Severing Sanguine: A Companion Book to The Fallocaust Series Book 2 (108 page)

I didn’t move as my friend stumbled back, a dark spot on his forehead that immediately started leaking blood, and I didn’t flinch when Silas shot him again in the face, blowing off the side of his jaw.

Silas put the gun back into the credenza, the sounds of the gun blast making my ears throb.

“Leave, Sanguine,” Silas said dully, the only sound besides the ringing inside of my ears was the light closing of the wooden door.

“Silas…” I said slowly.

I was alarmed to see the anger gone in his eyes, the passion and the fire that had been injecting hatred into me and the others since I had stepped foot in his apartment. He looked…

Done.

“Leave,” Silas said again, still staring down at the shelf in the credenza, looking more sad and empty than I had ever seen him. He reminded me of – damn, he reminded me of how I looked.

My mind went back to my life before I had come to Skyfall and the tumultuous year that followed. I had seen that dead look on myself many times, and even with Ceph suffering below and Nero and the sengil dead around me, I felt more sadness and empathy for the king than I had ever experienced before, and not only that, I felt understanding and sympathy. Because even though he had done, and continued to do, terrible things, I knew why he did them.

When I was at the lowest point of my life, my king had coaxed me out from under the bed. He had loved me through my insanity and had taken care of and nurtured the seeds of trust in me he had planted. Silas had let me be with my boyfriend, the love of my life, for twenty years, and had even understood my request to date my own sengil when I had been told that Valentine was dying.

Here I stood in front of my king, and though he was just a king and a master to so many of our brothers – to me, Silas was more than that. I had seen the mask slip off of his face and had neither been horrified or scared of what I had seen. Because underneath the hatred, the jealousy, and the mania… I saw a man with a sense of humour, patience, kindness, and generosity.

I knew who Silas Sebastian Dekker really was.

And as I walked into the elevator and pressed the button for the lobby, I was reminded that, especially with Elish’s growing resentment, I might just be the last man on earth who did know him.

The drive to me and Jack’s skyscraper was the longest one I had ever had. In that twenty minutes I made many resolutions to myself, most of which made my heart hurt. But there was nothing more I could do, though I would tell them I was doing it to protect my family, and protect my family’s partners, in truth I was doing it because I held inside of me a loyalty to Silas Dekker that rose higher than the love for my family.

I will never forget what Silas did for me when I was at my weakest, and seeing the state he was in now, I was going to do the same for my king.

And not only that… if I was close to Ceph… perhaps there was something I could do for him too. If only to help him keep his sanity.

My Jack, my little silver devil, was sitting on the couch with Jett on his lap. My first kitten, now a twenty-one-year-old elderly cat, was laying his head on Jack’s leg, looking content.

“Is everything okay? You – you have blood all over your clothing, why are you wearing a jacket now? Are you hurt?” As soon as Jack saw my face his own paled; he gently shifted his leg away from Jett and stood up.

I could already feel my heart break to pieces, shard by shard they fell onto the floor, only to disappear into the darkened abyss that was below it. But I knew what I had to do, so I steeled myself, even if the burning in the back of my throat was telling me I was on the verge of my own breakdown.

I put a hand to his face, and in response he tilted his head towards my touch.

“I love you, and I will always love you,
diligo
,” I said to him, and at this statement his eyes widened in surprise. “But it is time for me to repay my debt to Silas.”

“W-what?” Jack whispered. His black eyes immediately filled, like a dark ocean on a moonless night. “What happened, Sanguine? Y-you can’t be serious.”

I framed his face with my hands and leaned in and kissed him; his lips trembled under mine. “I will come back for you, but for now… Silas needs me more than you do.”

Jack pulled away; I was disheartened but not surprised to see his face change from sadness to anger. “Silas? Silas needs you? What the hell does he need you for? What are you saying?” Jack’s voice started to rise. “He said you were free to date who you wanted so don’t fucking give me that. Is he making you do this?”

