With a sharp jab, Munro tagged him in the kidney, a particularly painful spot for both of them.
Only problem with fighting your twin: you both shared the same weaknesses.
"Were you vivisected?"
The word made Will flinch more than the punch had. So he launched another fist. "Chest cracked open, organs plucked, then stapled back up? The prisoners called it a zipper in the chest." A big seeping Y from belly to collarbones-something on the outside to keep you occupied while regenerating your insides.
"This was done to you, brathair?" Brother. Now Munro seethed.
"And I canna get vengeance!" No outlet to vent this rage.
Will couldn't decide which of his four enemies he hated more: the soothsayer who'd betrayed him, the Blademan who'd caged him, the scientist who'd tormented him, or the one who'd set it all in motion: Preston Webb.
He lunged for Munro again, pummeling his brother, pissed because he knew Munro was holding back. His eyes had scarcely flickered, his beast as firmly leashed as usual.
To hell with it. Will's knuckles stung, his face throbbed. At some point in the last ten minutes, he'd begun to crave whiskey more than hitting Munro. With a final halfhearted blow, Will released him. As quickly as the fight had started, he ended it. They were both breathing heavily, both bloodied.
At the same instant that Munro swiped his sleeve over his lacerated forehead, Will did the same over his shattered nose.
Then he turned toward the liquor cabinet to root for a fifth. Ah, Macallan. Fine whiskey, expensive. He chugged it like water. The liquid stung his lips, swirling around temporarily loosened teeth. He couldn't quite taste it with his nose full of blood.
But Munro wouldn't let this drop. "And what about the doctor I heard tell of?"
Will clenched the bottle neck so hard it broke, shards digging into his palm while the bottom half fell and shattered all over the floor. "She took a special interest in me." Her eyes wide behind oversize glasses, she'd softly queried, "Why should Chase be the only one with an immortal plaything?"
Will had made her pay-but too late. The experiments and torture had dredged up all his memories. I'd thought I was doing so well.
"Do you know where Dixon is?" Munro asked. "No one in the Lore can find her."
"I made sure she was conscious as I ripped her limb from limb." And he wished to the gods that he could do it again, leisurely. He dared his brother to say aught about that.
Munro didn't. "Someone saw succubae tracking you through the prison."
To avoid Munro's gaze, Will dug up another bottle. "They wanted Lykae for dinner. As usual." Ruelle had been right. Werewolves were sodding catnip for those parasites.
New bottle in hand, Will staggered back against the wall, overwhelmed by the memories. His hatred of succubae burned afresh, until it choked him of breath, threatening to suffocate him.
If a man hated for this long, would there soon be nothing left of him?
Mayhap that was why the Instinct had left him. Because he was halfway to the grave already.
"And did they . . . feed?" Munro seemed to be bracing for the worst.
"They dinna." But it'd been so damned close. "They would have if no' for the Valkyrie Regin the Radiant and her cellmate." With their help, he'd been able to behead all five succubae. He often replayed that memory, the seed-feeders' screams, their surprise.
"Regin is the Blademan's woman, and she helped save you from a hellish fate," Munro said. "Is that why you have no' targeted her male?"
The man had overseen security on the island and had bludgeoned Will for an escape attempt. Thought to be human, the Blademan was actually a berserker. "That's one reason." Another? Nix had told him that their future lines would entwine. No' if I'm dead, Nix!
Munro snapped his fingers for the whiskey. "Give over."
Will cradled his bottle in the crook of his elbow, handing Munro his own. "Are we done now? Can we never speak of this again?"
Munro raised his brows, the slash on his forehead making him wince. "We have to do something."
Will took another long draw. "I canna target Chase. I canna find Webb." Canna target Nix. "There's nothing to be done." Never had his future seemed so hopeless. Not even when he'd inadvertently killed both of his parents and his unborn sister. At least then he'd naively thought that time healed all wounds, that one day his pain would lessen.
What a crock of bullshite. Time multiplied all wounds. "And if I see one more pitying look, I'll give you a proper hiding, I swear to gods."
"I know about the plane ticket," Munro said simply, but so much was going on behind those eyes.
Will's time in that prison had made him realize how ridiculous it was to keep struggling, to keep living as if he had reason to. Nine hundred plus years was plenty. And only an idiot would continue constructing a building on such a bollixed foundation. "Wanted a change of pace."
"Doona lie to me! You think I doona know what you're contemplating? You interrogated Bowen about the Pit of the Fyre Dragan."
Last year, their cousin Bowen had been trapped in that lair before escaping. When Will had heard of the place, he'd perked the hell up. It was all well and good to be suicidal, but an immortal had practicalities to deal with. Namely: unless you could cut off your own head, you couldn't kill yourself.
As my father knew . . .
So Will had planned to take a dip in the Pit.
"And then," Munro continued, "you bought a one-way ticket to a place nicknamed Where Immortals Go to Die."
The whiskey was loosening Will's tongue, coaxing him to admit the truth. "When I was young, I got . . . twisted. Now I'm no' right. There it is, there's nothing to be done for it." He shrugged. "If there were, it would have happened by now."
Munro's eyes were widening as if he was chilled by Will's casual demeanor.
"Gods, man, I've had so many centuries," Will said. "I've lived long enough." Nix had been right about one thing-the bone hadn't set right. Now pulverized, never to knit. "The prison was just a hint, brother."
"Did you never consider how I'd feel to lose the last of my family?"
"Oh, aye." He'd debated it, deciding Munro would be better off. Since he was revealing all, Will might as well round out the tale. "My Instinct was quiet before the prison. Now it's gone."
Munro's jaw slackened, as if he could scarcely imagine this loss. The Instinct was part of what made a Lykae who he was.
Will drank deep, then said, "Hell, that means I'm halfway dead already. I've no Instinct and little control of my beast. I'm a liability. I will no' be a burden to this pack." To you.
Munro had said he didn't pity Will. But I pity him. In one fell swoop, Munro had lost two incredible parents and a baby sister, and gained a burden for life.
Will had been waiting centuries for Munro to wake the hell up and realize he hated his brother. "The only reason I'm no' already dead is because I craved retribution first."
"We'll find your mate. She can heal you. We'll call Nix and ask her to search-"
"Doona say that Valkyrie's name to me again!"
Munro raised his brows. "Yet another secret?"
Ronan and Ben burst into the lodge then, gazing at all the destruction, the blood. Ronan looked impressed, but Ben's eyes began to flicker blue, his beast stirring from just the evidence of violence.