My Vampire Brother Faked Dying—Mine Was Real Chapter 07
Alaric’s POV
The jet hadn’t even finished taxiing before I told the driver to take me to the apartment. I didn’t even change clothes.
For two weeks, I’d crossed half a dozen cities with Evelina, and at every stop, the only face I kept seeing was Selene’s.
She should’ve been there for the rain in Rosecliff, the midnight opera in Kingsmont. She should’ve been standing on the highest tower of the estate, laughing while I led her down the stairs the way I used to when she was little…
The punishment was over. I was bringing my princess home.
But the apartment was empty. The air was stale, undisturbed. And it hit me — she hadn’t answered a single one of my messages.
She’d never done that before. She’d never ignored me. I was the one person she couldn’t let go of.
Something cold crawled up the back of my neck. I grabbed my phone and called my assistant.
“Find Selene.”
Silence. Then his voice came through, all wrong.
“Lord Veyron, you should come to the estate.”
Selene’s coven healer was waiting in the middle of the living room. He held out a sealed black urn. I didn’t take it.
The whole thing was so absurd I almost laughed. Then I did.
“So this is how she’s trying to scare me now? Fine. Tell me how much she paid you, and I’ll give you ten times that to bring her out here.”
The healer shook his head and set the urn on the table.
“Mr. Veyron, your sister was diagnosed with Blood Rot a year ago.”
“If she’d done the transfusion then, her odds were seventy percent. But she told me every dollar she had needed to go toward your serum.”
“Even a month ago, she still had a twenty-percent chance.”
“She gave that up too. She put every last dollar toward your Blood Withering treatment.”
“Long-term blood loss, severe malnutrition, old injuries that never healed — they hollowed her out. She was in her twenties, Mr. Veyron. Her body looked like it belonged to someone five times her age.”
The healer looked around the estate — the chandeliers, the marble, all that gilded luxury — and then back at me, standing there in perfect health. His contempt was barely concealed.
“I’m a healer. I know there is no serum for blood withering. There never was.”
“Your sister chose to die so you could live. She loved you that much.”
“And with all due respect, you didn’t deserve a second of it.”
“She asked me to bring you her ashes. That was her last wish.”
“I’ve done what she asked. What you do with them is no longer my business.”
He walked out without another word. The front door shut behind him, and the sound echoed through the house. My hand moved to the urn.
My fingers were shaking so badly I almost dropped it. Then something inside me snapped, and the room exploded.
I didn’t know what I broke. All I heard was the sound ripping out of my chest — something that wasn’t human.
I sat in the corner of that room from dusk until dawn, reading the same message over and over.
[Alaric, I’m done waiting. I’m giving you and Evelina what you wanted. Please bury me next to Mom and Dad.]
And the reply sent from my phone.
[Drop dead and stop pulling this crap on me.]
I didn’t send that.
The front door swung open. Evelina strolled in, humming to herself, arms full of shopping bags.
The lights never came on. Guards dragged her to the floor before she could take a step. She opened her mouth to scream, but then she saw me step out of the dark, and the sound died in her throat.
Her eyes widened, then narrowed. Her entire body started shaking.
“I ask. You answer. Understood?”
Evelina nodded. There was no color left in her face.
“The coven secrets that were leaked to our rivals. Was that you?”
She nodded. Her whole body shook with it.
“The bullying, the diary, the threats — everything you told me Selene did to you. All of it. Was any of it real?”
Sweat broke across her forehead. She crawled across the floor on her knees and grabbed at my legs.
“Alaric, I was just scared of losing you…”
I kicked her away.
“Last question. Did you delete Selene’s final message? And did you send her that reply from my phone?”
Evelina fell apart. Tears and snot streamed down her face, and she couldn’t stop any of it.
“I was terrified of losing you! I just wanted to be the one you chose! Selene had the bloodline, the name, the family — she had everything! I had nothing!”
“All I wanted was a place in this family. What was so wrong with that?”
I stared at her. And then I started laughing. Quietly at first, then louder, until
the sound filled the room.
By the end I wasn’t laughing anymore. The tears were pouring down my face, and I couldn’t stop them.
All of this — five full years of it — for this.
I’d destroyed the only person in this world who had ever truly loved me.