I shook my head as I started to walk back to the door to the hallway; I hadn’t even closed it. “No, he is not making me do this.”

“Then why!” Jack demanded. “Why are you doing this if he’s not making you?”

“I’ll come back for you, one day,” I said again, my throat tightened further. I swallowed hard though my resolve was quickly leaving me.

“Come back for me?” Jack suddenly screamed. “Like I’m some fucking side-whore waiting for his master to come back? Fuck you! Why are you doing this? Tell me! What happened there? You only said he had Ceph and fucking left. What the fuck happened?”

I can’t tell you – another secret I’ve kept from you for years.

“Sanguine!” Jack screamed as I walked out of the door and back towards the elevator. “I’ve been your boyfriend for twenty years. You’ve never kept shit from me before so tell me – tell me what happened.”

I pushed the button on the elevator and briefly closed my eyes, another deep breath filled my lungs but it felt like I was inhaling from inside a burning building.

“I need to be with him now; he’s not in a good state. You know I owe him, and I mu-”

“You’re not a fucking martyr!” Jack yelled, then I heard him sob. “Stop being a fucking martyr! You did the same shit with Valen when we found out he was dying. You go and sacrifice your happiness for others, and in turn you end up fucking me over as well. Don’t do it this time; you owe Silas nothing! I’m your fucking boyfriend, Sanguine. When you go off and do these selfless missions of misery you end up screwing me as well. Just don’t, not this time, Sanguine. Not this time.”

“I owe him my life,” I whispered, and not only did Silas’s head flash through my vision, but Nero’s did as well. If I could… if I did this… I could help Ceph. I knew I could. “My life belongs to them.”

“NO IT DOESN’T!” Jack was hysterical; my eyes started to burn. The pain in his voice was too much to bear. “It’s been twenty years; you’ve repaid your debts! Sanguine, you need to stop this self-sacrificing, you’re your own person now. You don’t owe them.” As I walked through the doors he let out another strangled choke. “Sami, please!”

I stepped into the elevator and when I turned around Jack was on his knees in front of me, his hands clasped to his front. He was begging me.

I had to be strong. I had to be strong. I could do this and I had to do this. He would understand why one day. This wasn’t about me, or him, this was about saving the family, saving Silas, and saving Ceph.

“I love you, don’t do this to me. Don’t do this to you. It’s time for you to just be Sanguine and stop putting their happiness before yours – before ours,” Jack pleaded. “Please, Sami.”

My eyes closed; I could feel the tears slipping down my cheeks.

But I still opened them – and pressed the button for the lobby.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered to him. Finally, unable to hold it back any longer I let out a sob and put my hand over my mouth. “I love you.”

Jack, tears streaming down his face and his shoulders trembling, stared at me as the elevator doors closed. The last image I had of my boyfriend, before he became just my brother, was him on his knees, pleading at me to stay.

But I couldn’t stay, and perhaps one day I could make him understand why.

Twenty minutes later found me walking the hallway back to Silas’s apartment, though to me if felt like I was walking down the valleys of the shadow of death.

Though as that ancient passage said, I would fear no evil. To me Silas had never been evil, and because this was known deep in my heart I knew it was my responsibility to be the one to calm him. A task that no one in my large family could take on. The last man to walk side by side with the enigma that was Silas Dekker had been slowly turning his cheek to him in the last several years.

I stopped in front of the ajar door and held my head up high. For a moment my eyes closed and in the darkness I saw the face of my boyfriend, and in that same darkness I let him go, with only the faint comfort that we were both immortal, and one day my hand would once again find his. In these last remaining moments of my freedom I wished him well, and to show myself that, unlike Silas, I was not a jealous man, I even wished that he would find someone else until I could claim him as my partner once again.

Then after allowing myself my last moments of melancholy, I pushed it away with a deep inhale – and walked through the doors.

