A Tangle of Hearts (A Shade of Vampire #44)(37)

“We watched her confront Azazel in his domain. She demanded to see my father when the Destroyers descended upon her. We watched helplessly as Azazel laughed in her face, saying she was by far the easiest and most gullible catch and that he had no idea where my father was. But Elissa wasn’t a fool either. She’d taken a calculated risk. She knew there was a chance that my father wouldn’t be there, but she couldn’t just stand back and assume he wasn’t there either. So as soon as Azazel admitted to his ploy to get her there, Elissa resigned herself to her fate.”

“He captured her? That’s what you meant when you said Azazel could manipulate visions, isn’t it?”

“Elissa would have never allowed herself to be captured and used against Eritopia, against my father and me. She had a knife with her. She killed herself before the Destroyers could reach her. My father and I watched through the flame.” Draven’s voice faltered again. There was so much pain trickling from his words, it nearly broke my heart.

I could only imagine what the sight of Elissa’s death must have been like for a little boy who’d loved her like a mother. No wonder he had a hard time talking about her. All the times he’d hesitated to talk about Elissa, all the times he’d pushed me away when I’d asked about her—it all made sense now.

“I am so sorry,” I whispered, choking on unbidden tears.

A moment passed before he spoke again.

“You’re the first person I’ve ever told about that day.”

His confession stunned me. My mind raced as the meaning of his gesture sank in. He was opening up to me, slowly but surely, and while I expected to feel some kind of satisfaction in getting closer to completing my mission, all I could feel was grief and compassion toward the little boy who had lost someone so viciously and the man he’d grown into.

Furthermore, the realization of Elissa’s death made it all the more clear why we needed to destroy Azazel—why we all had to pitch in and help save Eritopia. No one deserved Elissa's fate, the fate of those who stood against a maniacal power-grabbing tyrant.

“Are you all right?” Draven asked me, as if sensing my inner turmoil.

“Yeah, I’m just…so sorry,” I managed to say. “Thank you for telling me, really. It means a lot.”

He nodded, and we walked in silence for a while, until I felt the need to fill in some blanks from his account of Elissa’s departure.

“Draven?” I asked. I paused, wanting to hear his voice and test the water before jumping in with more questions.

“More questions?” His reply caught me off-guard.

“Am I asking too much?”

“I think we’re way past that stage,” he sighed, wearing a feeble smile. “Go on.”

I smiled guiltily back at him before continuing. “From what I understand, Azazel never captured your father in the first place. What did your father do after Elissa? Did he go after him?”

His hand slid off my shoulder, but I didn’t let go. I held on to it as we kept our distance from the group. He didn’t seem to mind, since he didn’t let go either. Faint electrical currents traveled from his touch to my knees, softening them with each step I took.

“He didn’t. I begged him not to. After Elissa left, I was so angry at her. I felt abandoned. For the few days that I was left on my own, I harnessed that fury and tucked everything I’d felt away in a dark corner deep in my mind. I didn’t like those feelings. I’d been an otherwise happy boy, despite the isolation,” Draven replied.

I was taken aback, gaping at him. This was the first time he’d talked about his feelings—not facts, not knowledge, not secrets, but his actual feelings.

What have I unleashed?

His fingers intertwined with mine.

“When I watched Elissa die, however, it all came tumbling back out. I couldn’t control it. My father wanted to go after Azazel in a fit of rage. He’d loved Elissa. I could see it in his eyes. But I begged him not to. I couldn’t bear to lose him too. My only advantage was that Azazel didn’t know about me or the mansion, and my father had to make sure things stayed that way.”

My heart sizzled, stripped apart piece by piece as the image of a broken-hearted little Draven with sandy hair and teary gray eyes lingered before my eyes. I looked up at him. He clenched his jaw, as if struggling to keep some details to himself. I had a feeling he realized that he’d shared more than originally planned.

I squeezed his hand, wondering if I could do anything to make things better. My eyes stung as tears of my own welled up. I wiped them away with the back of my spare hand and took a couple of deep breaths, distracting myself with the emerald green wilderness around us.

He squeezed back, and my pulse raced.

“Don’t worry, Serena.” He put on a gentle, reassuring smile. “It was a long, long time ago.”

“Yeah, but you can’t tell me it doesn’t affect you still. I can feel it in your voice.” I was unwilling to let him crawl back into his hard shell so quickly. He shook his head.

“It still affects me. Loss is never forgotten. But the weight of it dissipates with time. You’ll feel it one day as well, and then you’ll understand.”

I wasn’t ready to lose anyone yet. I pushed the thought away without hesitation. He smiled again, as if reading my mind.

“I can feel the resistance in your breath. You can’t escape loss or death, Serena,” he said. “The sooner you come to accept it, the more you’ll learn to appreciate the little things, the moments you spend with someone.”