Pure Destiny (PureDark Ones #12) - Aja James Page 0,112

Sophia stuttered, tears welling again unbidden.

Dalair enclosed her tightly in his embrace, infusing her with his heat and strength.

“Shhh. It’s in the past. We cannot change it. We can only do better.”

He picked up the thread again and continued on, as much to distract Sophia as to organize his own thoughts.

“They wanted to turn both of us, but the Creature found ways to thwart them. They never succeeded in turning you, after all. So he convinced them to come at you a different way.”

“Using you,” Sophia understood.

“Yes. They used me to Awaken your powers. The Creature left me enough awareness, especially when I was under substantial physical stress that my subconscious could come to the surface, so I was able to help you get away.”

“He was helping us all along.”

“I realize now that he was. I didn’t know it then,” Dalair agreed. “I didn’t know it when he started the process of turning me all over again a second time after you were gone. He really put me through the wringer then.”

She kissed his jaw, his face, anywhere she could reach, trying to soothe him through the agony of his memories.

Dalair shook his head in disbelief.

“I know now that he was trying to make me stronger. Oh, I think he still enjoyed torturing me the way he did, but he had to balance what he showed in front of Medusa, and inadvertently pushing me too far. He even injected a fragment of his own soul into me to save me once.”

“He did?” Sophia asked in surprise.

Dalair nodded.

“Not enough to make me a vampire, just enough to keep my soul from departing my body.”

He sensed her hurting vicariously for the ordeal he suffered, so he went on quickly.

“He would talk to me while I was unconscious. Later, in my dreams, some of his words would come back to me. They didn’t make sense at first. He talked about how I stole you from him. How he had you first…I didn’t put two and two together.”

“You were rather busy fighting for your life and soul,” Sophia said dryly.

A wry look came over Dalair’s face as well.

“It was only when he…uh…incapacitated me in the final battle with Medusa—”

“You mean stab you within an inch of your life,” Sophia huffed, more exasperated now than truly angry.

“That,” Dalair agreed. “Only then, with his words, did some of the pieces start falling in place. I realized he was Cambyses earlier, but I thought the way I betrayed him was why he was hellbent on making me pay. And maybe some of that drove his actions, but he was helping me all long.”

Sophia stroked his jaw and brought his face to hers, staring deeply into his beloved silver eyes.

“Erebu loved you, Dalair.”

“Erebu?”

“The name he has chosen for himself. Ere for short.”

Dalair closed his eyes, a flash of regret and pain tightening his features.

“He loved you,” he whispered. “He was my brother. You were his wife. And I—"

Sophia chuckled softly, surprising him enough to open his eyes again to stare at her.

“He loved you, you beautiful, wonderful, stubborn, oblivious man.”

Still oblivious, he nodded.

“He was my brother—”

“Not like that,” Sophia inserted smartly, but then added, “well, yes, like that. But also more.”

Dalair frowned, uncomprehending.

With thousands of years of “water under the bridge,” with the luxury of hindsight, and with her heart-to-hearts with Ere under her belt, Sophia could finally smile about their star-crossed, tragic past.

“I was the third person in the love affair,” Sophia said, an expression of self-deprecating chagrin on her face.

“Cam and I tried to love each other as a husband and wife would…”

Dalair dropped his eyes at that, a flicker of pain passing over his face.

She caught his chin and made him look back at her.

“But we were never meant to be,” she said firmly, leaving no room for doubt.

“Not that way. Aside from our wedding night, he never touched me that way again. Honestly, he barely touched me at all even that night.”

Even so, Dalair’s eyes filled with pain. That another man claimed her, however briefly. That it should have been him…

So she hurried on.

“We were best friends. And I think what brought us even closer together was our love for you. All those years you were gone, we talked and thought of you so much it seemed like you were with us every day. I think sometimes Cam was jealous of both of us. You were his brother, he loved you, and I was his wife. Yet neither of us put him first. No