Chapter 437: The One Left Behind
GABRIEL
The cell door slamd shut behind , and the sound rang through the stone walls like a final judgnt. I stood there for a mont, hands clenched at my sides, trying to ground myself in the cold bite of the floor beneath my bare feet. Blood still dripped from my nose, warm and sticky as it trailed over my lips.
My body didn’t feel like mine anymore, even though I had regained a lot of control back, thanks to that girl’s gifts.
But I could still feel him there, lurking just beneath the surface of my thoughts. Aldric. My brother. The presence pressed against the inside of my skull, patient and deliberate, like he was waiting for
to slip.
I moved to the far corner of the cell and sank down against the wall, resting my head back against the stone. The impact sent a dull throb through my skull, but I welcod it. Pain ant I was still here. Still fighting.
"You cannot keep this up forever, Gabriel."
His voice slithered through my mind, smooth and familiar in the worst possible way. It carried the sa tone he had used when we were younger, when he would explain sothing to
like I was slow to understand.
I didn’t answer him. Talking to him felt like giving ground, and I had so little left to give.
"Nothing to say?" he continued, his voice threading deeper into my thoughts. "That is unlike you. You always had sothing clever on your tongue. So quip. So observation ant to cut without drawing blood."
My fingers dug into my palms, nails biting into skin.
"Why?" The word tore out of
before I could stop it. "Just tell
why. What was all of this for? Forget the bullshit you said to Cian and just be honest here."
Silence stretched between us, thick and suffocating. Then he laughed, and the sound reverberated through my head until I thought my skull would crack open.
"You want to understand?" His voice dropped lower, intimate in a way that made my stomach turn. "You want
to explain it to you like we are still brothers sharing secrets in the dark?"
"We were brothers," I said, the words scraping past my throat. "We were family, for fuck’s sake."
"Family." He turned the word over like sothing rotten. "Is that what you think we were? How touching. How utterly naive."
The pressure in my head increased, pushing against my temples until black spots danced across my vision. I squeezed my eyes shut and focused on breathing. In. Out. In. Out.
"Do you know what it is like," he began, his voice taking on a quality I had never heard before, sothing that might have been vulnerability if it were not wrapped in so much venom, "to be told from birth that you are not enough? That you are the spare of the spare. The backup plan of the backup plan. The one that exists and was kept around in case sothing happens to the important sons, and even at that, they feared you would never live up to what you were quite literally made for because you still weren’t born in the right position."
My jaw tightened. "I was a spare too. You know that. I lived it the sa way you did."
"No." The word cracked through my thoughts like a whip. "You did not. You were closer to power and privilege than I ever was. You stood one step behind our brother while I stood three steps behind you. Because even Cian was closer to that power than I ever was going to be. Mother and even father did not have the conversations that they had with , glad that you two were competent and strong enough that they did not have to worry about . Because I could be the small unachiever they believed I was destined to be. You were the beloved second son. I was the forgotten third."
I opened my eyes and stared at the opposite wall, focusing on the rough texture of the stone. Anything to anchor myself.
"That is not true," I said quietly. "Father loved you. Mother loved you."
"Love." He spat the word like poison. "They loved the idea of a complete family. Three strong sons to carry on the bloodline. But when it ca down to it, when decisions needed to be made, when power needed to be distributed, where was I? Always on the outside. Always watching. Always hearing the whispers."
The mories ca then, not mine but his, bleeding through the connection between us. I saw flashes of overheard conversations, servants muttering about the spare who would never amount to anything. Council mbers dismissing his ideas before he finished speaking. Our parents exchanging glances when he entered a room, the kind that said they were hoping he would leave soon.
My chest tightened.
"I should have noticed," I said, the words coming out rough. "I should have seen you were struggling. I could have helped you. I could have saved you from this."
"Saved ?" His laughter filled my head again, colder this ti. "Oh, Gabriel. You still do not understand. I did not need saving. I needed purpose. And I found it."
I pushed myself forward, away from the wall, and wrapped my arms around my knees. The cell felt smaller now, the walls pressing in.
"Cian will find Fia," I said, forcing conviction into my voice. "Whatever you have planned, it will not work. He will save her."
"Will he?" Aldric’s voice turned contemplative. "I wonder. Northern Ridge has already received my letter. Lily of the Valley, too. And though that one may take a bit longer to bear fruit... No matter what happens now, that girl has a target on her back. She will beco property, or she will die. Those are her only options."
