We were plucked out of the car without ceremony. Lucian put up a fight buy his elder brothers held him down easily enough.

Damon and Julian held him between them. Their father Damien gestured for me to move ahead. I didn't preamble but took my seat in the car and waited.

Damien sat beside me and started the engine. The three brothers would make it back on foot. I avoided looking Lucian in the eye all this time.

But I felt him and heard him loud and clear in my head. His words rang out at me. A mortal wound all of its own. He had found yet another way to kill me while I was still alive.

He was not wrong. I have betrayed him. I have betrayed us. But I did it for the both of us. We have tried his way gor five years already. It was five years of hell to me. I couldn't go on that way. There was more at risk then my dying physically. I would go mad. Mentally insane if he had me continue with that purposeless existence.

Our love for each other although all consuming was not enough.

I sat holding my aching head and suffering Lucian's berating in silence. We arrived at Damien's home a short while later. Cassie, Lucian's mother was already there at the front door anxiously waiting. She spared me a cursory glance before falling on Lucian to shower him with her kisses of welcome.

I was thankful for the respite. It was obvious Lucian could not maintain his onesided vitriol towards me while esconded in his mother's warm embrace. The silence in my head served as a warm embrace all on its own but just as abruptly it was gone. I winced and barely held back a whimper as Lucian's insults started up anew.

Damon caught my eye and read more than was obvious within it. With a swift reflex he landed a well aimed blow on Lucian's own head momentarily providing me with another respite.

"Stay out of her head," snarled Damon at Lucian surprising all of us into shocked stillness.

Then Cassie was all a titter ushering everyone in. Damien moved to herd me away from the rest but Cassie beat him to it. Hurrying to my side she absconded with me entirely calling our behind our disappearing backs that us girls needed to catch up on girly talks.

I didn't look back. I felt as sullen as Lucian usually was. Cassie took me to her room and shut and locked the door. She pointed at the thickly padded walls of her room and explained, "Sound proof my dear. You can tell me anything you want here. You know Damien wants you dead. You must have a plan for coming to us like you did. "

I shook my head. "I have no plan. It doesn't matter if Damien kills me. I am dying anyway."

I shifted to shrug out of my jacket and pull off my top wanting to show her instead.

"What the fuck? "

Those bitter words drew both my own and Cassie' s gasp. Damon stood at the open doorway gaping down at me. He swiftly strode in and shut the door behind him. Then he was by my side sweeping me up in his arms and carrying me to the bed. I was laid out on it and tucked in beneath all the blankets as if I was already at deaths door.

Maybe I was.

I sent a sheepish smile at Damon. Being the eldest he took his role in caring for his siblings seriously. But I didn't deserve the same treatment. I had betrayed his brother in even coming here.

"So what is it you want us to do for you? " Cassie came to sit by me on her bed. Gone was warm tenderness of before. Now she looked at me as what I was. An emotional bomb that is ticking to explode within the walls of her home. She realised my death was inevitable and that Lucian's denial would lead into eventual blood shed.

The blood being her family's.