His Unrequited Love

Home Sweet Home

Victor

I don’t shake Gabriel’s stretched out hand. I can’t.

Suddenly I am sick. With him, with me, with how I still feel too deep when I am around him, with how a part of me still f*ucking loves him and it is tearing me apart because he knows it and he is using it against me even now: to twist the knife in my heart deeper, to see me bleed to death.

This is not a business deal he is offering. It is pure torture and nothing more. He hates me just like he’s always have ever since I was forced to kill our relationship and has been looking for ways to get back at me with any means possible. Like banish me from my land and take away the sole thing that broke us apart, and not even reconsidering it when my name was completely cleared.

But to threaten my family? To tell me he’ll steal my niece away from her parents if I don’t ruin her godfather’s life for good? To ask me to rob him of his powers and betray him in any way possible when all he’s done is help and support my family? There is no proof, there might never be any proof that St. Claire is dealing with any dark magic or any magic at all but it won’t matter. Gabriel has set his eyes on the boy and he won’t let go, just like a dog with a bone he wont’s stop until he’s buried it in the ground.

And when I hand the witch to him, because I know I will no matter if he is innocent or not as long as I manage to keep my family out of this, that will be the end of me. It will forever separate me from them - Veronica and Luca, and even Ariana one day, none of them will ever forgive me, so what would be the point of coming back when there is no one to come to?

What Gabriel is doing right now is more than revenge if I ever knew one. He finally found a way to ruin me for good. Isn’t it obvious how damaged I already am? When is it going to be enough?

“Let’s clear things up first,” I say feeling stiff and shallow inside, as I desperately try to hold on to reality before I fall on my knees and actually beg for mercy. I want to vomit as a splitting headache starts forming deep inside my scull but I curl my fingers into fists and force myself to go through whatever this is that’s left between us before I am alone and allowed to fall apart. “You realise my sister will never let you get your hands on her daughter, right? She and her husband are stronger than most shifters, they’ll never allow something like this to happen. And their pack is stronger and larger than any other.”

“They’ve taken the oath though, or have you already forgotten our laws? I own your family just like I own everybody else, don’t I?” Gabriel tells me with a bright smile which I suddenly want to punch out of his face. He looks cruel, heartless, so damn different from that eighteen year old boy I used to love. He was good and kind once. Did I make him like this? Did I break him so irreparably that years later he doesn’t care who he’s hurting in order to get what he wants?

As I stare at him I can’t suppress the flinch. The guilt is overwhelming and it weighs on my shoulders like a mountain.

“I don’t want to do this, Victor,” he continues and he does sound almost apologetic. “But if the witch is let to roam freely and actually tries to use that child’s blood for his dark practices and hurts someone in the process, I will not have a chance. Consider it sacrificing him for the good of all.”

It is not sacrificing. It is manslaughter.

To steal someone’s magic from them, it is like ripping the blood out of their veins. And it already happened to Ian once. Having to go through it again it might ruin him. In the chance Gabriel is telling the truth now. Because if there is no magic left in Ian, then it will be exactly this - manslaughter.

I barely remember the guy and I maybe jealous of him spending so much time with my family, but I have to admit that he is a good friend to my sister and her husband, and I’ve never, not even once heard about him hurting anyone. I vaguely remember him practically being a s*lut for any hot guy that came his way and kind of envying him for being so out and proud. Still, he fought on our side in the war against the werewolves and I will forever be grateful to him.

But there is no way I am putting his well being before that of the people I love. If I have to sacrifice someone, it’s not going to be Veronica or Luca, and it will never be sweet innocent Ariana.

“Congratulations,” I tell Gabriel, barely holding the tears in my eyes. He’s always been the only person I’ve ever cried about or in front of even after so long but it ends now. That man is not worthy of my tears or my love. So I swallow them as I struggle to hold his gaze. “You managed to find a way to ruin me for good. I hope you are proud of yourself, your majesty.”

I am unable to hide the spite out of my voice and realise the tears gripping my throat this time are not for missing him or for being helpless to fight for him, for our love. No. This time they are a result from the helpless anger and rage that come with the realisation that there is no way I am surviving this time. By the end of it, when Ian is indeed sacrificed in our petty fights, I will lose the family for which I traded Gabriel’s love. And this time it will be forever.

I turn and head towards the door. Everything in me wants to scream and roar. I don’t. There is no point. The urge to just get in the jeep and drive myself into a wall is overwhelming. Funny, I haven’t had thoughts like these in the past week but suddenly I am so damn tired to live. I have to though. At least until I know my family is safe and sound. Then it will be easier - for me to go and for them to let go because they will know I was always the villain in this story.

The bile is rising in my throat as I realise I have to get the hell away from Gabriel. Now. I can’t stand being near him for even one more minute. I can’t breathe because I don’t want his air in my lungs.

“Oh, and, Victor?” Gabriel’s cold voice stops me at the door.

I don’t turn to face him again. I just stand there and wait for him to speak like the good b*itch I apparently am for him. “Whether you agree to my offer or not, you have the next three months to walk on my land as you see fit and finish your task. Consider it as a sign of good will. After that, if you chose to be an enemy to this kingdom, or if you fail, you will never be allowed to set foot here ever again.”

I walk out - of his study and his life and I pray to whoever is listening it is forever.