To my grim realization I saw that Silas hadn’t moved at all. The tortured king was standing in front of the bloodstained credenza, staring with empty eyes at the drawer. Nero still dead only several feet from him, and the poor mutilated sengil as cold as the chills still sweeping my body.

Without a word I walked up to him. I rested a caring hand on his shoulder and rubbed it, but still Silas didn’t move. I wondered with sadness just what was going on inside of that head, for I knew the more still I had been, the louder the tormenting voices inside my mind were.

I bet the voices that had once ravaged my head held no candle to the ones inside of Silas’s.

The thought made me squeeze his shoulder, clammy and tense under my hand. “If you will let me, my King,” I said quietly. “I would like to pledge my life to you.”

Silas looked up from the credenza, my words seemingly breaking his hypnotic almost catatonic state. “What?” he said in a dead voice, one that held none of its former power.

“I would like to become your sengil. I want to devote my immortal life to your care and happiness until you no longer wish me around, if you will allow it.”

Silas turned around and looked at me, the agony and sadness deeply painted on his face. In this moment, my terrible king seemed but a forgotten waif, a shell of the terror he once was.

“Why?” Silas whispered.

I gently grabbed his hand and squeezed it. “Because I love you.” I kissed his hand gently. “More than I love Jack, and more than I love my freedom. Let me serve you, Master.”

Intently I stared at him, tracing my eyes over each feature in his face, analyzing each movement, each strand of tension. Wanting to gauge every reaction to see if this is what he wanted, if my need to help him was truly something that he could see as beneficial. So badly did I want to help my king, to tend to him and take care of him body, mind, and spirit, to rebuild him as he did me, without judgement.

Elish had always had underhanded intentions when it came to loving Silas, whether he would admit it or not. And perhaps a part of me did as well, though my inner hope that I could help Ceph with his punishment was only a small part of my drive to help my king.

Ceph… claustrophobic Ceph. If Silas would let me back into his heart, and his home – I could help you. I have my ideas and my plans. As I healed Silas I can give you the tools to help you during the maddening monotony I know you’re experiencing.

Everyone will benefit from this, and the only man who wouldn’t – one day I would make him understand.

“Please, Silas. I love you more than any of them, this you know.” My lips tenderly kissed his hand a second time. “So let me serve you. Let me be the one to be beside you.”

The king watched me rub his hand, the expression on his face barren. The silence that overtook him coated both of us, and under that cloak the two of us stood in the reticence for over a minute.

I had almost given up and taken my idea as a failure, when I saw him nod.

“Okay,” was all he said back.

A note from Quil

Well that was definitely a difficult book to write for many reasons, the time that Sami spent at Jasper’s especially. I wanted to tell Sami’s whole story but was left with the issue of not wanting to go into great detail with the physical things that Jasper did to Sami. I know I’m not one to gloss over anything sexual in my books but quite frankly that goes out the window when dealing with young kids (obviously). You don’t want to read about it and I don’t want to write about it, but I think I got the point across without (as I said in the beginning of the book) glorifying it or embellishing it. In the end I think I did Sanguine justice and told his story in the best way I possibly could.

I wish this book could’ve gone on for longer though to be honest. There are a lot of things I wish I could’ve written about but, once again, book length held me back and the fact that there is just so much to tell! Don’t worry though; this is what companion books are for.

I am planning on
at least
six books in the main Fallocaust series and that means six companion books as well. Please remember that the first generation of immortals are ninety-one years old, Sanguine was seventy when the main series started. There is a huge expanse of time from where Severing Sanguine ends to when the main series begins. I can’t stuff all of that into one companion book without selling all of my characters’ stories short. So please, be patient! Their stories will all be told as the series goes on. No one will be forgotten about and it will eventually all weave together. Instant gratification won’t be found in The Fallocaust Series but if you will be patient and let me tell the story how I feel it should be told – it will be fucking amazing.