lose?
“I read that when you’re Bound to another caster, you feel it when they pass?” I tell Lachlan quietly. “You would know if something happened to him.”
Shadows hide Lachlan’s features, and I have no idea if my attempt at reassurance garners any reaction from him. Silence fills the stone and dirt room, and I get lost in thought.
“How did you know that he and I…” Lachlan finally inquires, and I wonder how much it’s killing him to have to ask me.
“I suspected in the library after you choked me. The way Keegan was comforting you was more intimate than it was with the others. He was always defending you, following your lead, and neither of you ever talked about females,” I explain. “At first I thought maybe you two were hiding it from the whole coven, but then I realized that you just didn’t trust me to know.”
Stifling quiet envelops the last of my words, and I wait to see if Lachlan will say anything. I don’t know why a flash of frustration sparks through me when he stays silent. I should fucking know better than to think he’s going to open up to me.
“Whatever it is that you think about me, you’re fucking wrong,” I angrily declare to Lachlan. “I didn’t even exist when Vaughn was taken from you. I’m not the one who put him with my mother, and I was born after they tried to escape. I am not responsible for what happened.”
He doesn’t say anything.
“I didn’t ask for any of this,” I remind him once again, and I’m surprised when he mumbles something. “What?” I snap.
“I don’t blame you for what happened. Well, not anymore anyway,” he confesses, and I’m rendered speechless by the fact that he even said anything, let alone that. “I work hard. I’m single-minded in my focus to be the best,” he admits. “Keegan teases that I’m overcompensating, and as much as I hate to admit it, he’s right. Keegan and I are private about our relationship, not because we necessarily have to be, it’s just the way we are. The community doesn’t look down on us, but I’ve always felt the drive to prove my worth regardless. I do that by being the best paladin I can possibly be and serving the community that way.”
Lachlan grows quiet, and I’m not sure what to say. I’m floored by this peek into who he is, but I’m not sure why he’s giving it to me.
“When Vaughn went missing, a part of me went missing too. We all looked. We did everything we could possibly do to find him, but I failed. I failed him. I failed the other families that lost loved ones. I failed the community because I was the best and yet I couldn’t piece together what happened. And every birthday and Bonding Anniversary, every good day I had without my brother made me break more and more.”
Lachlan leans forward out of the shadows of his corner, and the hollowness I see in his gaze is haunting. He takes a few breaths before he continues, and he looks so shattered as he does. I realize as I watch him that there is no gluing his pieces back together, and it makes me so fucking sad for him.
“You have his eyes,” he whispers at me, and he spends a moment blinking away the emotion that confession calls out in him. “One minute you were just there, fighting like you were born for it, blinking up at me with his eyes, and I just didn’t know how to deal with it, with you. I don’t know how to be happy that you exist when I’m just so sad that he doesn’t anymore.” Lachlan starts crying, and I wipe away at my own tears as I watch my uncle show me his broken.
“I’m glad you have the boys and their coven. They’re good males, and they will be there for you. They will take care of you. And I know it’s wrong, I know it’s not fair, but that will have to be enough. Because you will never find what you’re looking for here,” he tells me, and he slams a fragile, shaky fist against his chest. “I just don’t have it in me to give you what you deserve. You need to know that I’m just too fractured, and that’s on me, not on you.”
Lachlan’s emerald eyes turn hard, and I witness as he sluffs off the vulnerability he was just showing. He