It won’t be though. Because if I fail to bring him what he wants, I will be walking back into his lair to end him for good. Three months? Be it then, in three months one or both of us will be gone from this world. How poetic.

As I drive mindlessly through the valley, I try to gather my thoughts and direct my mind back to that damn cold place in my head so I won’t have to feel, so that I’d be pragmatic about it. Three months. There is something grounding in knowing exactly how much time you have left. I will have more than enough time to take care of that Ian-Gabriel problem and get my business in order. And then there will be no reasons to cling to this world anymore. It’s all I ever wanted for the last five years anyway but I was too weak to let go. Now I actually have a reason to.

Somehow my jeep ends up on the road to Valentine mansion, like my limbs know the road mechanically and I don’t have to think which turn to take or even focus on where exactly I am going.

Seeing the old oak trees towering both sides of the road covered in green leaves and how the late afternoon sun is creeping through the cracks in the clouds and reflects in the rain drops still lingering in them calms me down a little. The road to home. I am finally taking this road again but I feel numb. It was supposed to be a moment of celebration. It was supposed to be the moment I finally found my peace again. But it’s nothing like it. It is madness and a promise for more heartbreak. Come to think of it and how damn hopeful I felt this entire week, ever since I got the texts to come back, I can’t believe how stupid I was. I guess the joke’s on me - I should’ve stayed in that hotel room and f*ucked dirty boy again on Monday morning. Now I have one more regret to add for reminiscing at my death bed. Hope. F*uck that s*hit as my brother in law would say. It’s never worked in my favour and it didn’t fail to disappoint me again.

I pull the jeep to a stop near the turn that should take me to the old St. Claire house - the mansion of the witches as we used to call it as kids. Hiding in the deeper shadows, I pull the windows down, letting the crisp air fill the space inside and clear my head at least a little. It doesn’t work I realize as the seconds go by. So I reach for the bottle of pills that is rolling casually on the passenger seat and take two or three of the small pink f*uckers. I swallow hard without water and just wait there for the anti-depressants to kick in and for me to turn back to the heartless numb money machine I’ve become for the past years. Helps me focus on the hunt, on the final goal. Cuts emotions out of the equation.

My eyes dart towards the large path to the witches’ house. Does St. Claire still live there?

A vague memory of me breaking in with a few of my warriors to look for my runaway sister comes to me but my mind is already starting to float and the image is lingering at the corners of my vision, and there is nothing solid to hold on to. I remember being mad with rage that Veronica sneaked out with Luca and that she didn’t trust me enough to tell me there was something going on between them. I was supposed to keep her safe and I had failed because Luca Moretti used to be bad news back in the day. And in my desperation to protect her I somehow turned into the same monster as the ones who hurt me in almost the same way years before that. I think Ian gave me the s*hit then, never letting go or missing a chance to tell me his opinion for invading the privacy of his home and beating his friend up to a pulp with the help of my warriors. He is still so vague in my memories - Ian St. Claire I mean. Is that one of his dark witchy things? Can he cloak his face from people like me, people who want him harm so we’d never be able to find him? That would be some cool kind of trick to have up your sleeve. I am thirty-three now, am I allowed to say words like ‘cool’? Or ‘dude’? I don’t think they are for old people.

Goddess, those pills f*ucked me up too fast this time.

As I contemplate the road to St. Claire’s house through blurry eyes, I wonder if I should do it again. Should I just break in and deal with the guy right there on the spot, tonight? I don’t know how I will kill him but I know I am perfectly capable of doing so. Why wait? Why prolong the misery? Everything could end now and maybe then the pain might actually end for good? Do dead people feel pain?

I don’t. Go and murder Ian St. Claire in his sleep that is. Instead my hands grip the steering wheel and a few moments later I am back on the road. Whatever I do, I should say my goodbyes first, I realise. Maybe write some letter so that Veronica and Ariana are not left in the dark about why I am about to do what I have in mind. Give them closure I suppose.

Whatever it is that stops me from committing homicide tonight brings me to the large iron gates of Valentine mansion. Thanks to the pills I barely feel the regret and excitement that are supposed to raise in my chest at the sight of what used to be home for me.

The guards at the gate stare at me with gaping mouths and they don’t even question my being here against all odds as they punch the code and let me in. I remember them and greet them as old friends because we actually are. I was their alpha once after all, and I still have their loyalty in a way. Probably I should talk to Veronica about it - friends or not they are not supposed to not even question me when I am, in theory at least, a potential threat to their current alpha who just came back from the dead.

I drive down the alley to the front porch of the large house not letting myself look at the grandiose garden behind it or the fountain in front of it. The gravel screeches beneath the wheels as I pull to a stop and a moment later I am out of the jeep.

I am not feeling anything, no excitement, no dread, no love, as I climb the large stairs and knock at the front door waiting for someone to let me in. That’s wrong, a part of me tries to tell me. I shouldn’t be knocking on the door of my own home and wait like a guest to be welcomed inside.

Then I hear stirring from inside, someone shouts eagerly ‘I will get it’ and then the door swings open widely. The guy’s large friendly smile freezes on his pink sensual lips, those seductive hazel eyes of his widen in surprise as she stares at me like he’s seen a ghost while all I can think of is what the hell is dirty boy doing here?