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“I did not want to kill her. She interested me, she made me feel something new. Pain. And now she has delivered me more pain than I thought it possible to feel. She has hurt someone I…” Gideon stumbled over the word a few times before getting it out. “Love. And that pain is a deeper pain than I knew was possible. I thought the worst pain was the seven tortures of Sangdeep, but… they are nothing on this.” He paused for a moment. “And every mortal is forced to feel this pain several times in their life, or maybe even many times.”
Maddox stood and watched the essence of evil incarnate come to terms with the pain of mortality. Gideon was ancient, but in this moment with his broken grandchild in his arms, he was as innocent as any human facing the pain of the mortality of others for the first time.
“You have truly never cared for another like you care for this one,” Maddox observed. “Why?”
Gideon’s expression was a picture of perfect befuddlement. “I don’t know. It makes no sense. It feels entirely random. Objectively, I know he is no different from any other fledgling in the world, but practically, I would destroy a nation to keep him safe.”
“That is how love works,” Maddox commiserated. “Once it has you, it does not let go.”
“I will not let him go. I will take him to his rest, and in a hundred years, we will see if he has not recovered.” Gideon looked deep into Maddox’s eyes. “So, my fledgling. You have won.”
“I would hardly call this a victory.”
“Really? The monster had no interest in hurting Carter before. In fact, she outright refused to do so when he begged to join her in death. What changed her mind? Did you have some interfering hand in the matter? After all, now you are free to pursue the rest of your wolf’s limited lifespan without interference from me.”
Maddox tamed his expression into impassiveness. If he had played any role in these events, if he had subtly manipulated the wraith Candy to attack Carter, if he had foreseen this entire plan, he did not make it in any way clear. Unfortunately for him, the usual impassive expression did not hide anything from his maker. Gideon saw more than any other creature in the world. He knew the heart of Maddox, and he had made his new soul. So when he reached out with the intention to know what lay inside Maddox, there was no stopping him. Gideon seeped through Maddox’s mind and found each and every point of betrayal, every moment of twisted influence, and at the core of it all, that love for his wolf had not abated for a moment all this time.
“I cannot break you of that beast, can I.” Gideon cradled the suckling, wounded Carter to his breast with a cold smirk at his second son. “Enjoy your mate. When I wake again, there will be a reckoning between you and I. You will pay for this.”
Maddox inclined his head slightly. “Understood.”
19
“So that’s it,” Will said, stunned. “Gideon has gone to sleep and taken Carter with him?”
Maddox had not told Will what happened to Carter, and he had no intention of doing so. Once again, the better option was to keep the secret to himself. Will would no longer be alive by the time Carter rose again in a hundred years. He would live the rest of his life in blissful ignorance of the darkness that shadowed the end of Gideon’s wakeful reign.
“For a hundred years,” Maddox said. “We are free, boy. We and all those we hold dear.”
“It just seems so… sudden.” Will was clearly confused. “He just got tired and decided to have a nap for a hundred years?”
“When you exist on the kind of scale of time Gideon does, a hundred year nap is practically nothing more than the blink of an eye. It sounds like a long time. It is not.”
“It’s longer than I’ll live,” Will pointed out. “I’ll never see him again, will I? I’ll never have to worry about him…” He gave Maddox a shrewd look. “Did you do something?”
At that moment, Lorien burst into the house. Maddox was grateful for the interruption, for all of a second.
“Did you hear!? Apparently, Gideon…”
Maddox stuffed a hand over Lorien’s mouth and dragged him out of the room at vampiric speed too fast to be perceived by human eyes.
“Not a word,” he said. “Not a hint of a rumor as to why Gideon is asleep. Do you understand me? I will not have Will destabilized again. Let him have some peace, please.”
Lorien nodded silently.
“Good,” Maddox said, releasing his grip. “This is our chance to start over, for the next hundred years at least. This is one small window of happiness that I intend to allow myself. Give me this, and I will ensure you enjoy the same with your mate.”
“A hundred years does not seem like very long,” Lorien mused when Maddox moved his hand away.
“It will be like the blink of an eye,” Maddox agreed. “But it will be the entirety of their lives, so let us live alongside them while we can. There has been enough political wrangling and vampire nonsense for their lifetimes.”
“Agreed,” Lorien said.
They both knew that heartbreak was in the distant future, but more important than an inevitable end was the life yet to be lived, the life where they shared existence with primal creatures of intensity and nobility. Henry and William shared that rough vulnerability, that inevitable mortality. It could not be changed. It could only be enjoyed.
“So,” Will said when they returned. “What are we going to do now?”
Maddox crossed the room, took Will in his arms, and kissed him deeply.
