Children of the Fallen: Bloodlines (BOOK #3)

Chapter 18: Egypt

Dane Brooks

16 Years Ago

I haven't seen Morgan in a few weeks which does happen here and there if Luciens and his nobles and guards are swarming the place. She said she's established enough fear over his underlings that they wouldn't dare tell on her, she's only worried about his nobles or high up guards.

She entered my cell turning on the dim light as she closes the door behind her. It's nice getting to see light even if it is for a short period of time, normally it's dark with only the small door slot letting some light in from the hallway. I find it comforting, in the darkness I can't see my abysmal living conditions. "They're all out discussing this mess." She says tiredly, motioning to her body. Dressed in all black with thigh knife holsters that are currently empty, and bloodied and lightly wounded likely from sage.

"Hunters, I presume." I stand up from the stone slab that's supposedly my bed.

She nods stepping towards me as I do the same, wincing at the chains digging into my wrists- Lucien came in about two weeks ago with smaller ones just to worsen my discomfort. She makes an attempt at wiping her blood soaked hair out of her face but it's pretty stuck on there. "They attacked at some meeting near his annex palace. He was called and dragged me along." She sits down on the ground outside my cell and leans her side against the bars, "I want to sleep for the next thirty years." She groans.

"Are you okay?" I sit down facing the bars, leaning back on one hand behind me.

"I got to kill everyone who stabbed me tonight but I'll be extra happy as soon as I'm out of these blood soaked clothes." She says smiling. "Wanted to see you first, I haven't had the chance in a while."

'I got to kill everyone' and with a smile on her face. "I figured Lucien was just running you rampant."

"As of late, you have no idea."

"Why?"

She swallows refusing eye contact with me. "I'm just not perfect to him yet." She says. "Says I'm weak still." Her eyes shine with disappointment. "I'm hoping tonight changes his mind a little so I can get a break." She chuckles softly, picking at the blood underneath her finger nails. I don't particularly want to know exactly what went on tonight.

My bones and muscles scream at me as I stand back up to make my way over to my 'bed'- calling it a bed is really generous. "What are you doing?" She asks.

"One second." I say kneeling on the stone 'bed' I use my nail to upend a small piece of the stone in the wall. Finally getting the piece of the broken stone out of the wall I reach in grabbing the ring attached to the necklace I stashed in there. No one took it from me the second I got in here but I didn't want to give anyone the chance to so I found this loose stone and put it in there for safe keeping. I take it into my hand and walk back over to where Morgan continues leaning on the bars looking up at me. I sit- fall, back down slamming my tailbone on the harsh ground, "I want to give you something."

Her eyebrows knit together and I unfurl my hand revealing my ring attached to the necklace.

Her face relaxes but still holds an air of confusion to it, "That's the ring Chloe gave you."

"I don't know how no one ripped it off of me but I'm glad no one did." A small smile forms on my face as I stick my hand out through the bars with the ring, "Take it for me. Please?"

She flicks her eyes up at me, "Dane, I can't take that from you."

"I'm giving it to you, you're not taking it." I say. "Look... It could be any day that starving me and the occasional beating is old news to Lucien and he decides to kill me." Her whole body tenses and she closes her eyes for a moment, "I don't want to die with this lodged in a broken piece of wall. I want it out of this place. With you. Please, take it." She reluctantly holds out her hand allowing me to place it in hers.

"I can't wear it. Father will have it destroyed if he sees it."

"You don't have to wear it, I just didn't want it to be stuck in a dingy cell forever." She curls her fist around it. "I told you that Chloe gave that to me after I complained about not having any rings aside from the 'I'm Luciens' child' ring." She nods with her jaw tensed. "Really she gifted it to me after we had this dumb argument about some particularly violent thing I had to do within my territory. It was fairly early in the relationship, we'd been friends-ish for a couple of years but it was a couple of months of being official and she fell hard and quick. I don't do well with emotions or relationships so I was trying to scare her off when I realized how much she loved me. I didn't want her to get any closer than I had already allowed. So we had this fight about what I had done. She kept saying it was for show, for Lucien. She was right but I- being an idiot refused to confirm that. So I pushed on and on saying, 'this is who I am,' ' you don't even know me,' 'how could you love me,' dumb things like that. Then she takes out that ring and hands it to me." I point at her curled hand to the ring and she opens it up. "That line that's engraved..."

She stares at it running a finger along the engraved line.

"Pyramids. Three years prior, we had Ascension at Cyrus' palace near Egypt. Victoria, Chloe, and I went to the pyramids because I had never seen and always wanted to. She got the outline of the Pyramids of Giza because she said it was the first time she saw me. Not Luciens child, not a High Royal, not any other names I'd been called- she just saw me. Her and Victoria had walked off somewhere so I thought I was alone but I wasn't. She said my smile could've lit up the night and my eyes were practically glowing. She said she did know me then went on reading me like a book." I chuckle at the memory of her going on that rant while I stood there dumbfounded.

"I spent my whole life hiding behind a mask." Trying appease Lucien either as a child desperate to prove himself to his father or as an adult desperate to keep up a facade of the little monster he created. "I pretended to be someone I'm not and I was good at it- to an extent that scared me. But I was especially scared of the day that anyone got too close and saw through it all. Chloe did, she saw right through me and told me to never put on that mask around her ever again. So I didn't, I was never Luciens son around her I was just Dane." I wasn't entirely sure what that meant- but with her, for quite some time I got to at least partially figure out who I actually was. Relax for a little. "I carried that ring on me everywhere, especially when I wasn't around her. It was a gentle reminder that I'm not who I'm pretending to be. A little light in a whole bunch of dark."

"Keep it with you then." She offered her hand up.

"No." I put my hand on hers lightly pushing it down. I don't know why I didn't give it to her earlier. Maybe some part of me was selfishly keeping it wanting to hold onto that light but I've accepted my fate and I'm okay with it. She has her whole life ahead of her and more than likely all that looks like is bleak darkness. "I'm not the one who's in need of a little light." She just barely winces before looking downward at the ring she holds in her hand.

"You really loved her."

"She'll always mean the world to me." I'll always wish that I had handled it all differently, or that I just never fell out of love with her. "I hope with everything in me that she finds someone someday that loves her in all the ways I didn't or stopped. She's truly an amazing woman and she deserves to be treated like it." I look down at the ring. It's amazing how easy vulnerability is when you know you're going to die soon. Might as well get everything out before that day comes. "Hold on to that even when I'm gone."

Her eyes shoot to mine, "You're not going anywhere." She snaps. "Stop saying shit like that."

"Eventually-."

"No, not eventually. You're not going anywhere." Her biting tone matches her instantly frigid eyes. "You can't." She says lowly and a hint of pleading cuts into her voice.

"Okay, I'm not going anywhere."

She stares at me, not believing what I just said. Probably because I don't believe it either. She stands up quickly, "I'm gonna go." She clears her throat. "Clean myself up and stash this somewhere." She holds up her hand with the chain hanging through her fingers.

I nod at her. "I'll see you later."

"Yeah." She says fast, then walks out the door shutting off the light as she leaves.