Broken (The Captive #5.5)(84)

"I do," Atticus said with a laugh that he didn't feel. He was still so good at playing along. The only bits he found attractive now were the ones he could kill afterward. There were times when he thought he should be mad about the fact that his normal yearnings had died with Genny, but in the end, it was the smallest part of himself that he'd lost when he'd lost her.

The smile slid from Merle's face, he folded his hands on top of his stomach. "I've heard that Anna's had more than her fair share of miscarriages again since your last son."

"She has," Atticus confirmed.

"Have you thought of finding another wife?"

Atticus released a harsh bark of laughter as he drank his blood. "No. I'm quite content with Anna and the children she has managed to produce."

"Has it changed then?" Merle inquired with a strange gleam in his eyes.

"Has what changed?" Atticus inquired.

"Your feelings for Genny, have they finally gone, have you moved on then?"

The sound of her name caused him to recoil as if he'd been slapped. It had been years since anyone had said her name out loud. His upper lip curled into an involuntary sneer at the insinuation of Merle's words. "Have they gone!" he spat. He stood abruptly and ran a hand through his hair as he paced away from the table. "Get out!"

"Wait Atticus, I meant no harm from it. I know what she meant to you…"

He moved so fast that he didn't even comprehend what he was doing. His hand wrapped around Merle's throat and he smashed him into the wall. "What she means!" He bit out as he shoved his face into Merle's. "What she will always mean!"

Merle's eyes were frantic as he searched his face. "I understand," he assured him.

Disgusted and surprised with himself for having lost control, he lowered Merle and straightened his doublet. Self-disgust filled him but his cousin was the only one that could rattle him into losing his composure. He would have to take more care from now on, to be more prepared for Merle's presence and the memories it brought back so vividly. They were much better off apart, or at least he was better off when they were.

"I don't know what came over me," he murmured by way of an apology as he walked away from his cousin.

Merle's hand went to his throat as he stepped away from the wall. "I think I do."

Atticus turned toward him so fast that blood sloshed over the sides of the goblet he had just lifted. "What do you mean you think you do?" he demanded.

Merle settled himself into his seat again and rested his hands on the table before him. "Have you ever heard of something called a bloodlink?"

Atticus frowned as he shook his head. "No, what is that?"

"I think it is what Genny was to you, what she will always be."

Atticus approached the table as cautiously as a man approaching a pride of lions. Merle might actually have an answer for what was wrong with him, an answer for what he had become. It was almost too much to hope for but he found himself riveted upon Merle's words. "Go on," he encouraged.

"I was talking with Khalfan the other day." It took Atticus a minute to recall who Khalfan was, and then his memory kicked in. He was the oldest known vampire in existence, and one of a handful of vampires known as the history keepers that was still alive. Atticus had met him a few times over the years, but the darkly colored man with piercing black eyes, and tribal tattoos covering his arms and the right side of his face had made him feel uneasy and exposed. The man never said anything to him, but Atticus had a feeling that Khalfan saw the madness lurking within him and he stayed away from Khalfan because of it.

"And what did Khalfan have to say?" Atticus inquired casually though he felt like a bundle of raw nerves inside. Merle knew he wasn't the same, that he never would be, but Atticus was certain he didn't realize the depth of his lunacy or his ultimate goal. Had Khalfan told Merle just how malevolent he really was now? He didn't want to have to kill his cousin, not unless Merle got in his way, but he wouldn't hesitate to put Merle down if he could expose him in some way.

"He told me about something called a bloodlink, a bond that exists solely between vampires. He said it's an extremely rare connection. That most vampires believe it to be nothing more than a myth created by vampire poets dreaming of love or vampires hoping to one day discover more power. He told me that he actually saw it once though, years ago between two vampires. He said the bond was so intense between them that they both became more powerful because of it. When one died the other promptly followed, by their own hand. He said it's rumored that if one dies, and the other is left behind, they go mad from the separation."

Everything within his body went completely still at what Merle had just revealed. The power that Genny's blood had given to him, the bond that he'd felt connecting them. It was still there, he could feel it even now encircling his deadened heart. The whisper of her touch, not felt in three hundred years, was still as strong as if he had felt it only yesterday. Her laughter, forever silenced, still rang as clearly in his ears as the church bells that had sounded this morning.

That connection, how he missed it. He'd never found anything that had come anywhere close to bringing him the happiness, love, or sense of fulfillment that just one minute with her had given to him. Mad wasn't near good enough a word to describe what he'd become.