving me speechless in his wake.
Does he really believe that?I wondered.
It was almost like he thought he was… cursed.
Chapter17
Ash
Despite my warning to Briar, she insisted on accompanying me to the office and on other menial tasks.
But I didn’t stop her, either. In fact, I loved when she was close to me, and I loved knowing that I could keep her safe.
“When did Elijah die?” she asked one day while we sat in my office, and I was poring over invoices from Andrei’s shop.
The mechanic had truly been in the red, the fruits of whatever heists he had claimed long gone somewhere. I’d sell off whatever I could to recoup my losses and burn the building to the ground when I was done. I wanted no memory of that vermin now that he was dead.
But Briar’s question about Elijah distracted me long enough for me to look at her, pained by the memory of my childhood friend.
“Why are you asking me about Elijah?” I demanded, shrugging off the alarming sensations rushing through me.
All these discussions about the past, about Mathilda and Elijah, were rousing memories that I would have rather left where they belonged, in the past.
Yet Briar was opening doors I had tried to leave closed, that I had to leave closed for at least the next two decades.
“When did he die?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I snapped. “I shouldn’t have told you about him in the first place.”
“But you did,” she insisted, unbothered by my gruff nature now. She had long since realized that I was incapable of hurting her, and my barking and snarling didn’t faze her in the least. “It’s not fair to give me half a story when you know so much about me.”
