Penance of Honor | BOOK 2 ✔️

Chapter: Seven

Pierce's P.O.V

I struggle down on the ground as Aaron tries to wrap the collar around my neck starting from my throat. One of my hands is let free and I am quick to roll around pushing him from off of me, if only for a minute. 

"I had, had enough of this!" Aaron yells tightening his hold around my throat. "I asked you if you wanted me to cause you pain and this seems to be your answer."  He held the collar firmer pressing into my throat as his grip tightened even more. 

"Maybe it's best if you do die."

"Alex, enough!" I feel the air come back into me as soon as someone comes and pushes him from on top of me. My vision is nothing but splotches and blurry images. For a few seconds, I give into a coughing fit until I am able to calm myself down again. Aaron was trying to kill me, truly kill me. 

"Are you all right?" My eyes widen the minute my vision clears and see a pair of dark, amber eyes peering down at me. His hair is an auburn color that fell down to the start of his back and he holds that same Northern, sun-kissed coloring, I had grown to love on Cassius. 

"Emil... I was only doing as was told."

"You were killing him."

"Same difference." 

I put my hand around my throat still feeling like his grip was still on it at his words. My eyes pricks with tears as I realize, truly realize, my brother is lost to me. How could that be? I rather him be dead than to be alive and like this. 

"Go, I will finish the rest. Go, Alex. Withhold your anger for another time."

Before long, Emil comes and sit by me, legs straight out and head tilted to the skies.

"This is the South...where humans hold power, not us. In order to survive, you must be willing to part with that pride of yours. Truly, Alex would have killed you."

"I very well know that..." I try to hold his gaze, but a feeling of yearning only goes through me causing my eyes to blur with more water. 

"Ah, do I remind you of someone?" My eyes widen before a small smile passes his lips. He was much older than Cassius, closer to my own brother's age. 

"Do not act so surprised. It is written all over your face," he laughs as he finishes.

"...you do."

"I'm guessing someone you want to get back to."

"Want? No...I need to. You do not understand...how much I have to." Leaving him the way that I did, I know he is suffering and it pains me...not having Addelin or Grimm for comfort... As strong as he likes to present himself to be, I know him for a sensitive thing, easily hurt...easy to break... My eyes fall at the thought making my heart beat become unsteady and my body tense.

"Pierce, is it? Listen well, Josias has been plotting to leave for years now. He may know a way. Stay close to him and you will find yourself back home in no time."

"...And you?"

"...Me?" he laughs. "I have a daughter...and she may not be welcomed back to the territory I am from, simply because of her mixed blood. I will not leave without her, nor her mother."

My mouth falls open at his confession. As if the look on my face says all I want to ask, he nods his head in response. 

"Yes, I have fallen for a human and... as a result of our love...gave way to a child. The word child seems to scare you, but you are not so far from having one yourself, am I correct?"

I flush as the conversations I had with Cassius comes rushing back to my mind. "...He does want children...lots and lots of them, he says." I try to hold down a smile as I remember more of the conversation.