“What?”
“I want the Variks to be a true clan. I want to offer Gideon, Lola, and Ryder the kind of security you’ve given your clan members.”
Philippe’s mouth opened and closed a couple of times, but words never came out. Some of the anger had been sucked out of his frame, but the hard line of his lips made it clear it wasn’t all gone. “Why? Why did you wait so long?”
“Julianna Varik.” Rafe’s voice caught on her name. He hadn’t spoken of his mother with Philippe before. He’d never spoken about her with anyone. It almost felt like a betrayal of a family secret, but he trusted Philippe.
His lover’s bright-green eyes darted away, and he stared at the carpet. “I heard she was ill.”
That was an understatement. Vampires didn’t become ill. They were never anything but the perfection they were reborn to. But Julianna Varik had been very ill.
“I loved my mother, Philippe. In my world, she was grace, kindness, and warmth. She was love. She adored her children and she adored Aiden.”
“She sounds quite amazing.”
Rafe had to turn away from his companion. He couldn’t meet his eyes. It wasn’t just a secret, but a dark shame they all carried. A failure. Not that she was ill. That was no one’s fault. Just a horrible twist of fate or genetics. No, the failure was that they hadn’t been able to help her, save her after everything she’d given them.
Others knew whispers, but no one outside their family had ever been given the full, unadulterated truth.
“She was a bit mad before she was turned. Nothing too dreadful. Just full of fanciful tales, and we’d occasionally catch her whispering to no one. Would have called them hallucinations now in modern psychology.” He paused and cleared his throat against the lump that had grown there. The world seemed to close in and grow a bit darker. It had been only a few months since her murder, and the wound was still fresh.
“Rafe, you don’t have to—”
“I do!” Rafe whirled back around to face Philippe. He clenched his teeth as helpless rage swelled in his chest. “You make the Variks sound like elitist snobs, but no one understands why we have always been so closed. Why the Variks didn’t associate with anyone. No one considered that we might be protecting you from Julianna.”
“I…I didn’t realize…but…” Philippe stammered, seeming to struggle for the words.
“She went mad. When Aiden changed her, something…something broke in her mind. We used the music to control her, to make her pliable and calm.” Rafe closed his eyes, balling his hands into fists at his sides. “Her illness was the entire reason my brothers and I became vampires. It was the only chance we had of protecting her and protecting the world from her.”
The silence stretched through the room and Rafe had to finally look up at Philippe. The beautiful angel looked stricken, his lips parted and his cheeks pale. Those perfect green eyes glistened like wet grass after a summer storm.
“How could we dare bring in an outsider? Who could we trust with such a secret?”
Philippe’s gaze flicked to Rafe, and his throat moved. Rafe had a feeling Philippe wanted to say he could be trusted. At the very least, Rafe believed that.
Rafe shook his head. “I’d never have risked your life.” His voice was rough and low. “Do you know how close I’ve come to losing my brothers over the years? To losing Bel?” The question was nearly lost as his voice broke. “The last time…she nearly killed him. I wanted to strangle her myself.”
“She attacked him? Attacked you?”
“Not my mother. Never Julianna,” Rafe whispered when he could speak again. “The monster living in her brain. That fed her evil lies about her family.”
Philippe was suddenly there, his arms wrapping tightly around Rafe, filling him with a sense of warmth and love he hadn’t realized was missing. He clutched Philippe to him, pressing his face into Philippe’s hair. Breathing deep, he dragged in the scent of oranges and fresh linen, hints of bergamot and something he could only label the beauty of Philippe. Those scents would be forever linked to a feeling of love and home.
“I’m sorry, mon amour. So very sorry you’ve suffered such pain. That your brothers suffered.”
“We never stopped loving her. We had brief periods of quiet, where we had our true mother, but…”
“But it was always in the back of your mind that it was temporary. You worried about your twin. All your brothers if you were not with them.”
It was with some reluctance that Rafe released his hold on Philippe and took a step away so he could clearly look into his face. “I’m telling you this family secret so that you understand us. We take family very seriously. I had to be able to trust my family completely, or I would never have survived those years with my mother. They had to trust me in return. I don’t cast doubt on your family members lightly.”