Page 7 of Bound By Blood
He was glad shewas alive. It was the best thing to happen to him in centuries, butthat didn’t mean they would have a relationship. It was best ifthey kept their distance from each other.
She rattled hiscontrol, and he was far from the man shemightremember. Shewas so young when he lost her; she might not recall much about him,and that was for the best because he would only disappoint her.
Besides, he had toget away from her. He required time to process all this.
“I haven’t seenthis man in years, and he won’t appreciate me bringing strangers tosee him,” Saber said.
“If you haven’tseen him in years, how do you know where he is?” Declaninquired.
“We’ve kept incontact. If he’s not there for some reason, I’ll find him.”
“Where are yougoing?”
“When I last spokewith him, he was in a town in Maine. I can be there and back inless than a day.”
Brie looked toAsher, who shrugged. “They’re your stones.”
“They’re notmystones,” Brie retorted. “Well, one of them is mine, butthe others belong to Willow and… I don’t know who else, but they dobelong to others. We have to figure out who those others are sothey can claim their stone.”
“So, can I takeone or not?” Saber asked more brusquely than he intended.
When Brie strokeda few of the stones and gazed at them tenderly, he realized he hadmade a mistake. The villagers put her through hell on that long-agoday, but she’d gone through a lot to get these stones.
To her, the stoneswere almost, or maybewere, as sacred and loved as a childto its parents.
“I’ll keep itsafe,” Saber vowed.
Brie bit her lipbefore briefly nodding. “We should come with you. What if you endup needing help?”
“I’ll be fine,”Saber said as he strode toward the table. “Like you, I’ve dealtwith far worse than this.”
Saber studied themulticolored stones scattered across the table before grasping thepure black one. The second his fingers wrapped around it, a feelingof rightness stole through him, and a small spark emanated from thestone before it went black again.
“It doesn’t matterwhat I say about the stones,” Brie said. “That one is yours.”
“How fitting,”Saber murmured.
The stone was asblack as his heart. He was fine with that because he would use itto destroy as many demons and Savages as he could before theykilled him. Because no matter what happened, he wasn’t walking awayfrom this fight alive.
The demons wouldmake sure of that. He’d walked away from them once, and they wouldmake him pay for it in the most excruciating way possible.
Saber shoved theplum-sized stone into his jeans pocket and turned to his sister.“I’m glad you’re alive.”
She opened hermouth to say something, but before she could, he turned and walkedaway. Everyone’s eyes bored into his back as they followed him outthe door, but he didn’t look back, not even when Ronan said, “Webetter see if some of these other stones belong to some of us.”
CHAPTER 6
Saber drove mostof the way to Maine with his foot pressed to the floor on the car’sgas pedal. The engine raced as the tires hummed over the asphalt.He tried to lose himself to the rush of speed and the blur of carshe whipped past, but his brain wouldn’t shut off.
Brie isalive. Those three words ran through his head on an incessant,self-hatred-filled loop.
She was only tenwhen the villagers killed their mother and tossed her into a fire.She was achildwhen they forced her to take care ofherself.
She’d been badlyinjured, her scars were testimony to that, but despite those woundsand her tender age, she survived—without any help from him, her bigbrother who had vowed to always watch out for her.
She was probablybattered when she emerged from the fire and needed help, but he’dfailed to be there for her. It didn’t matter that he believed herdead.
He should havedone a better job of keeping himself from getting lost in his rageand grief. He’d blamedallhumans for the loss of his familyand hadn’t cared who he killed as long as they weren’t a child.
