Bound by Danger (The Alliance #6) - Brenda K. Davies Page 0,35

females can have trouble too.”

“What happened after your brother killed your family?” she asked.

Lucien stared into the dark as he recalled the horrible moment when he returned home to discover Yannis’s carnage. “He slaughtered my parents while they slept. I discovered them in bed, but Coralie must have woke during the attack and tried to flee. I found her near the front door.”

She didn’t know if he was aware of it, but his voice had become deeper and rougher as he spoke about his sister. Grief clouded his words. It hadn’t been there when he talked about his parents or brother, but it was there about his sister.

Lucien closed his eyes as fresh sadness swelled in his chest. It was as if he were kneeling at Coralie’s side again and brushing back her hair to reveal her pale, beautiful face. The blood pooling beneath her still body formed a puddle.

“Coralie was beautiful and sweet and so loving,” he murmured.

She was the only one, until Ronan found him and he became a Defender, who ever gave a shit about him. Her laugh was contagious, her smile lit up a room, and her beautiful violet eyes always twinkled. She devoured every form of knowledge she could get her hands on and would talk for hours about the things she read.

She’d loved him, and he loved her. When they were young, they would often spend their days sitting under the willow tree and discussing Shakespeare or Galileo’s theories. One day, she was going to be a scientist, the next a doctor, and the next a playwright. There wasn’t anything she didn’t dream of becoming.

He always saw her as growing up to fulfill all those dreams; he never once envisioned her dying before she ever fully got the chance to live. Yet, that’s precisely what happened.

Back then, she was what kept him from going over the edge; he would not disappoint her by becoming a monster. After her death, his determination to kill everything like Yannis fueled him.

“I was kneeling at her side when he ambushed me,” he murmured.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

So was he. He was sorry he wasn’t there to protect her when she required it most, sorry he’d been too wrapped up in himself to see what Yannis was becoming, and sorry he hadn’t been strong enough to destroy Yannis back then.

“What happened after that?” she asked.

“We fought until we almost killed each other. When Yannis fled the house, I sat in the doorway, covered in blood, his and mine, as I watched him run into the day with smoke streaming from him. I’d hoped he died.”

After he battled Yannis, he crawled back to her side and drew her into his arms. Holding her broken, cooling body in his arms was the only time he’d wept in his life.

“But he didn’t die?”

“No, he didn’t,” he grated the words out from between his gritted teeth. “I saw him in the tunnel yesterday. He emerged after we made it outside and smiled at me before ducking inside again. He’s alive, and I’m going to kill him.”

The hair on Callie’s nape rose as he growled the words. She didn’t know Yannis, but she suddenly felt very sorry for him. She had a feeling once Lucien set his mind on something, he achieved it, and if the lethal tone of his voice were any indication, Yannis’s death would not be an easy one.

“I’m sorry that happened to you,” she said.

Determined to steer the conversation back to a better place, Lucien asked, “What about you, Callie? Where are you from? What’s your full name? What about your family?”

After everything he revealed, she saw no reason not to tell him more about herself. Besides, she could never return to her old life.

“Calista Ballis. My father was Greek, and his parents moved to New York before he was born. My mom was a mixing pot of nationalities. I grew up in upstate New York near the original Woodstock site.”

“Some of my brothers went to Woodstock.”

“But not you?”

Lucien chuckled. “Concerts and a lot of people aren’t my thing.”

“I went to a lot of concerts there over the years. Many of them I listened to from the woods with my friends; we always had a lot of fun. And then, after I got my degree, I moved to New Jersey and found work with a vet. I led a rather boring life, but I liked it that way.”

“What about a boyfriend?”

Why did he suddenly want to slaughter a man he didn’t