Fated To Three, Betrayed By All… Until She Rose.

Kael.

"How the fuck were you so stupid!" Zevran growled at Caelum from behind me but I was too frustrated to turn around, and too pissed to even bring myself to look at them.

Especially Caelum.

The idiot who has just made life ten times harder by impregnating Chalice.

I burned with rage as I squeezed hard on the wine glass in my hands, and didn’t even realize how hard I was squeezing until...

*Crash!*

It broke.

Some bits of glass tore into my flesh, drawing blood. But I didn’t feel any pain. I didn’t even feel anything at all. I simply felt bad.

Absolute-fucking-ly bad!

How the hell do I explain this news to Leilani now? How would she look at me after finding out that we’d gotten Chalice pregnant, especially since I’d been trying to get into her good graces?

My eyebrows twitched when something flew past my head and I turned around just then to see that both Caelum and Zevran were now involved in a heated argument. And while Zevran was just as pissed as I was about the whole thing, Caelum wasn’t.

He felt it was okay since we had all planned to marry her in the first place.

I growled; "What?!"

"Didn’t we all agree to wed her? We’d even fixed a date and all... so why the hell are you guys acting like I committed a heinous crime because she got pregnant with my child only a few weeks before the wedding?"

At that, I dropped back into my chair and closed my eyes. My chest was suddenly feeling very tight so I had to breathe in and out countless times, hoping desperately that it would help with the unease.

It didn’t.

If anything, the ache in my chest happened to spread out even more. I sighed. "I don’t know... Caelum..."

"You don’t know what?" Caelum snarled.

"I don’t know if I want to wed her anymore... I don’t think I want to go on with this wedding anymore."

Now that the words were finally out of my chest, I felt lighter. Better.

But that was not the case with Caelum who looked now like he was about to murder me. His face had gone stone cold and his hands, once holding onto a book now looked chalk white with veins popping up on them like they were about to burst.

He flung his book aggressively at me, his voice icy as he seethed; "You don’t mean that, do you?"

"I do." I answered softly as I turned to look at Zevran who just seemed... there. Obviously, he agreed with me. Hell, he’s never even wanted Chalice from the onset!

"God!" Caelum growled, rubbing at his face desperately as he turned away from Zevran and I. His eyes had deepened and in just a few seconds, he looked like he’d aged about a few years.

Suddenly, he plopped down on the chair close to mine and dropped his gaze, his voice rough as he asked; "is this because of Leilani?"

"Oh, shit... no, of course not! No!" I rushed out quickly, ignoring the stutter in my words and how uncontrollably my heart was beating fast.

Caelum didn’t seem to buy my words but he didn’t push it. Instead for the first time, he nodded as if in understanding and drawled;

"Then why?"

"Because I don’t know... I feel like I am not ready for this kind of long commitment..."

"I also feel like we do not know her well enough." Zevran butted in, causing us both to turn to him in surprise.

I found my voice first because Caelum had gone back to looking murderous. I asked; "What do you mean by that?"

Now, the look on Zevran’s face had me freezing for a moment. He leaned away from the wall to walk up to us and with his arms crossed over his chest, he said seriously;

"I found footage one time at the hospital where she confronted and hit Leilani first. And when I asked her about it, she said she’d been provoked even though she’d lied previously that Leilani struck her first."

At that, my head snapped up to meet his gaze, and suddenly, Leilani’s words began to echo in my mind. I could remember how she’d talked about Chalice always twisting the truth. How she’d been wrongfully accused most of the time.

How—

Oh my God!

"Leilani sure is good at provoking people. So I’m not surprised that she had managed to push Chalice into retaliating! If anything, I am proud!" Caelum sneered and I instantly had this irresistible urge to smack his head so hard, he could momentarily get to see the child he’d conceived with Chalice in heaven.

I snorted. "Caelum!"

"What? It’s not like you’ve not experienced first hand how annoying Leilani can be! And if Chalice struck her then what difference does it make? We’ve struck her before too!" He argued.

And I hate to say this, but he was right.

He was fucking right.

We were no better than Chalice at this point.

I turned back to look at Zevran only to find him silently watching us. But when he spoke again, it was not to agree or disagree with any of us. He simply asked; "Do you guys know that her nickname is Candy?"

I froze. "What?"

"And what does that have to do with anything?" Caelum snarled in annoyance. "It’s a fucking nickname the same way you used to be called Zebra in middle school!"

"Yes, that’s true..." he answered slowly, his eyes darting between Caelum and I. "It’s true that it’s only a nickname but she seems to hate it with a passion. I feel like there’s a backstory to it. Like there’s something I need to know about it."

My heart was beating so fast and there was a slight tremor in my hands that I tried so hard to hide. When Caelum wouldn’t stop flying to Chalice’s defense, I started to grow more annoyed.

"There’s indeed a backstory..." I drawled darkly, my heart racing with apprehension as forgotten memories rushed into my mind.

Oh goddess, what the fuck? What the actual fuck?

My eyes snagged on my brothers to find them watching me with keen interest, but because I didn’t know what to say or how to say it, I simply coughed, dropped my head and muttered;

"A while ago, I helped her to her hotel room because she was tired and asleep. I can’t remember if she was drunk or not but then she’d been asleep in my arms. In the hotel lobby, a strange man had seen her and called her Candy. He looked like a pervert, acted like one too and I had shut him off because I thought that he was just being sleazy... and now, Zevran, you say that—"

"She was called Candy by Leilani and she absolutely abhorred the name. She tried to lie that she had nothing to do with it but her eyes had said otherwise... her body too."

Caelum rolled his eyes in annoyance, whilst shaking his head from side to side as he seethed; "I don’t think it means anything!"

"I think it does!" Zevran clapped back. "I think she’s hiding something from us!"

"I think so too!" I answered quickly, "...and we must know what it is before any damn wedding can be held!"

"No, you won’t!" A voice suddenly said from the door, causing my brothers and I to instinctively turn to the sound.

It was our mother and she was frowning.

I froze. "Mother?"

"The wedding can not wait!" She seethed, ignoring the strange looks on our faces. "It’ll hold and I don’t give a damn if you’re about to wed the devil’s incarnate or not."

"Mother!" Now, it was Caelum who snapped, "...you don’t even try to hide the fact that you don’t like Chalice!"

"Because I don’t like her!" She snarled back. "...and I don’t have to be apologetic about it. All I care about is your father and how I want him to die peacefully on his island, knowing fully well that all his hard work went to his sons and not to his stupid brother’s son, Micah!"