My hands curled into fists against my legs.
"The runes are half broken," I said. "Your plan is falling apart. You are trapped in here with , and when this is over, you will die knowing you failed."
"Failed?" He sounded almost amused. "Even if I die today, I die a happy man. I set things in motion that cannot be stopped. I showed them all what a spare of a spare could do when properly motivated."
The connection between us flared, and suddenly I could feel him. Not just his presence, but his emotions, raw and unfiltered. They crashed over
in waves, and what I found there made my stomach turn.
He felt small.
Even now, with all the damage he had caused, all the lives he had destroyed, he felt insignificant. Like nothing he did would ever be enough to fill the hollow space inside him.
"You are lying to yourself," I said, and my voice ca out steadier than I expected. "I can feel you, you know. We are connected, and I can feel everything. You did not do this because you were wronged. You did this because you felt small and jealous, and instead of dealing with it, instead of doing the work to heal, you made it everybody’s problem."
The pressure in my head spiked, sharp enough to make
gasp.
"Shut up," he hissed.
"No." I pushed back against him, drawing on every scrap of willpower I had left. "You want to talk about what you endured? Fine. But you were not the only one who struggled. You were not the only one who heard whispers or felt overlooked. The difference is that most people do not respond by destroying everyone around them."
"I said shut up."
"You could have talked to us," I continued, the words pouring out now. "You could have worked on yourself. Found aning outside of our parents’ approval. But instead, you chose sabotage. You chose cruelty. You punished your own family because you could not handle your own insecurity. Our parents are long dead. You are not showing them anything. You are just acting out. Like a madman."
His rage flooded through the connection, hot and suffocating, but I did not stop.
"Nobody deserved this," I said, my voice breaking. "Your daughter did not deserve to die because her father felt inadequate. Your son did not deserve to be used as a pawn. Cian did not deserve to lose his father. And I did not deserve to have my life and then my body stolen."
"All of you deserved every second of it," he snarled. "Every mont of pain. Every drop of blood. You all needed to understand what it felt like to be powerless."
"No." I shook my head even though he could not see it. "You needed us to feel powerless because it was the only way you could feel powerful. That is the truth, Aldric. All of this, every sche, every murder, every manipulation, it was all just you trying to prove you mattered. But you went about it the wrong way."
The silence that followed felt different. Heavier.
"You think you understand ?" His voice ca quieter now, dangerous in its stillness. "You think this changes anything?"
"I think you are going to fail," I said. "And the worst part is, you are going to live long enough to see it happen. You wanted to be the ruling Alpha of Skollrend. You wanted to kill that girl and prove yourself to ghosts who stopped caring years ago. But none of it is going your way now that you have been revealed."
I leaned my head back against the wall again and stared at the ceiling.
"You will fall," I continued. "You will perish knowing that every insane move you made, every life you destroyed, did not give you the win you desperately wanted. And when it is over, when you are gone, nobody will rember you as powerful. They will rember you as pathetic."
The connection between us thrumd with his fury, but underneath it, I felt sothing else. Sothing that might have been fear.
"I will kill you," he said, his voice barely above a whisper in my mind. "I will snuff out your consciousness and take this body completely. You will cease to exist."
"Maybe," I admitted. "But right now, in this mont, you are stuck here with . And I am not going to let you take control without a fight. And let us face it... I am much stronger now."
My body ached. My head pounded. Blood still dripped from my nose, pooling on the stone floor between my feet. But I was still here. Still conscious. Still fighting.
Perhaps by so wicked twist of fate, Aldric could have my body, but he would never have my surrender.
Outside the cell, I heard footsteps. Voices. The pack was mobilizing, preparing to go get Cian’s mate, Fia, preparing for whatever ca next. Cian would not stop until he found her. I knew my nephew well enough to know that.
And when this was over, when the dust settled, and the bodies were counted, Aldric would have nothing.
No power. No recognition. No legacy worth rembering.
Just a spare who never figured out that being overlooked was not the sa as being worthless, and that destroying others would never fill the void inside himself.
The thought should have brought
satisfaction, but all I felt was tired.
Tired and trapped in a cell with my brother’s consciousness wrapped around my own like a parasite.
I closed my eyes and focused on breathing again.
This was not over. Not yet.
But it would be soon.
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