Circle of Blood Book One: Lover's Rebirth by R. A. Steffan & Jaelynn Woolf

Author:R. A. Steffan & Jaelynn Woolf [Steffan, R. A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-11-30T16:00:00+00:00

TEN

“DO YOU STILL WANT to know?”

“More than ever,” she said, meaning it.

“Are you certain of that?”

Della looked curiously at him. He seemed tortured again, his eyes flashing with old pain, as if from memories that should have been long forgotten.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Della asked.

“It will change what you think about me,” Tré told her in a flat, dead voice.

Della scoffed. “I sincerely doubt that.”

Tré shrugged as if resigned, pain still buried under his voice as he began, “I was born to a nobleman’s family centuries ago, in a small village in what was then Moldavia—in Eastern Europe. At that time, relationships between a young man and a young woman were strictly forbidden outside of a betrothal.”

Della listened silently. Tré's gaze wandered past her shoulder and into the middle distance, as if he were seeing things that she could not.

“I respected the laws that my father upheld, until the day I fell in love.”

His softened in memory, as if warm sunlight were flooding across his pale skin.

“Her name was Irina and she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. She was the daughter of a local voivode, an administrative official. We spoke one day at a gathering both our families had been asked to attend. We fell in love that night, talking together in the moonlight beside a window. I will never forget how her hair shone in the pale light. How her eyes seemed to sparkle with life.

“I spoke with my father the next day and our families agreed to our union. That was the happiest day of my life. Not only was I getting a beautiful, perfect woman, but I would also be responsible for allying two powerful families.”

Della lifted her eyebrows and gave him a wry smile. “You old romantic,” she quipped.

“It wasn’t the power that attracted me to her,” Tré said, as if wanting to dispel the idea immediately, “but her beauty, her kindness, and her mind. She was perfect in every way.”

Silence fell for several moments, and Della made no move to break it. It seemed to her that Tré was struggling with the memories. He shut his eyes and his face twitched as if in pain.

“The region was already on the brink of war. In the evenings you could feel it hanging heavy in the air, like electricity from a gathering storm. It was making everyone else uneasy, but not me. I defied the darkness because I was so happy and at peace.”

Tré shook his head as if in disgust. “So young. So naïve. My disregard for the evil around me did not shield me from the coming violence. Instead, it drew the evil right to me.”

Della looked at Tré in confusion, completely baffled by what he was saying.

“Bael,” Tré responded to her unspoken question. “The demon of the underworld, ever present on this earth. He came for me one night.”

“I thought demons were only a fantasy,” Della said quietly, “or, you know, some kind of religious metaphor for humanity’s dark side.”

Tré smiled, but it was a sad expression.

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