Although they were from different bloodlines, he and Erik were one and the same. Thorn had been born of a dream, just as Maman used to tell him. His incubus father—a creature Thorn never wished to know—had seduced his human mother as she slept, drained her of energy, but left her alive and with child.
Using his connections in the subterranean domain, Erik had traced Thorn’s preternatural lineage to a prosperous clan who lived in an underground mirrored city in Canada. When Thorn turned fourteen, Erik offered him the opportunity to go to them. But Thorn chose to stay. By then, he hated his real father for abandoning his mother, resulting in her death and Thorn’s orphaned childhood.
More important, by that time, Thorn already loved Erik as family.
That’s what drove him to lie to Rune in the note yesterday. A half-lie. He was going to give her a father tonight. Just not the one she was expecting.
If only he could forget the sound of her gentle voice from the last evening they were together, when she said the word: Etalon. How long had it been since he’d heard his true name spoken by anyone?
Each time he closed his eyes, he imagined Rune’s lips curved to a smile and pressing that name against his mouth, imagined stealing a kiss, drinking of that pure white light—her celestial essence that cradled and calmed him like nothing ever had in his life. Spending time with Rune gave him true serenity. She inspired him, yet at the same time, left him teetering at the brink of desolation. It was overwhelming, to be so close to being united, after being separate for so long.
Erik had once told Thorn how rare it was for twin flames to be incarnated on the earth at the same time—for them to be close enough in age and proximity to find each other. “How precious and fragile the bond,” he’d said. “It can be heaven or utter hell.”
If either or both of the twin flames were incomplete people, if they were still learning who they were themselves, the relationship would be fraught with pain and misfortune. At the time, Erik had been referencing his own experience with Christina. But it appeared Thorn was cursed to repeat that tragic performance.
Rune was his soul’s mirror. Each time he looked at her, he saw himself. Her strengths paralleled his: a seamstress, with the talent for taking scraps and making masterpieces, just as he did with broken animals; a kinship with flowers and plants—the quiet, lovely parts of the world that asked nothing from anyone other than to be admired, respected, and appreciated; and a deep, introspective curiosity that sought out powers too strange or frightening for typical people to embrace.
She even shared his flaws, the things he struggled not to despise about himself: the inability to sing without pain, the isolation from being born different, a deep distrust of everyone but himself.
But he had managed to bypass her distrust; he’d healed her pain, by speaking to her with his violin—a violin that he now knew, after experiencing her childhood memories, had a deeper tie to her blood than she could possibly fathom.
He was having trouble reconciling that detail himself, how the instrument had come into his possession at all. No wonder their connection was so strong.
It had been easy to justify taking advantage of their spiritual bond. To tell himself he was helping her on some level. But all he’d really done was make things more difficult for everyone. She came here hating her gift. And he’d opened the door for her to love it.
If she truly had come to love it, how could she possibly give it up when the time came? She had only two days left until Halloween and her imminent appointment with fate in Erik’s cellar lab.
The thought of his father’s plan coming to fruition sliced through Thorn’s gut like the brambly clawed vines that waited downstairs to capture their unsuspecting victims.
He stared at the floor. All it would take was a flip of a switch, and the mirrors would slide open, revealing the club below—his ringside seat. The guests would still see a domed, reflective ceiling from their side. They’d never know he was spying upon them, or siphoning off their terror through black, energy-absorbing tubes that connected the club to this room.
It was an art form, the way Father Erik could enchant an audience, cushion them with billowing chords of operatic splendor, then send them plummeting into the depths of revulsion and dread before they even realized the trapdoors of their subconscious had been triggered.
Thorn ground his teeth, envisioning Rune alone, trapped by an instinct she didn’t yet understand or control, in that surging fray of victims and harrowing energy. He slammed his wine goblet to the table. No way in hell was he going to watch from here.
But he’d promised Erik not to show his face tonight. That much he would honor.