Blood on the Sun-ch 4
Song of the Sangamar book 2
Silence. The entirety of the estate was muffled by the mournful, heavy, suffocating shroud of silence. No laughter graced its barren halls.
Draven, who normally found solace in music and noise, sat alone in the wicker chair in the greenhouse. The garden had always soothed his soul, but even the beauty of the blossoming flowers as spring gave way to summer did nothing to numb the aching hollow in his chest. The only flower that he wished to see, smell, hold in his hands was out of reach. Lily was gone. It had been nearly a month.
The door to the greenhouse creaked open, shutting almost as quickly. Two pairs of footsteps carefully stepped into his sanctum. He leaned his head back in the chair, closing his eyes. He didn’t need to see them to know who they were, and why they were here.
“Come on, Draven.”
“You haven’t eaten anything in days. I know none of us had really gotten used to having a constant source of blood around, but we do still need food. You need food, little brother. What would she say if she saw you like this?”
Draven opened one dark eye, peering at Orion and Oberon with a tired glare. “She wouldn’t ever see me like this, because if she was here, I’d be eating just fine. Three meals a day, at least.”
Oberon came closer, a faint shadow of tiredness marring the skin beneath his blue eyes. “No matter where she is, you know she’s not fucking dead. If she saw you neglecting yourself like this, she’d beat your ass, kid. And you know it.”
Draven leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and gazing down at the ground. Thick, dark hair slid past his shoulders, shading and concealing his face and the unshed tears that made his vision wobbly. His shoulders trembled, but he knew he could hold back the flood of tears that threatened to pour. At least, he hoped that he could.
Orion rolled his eyes, hip-checking his twin out of the way while Oberon protested with a wordless sound of annoyance. Orion rested a heavy hand on Draven’s narrow shoulders. “Catch more flies with honey, Bear.” He gave Draven’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze.
The younger vampire looked up at him, so physically different from the classic traits that tied the Winterbourne lineage together. No blond hair, no blue eyes, no broad shoulders. The anguished, aching abyss within Draven’s deep brown eyes echoed and reflected the same pain that radiated from Orion’s own. In this moment, their bond was undeniable. And all because of a girl who had come to love the seven of them for exactly who they were.
Draven got to his feet suddenly, crashing into Orion and throwing his arms around him. He clung to the elder twin desperately, his lean body wracked by gut-wrenching sobs that pierced the hearts of anyone who could hear the expulsion of pain that crawled its way from the depths of his soul.
Orion was startled until he realized what was happening. His body and posture softened, his own throat tight as he wrapped their adopted brother in a protective embrace. Orion didn’t try to placate him with vapid platitudes and vague words of encouragement. Didn’t tell him to stuff his feelings down and man up. He wouldn’t lie and tell the youngest Winterbourne that everything would be all right. To be honest, Orion didn’t know if anything would ever be okay again. All he could do in that moment was to stand with Draven in his pain and let him know that he wasn’t alone, even without her presence.
Realizing he’d been too harsh with the baby bat, Oberon hugged both of them, resting his cheek against Draven’s shoulder. “I know that sometimes you feel like you don’t belong anywhere, Draven. I won’t pretend I understand how that feels because, no matter what, I’ve got this mirror of me that walks around without needing a glass to reflect how I look. We won’t talk about how he’s clearly the slightly less intelligent reflection, though.” Draven couldn’t resist a choked-up little chuckle at the bad joke.
“And Lily has this way of pulling you into this warmth that’s unlike anything you’ve ever felt before. Even when she’s sad, she’s just… open, and there for you. No matter what. With her gone…” Oberon swallowed and rethought his words, exhaling slowly as he fought to keep his own emotions in check. “With her not here, you probably feel like any ties you had to us are diminished. And that couldn’t be less true. We loved you before we even met her.”
Draven sniffed, taking a steadying breath. “She brought us all together in a way we never were for the entire decade I was here, before she moved in. What if we never get back to that?”
Orion spoke up. “I’m looking forward to her return as much as any of us, but now what we know how to actually be a family… Once we’ve had some time to grieve, we’ll get our shit together and be stronger than before.”
The twins stepped back, clapping him on the shoulders in unison. “You’re a Winterbourne, Draven. Whether you like it or not.”
Orion lifted a long, silken lock of his dark hair in thick fingers, turning blue eyes to darker ones that were slightly higher up than his own. “And you don’t have to waste your energy using that glamour of yours to try to prove it by looking more like us. Anyone who runs up against your shitty attitude would know that this family is where you belong in a fucking heartbeat.”
That made the youngest Winterbourne’s laughter spill forth, pure and free. The first time the twins had heard him laugh in weeks. “Fuck off!” he snarked.
Oberon trapped Draven between his and Orion’s heavily muscled arms and pressed a sloppy wet kiss to his cheek, which he tried to squirm away from.
“Love you, too, you skinny brat.”
~*~
Leonard sighed, leaning against the door frame to the unpleasantly empty dining room. It had been nearly a month, and the seven of them hadn’t shared a meal together since Liliana was taken. The estate staff still bustled about, preparing meals that were smaller than before, keeping everything tidy. But they even seemed gloomier without Lily’s presence.
He worried about her well-being, and hoped with everything he was that she wasn’t being harmed, but… Even more than concern about Lily, Leon was worried for the state of his family. Their father was gone more than he was present. Always had been. And Aubrey had no interest in taking over as the head of the family, despite it being his right as the eldest. Leon had always been the de facto patriarch of the Winterbourne clan, glad to shoulder that responsibility when he saw that it was a role that needed filling. And when Lily had joined them, her welcoming feminine warmth had brought cohesion to a ragtag band of vampires who’d previously barely tolerated each other, at best.
She’d been ripped away from them so quickly that none of them had recovered from the shock of it, even several weeks after the fact. Leon hated to admit it, but he missed his brothers. No matter how big of a pain in the ass they could be, he’d gotten used to seeing them for meals. The group of them sitting together around the large table and engaged in conversation with each other, rather than ignoring the existence of everyone else, had wormed its insidious way into his heart. He’d always hoped the seven of them could be together in such a natural way, as a family was meant to be. After finally having the luxury of experiencing it firsthand, he wondered how he’d ever done without it and knew that he didn’t want to be without it going forward.
Occasionally, a few of them would join him for breakfast or dinner. But more often than not, the Winterbourne siblings opted to have the estate staff bring them food in their rooms. Everything had become a solitary endeavor. Leon hadn’t even seen Jax in a week. The twins had recently confided in him that Draven hadn’t eaten in days. He was slender enough that he didn’t really have the mass to lose, so their concern for him sank into Leon’s mind as well.
But now, the second eldest Winterbourne had even more pressing concerns than continuing the hunt for their lost and abducted sangamar. They would get her back. There was no other acceptable option. It was only a matter of when, not if. Leon would see to that, and he knew he wasn’t alone in that surety.
His phone buzzed insistently in his pocket. He withdrew it and glanced at the screen with an expression that went from exhausted to mildly concerned. It was from Daniel, who was obviously more elated and excited than Leon.
“His car just pulled up, out front! He’s finally home!”