Unhallowed (Rath and Rune #1) - Jordan L. Hawk Page 0,56

least Noct would have a life to look forward to. They’d both be free at last.

Yet how could he head off into a new life while Sebastian remained in danger?

Ves resisted the urge to bury his face in his hands, though only because he didn’t wish to draw attention to himself. Gods, he hated this. Why couldn’t he have been born to normal parents? He’d never asked to make these kinds of decisions.

He’d been created to destroy. Not to be a friend, certainly not to be a lover. He wasn’t supposed to be around normal people. No wonder he didn’t know what to do now.

He had to talk to Noct. This was too big for him alone. He’d sent letters to Fagerlie here in Widdershins; he knew the address of his rented house. He’d go tomorrow and demand to speak to his brother. And if Fagerlie refused…

Then they’d both find out what Ves was truly capable of.

Chapter 19

“Has Mr. Rune forgiven you yet?” Bonnie asked after dinner that night, while she and Sebastian washed up. The children were reading or playing quietly, and Pete was in the sitting room, rocking little Clara.

Sebastian concentrated on drying the dish she handed him. “Of course. No one can resist my charm.”

She snorted. “Of course. Then where is he?”

It was strange that the dinner table had felt emptier, somehow, without Ves. The children and Pete had all asked after him and expressed disappointment when Sebastian explained his friend had other obligations. Apparently, Bonnie hadn’t believed the excuse.

“He said he had business of his own.” Sebastian put the plate into the drying rack and accepted the next. “He’s a handsome young man in a new town. He probably has a lot of more interesting things to do than spend the evening with children and old folk like you.”

“Watch yourself!” she exclaimed, flinging suds at him. “You’re eleven months older than me!”

“And yet I stay young through clean living and piety.”

This time she dug her elbow into his ribs. “Right. Just like that Dorian Gray fellow in the book.”

“I did know a painter once…”

“Besides,” she cut him off, “I know when you’re changing the subject. Fine. Have it your way.”

They finished the dishes, and Willie came in with a question about mathematics. Since he was hopeless when it came to numbers, Sebastian made his escape to the sitting room. Tommy sprawled on the rug, playing with his toy ship along with Jossie. Helen perched in a chair, practicing her cross stitch. Pete dozed in his chair, Clara securely tucked against his chest, her tiny hand fisted in his beard.

Just as Sebastian went to sit down himself, there came a knock at the door. His heart leapt—had Ves decided to take him up on a visit after all?

“I’ll get it,” he said as Pete blinked awake. He hastened into the small entry room and swung open the front door in greeting. “Vesper—” he began, then stopped.

The two ruffians who had chased him now stood on the stoop. One pointed the black bore of a gun directly at his face.

Uncertain what to do now that he’d made his decision to visit Noct in the morning, Ves wandered idly in the direction of the boarding house. He passed the small café where he’d met Fagerlie. The smell of roasting coffee and cinnamon floated into the street. It was filled with an evening crowd that seemed to mainly consist of students from the town’s university, arguing politics and philosophy over steaming cups.

He couldn’t imagine what their lives must be like. What it would feel like to be so normal. To not have their every moment in public tinged with the dread of discovery.

His evenings with the Rath family had been the closest he’d ever known to that sort of normality. But he’d only had even that because of deception.

Sebastian had asked him to come over to talk, even if he didn’t want dinner. After last night, Ves doubted Sebastian would try to kiss him again, but that still didn’t make it safe to go. If Ves had any sense at all, he’d close his heart, harden his will, and concentrate on nothing other than keeping Noct safe.

But he hadn’t been meant to have sense, had he? He’d been born to clear the way, to be a soldier. To follow orders, and sometimes to command—but only when directed by those above him. Noct was meant to be the clever one, the sorcerer, the one who would do the real work of