When I reentered the diner, I sat back down across from Damian, who was smothering his plate of French fries with what looked like a mixture of some kind of orange salad dressing sauce and tabasco. My facial expression at his action must have shown, when I crinkled up my nose and grabbed for the ketchup bottle at the far end of the table.

"Does everything about me disgust you, Grey?" His eyes came to rest upon my face and for a second, I contemplated whether I should remain honest about my feelings towards him, or bite back some of the sarcasm and attempt a polite response.

"Honestly?" I paused for a second and placed my hands on the table to steady myself, because I could feel the honesty brewing up within my core like a geyser ready to spring forth a steaming pile of truth, "Sometimes, yes. Sometimes everything about you disgusts me and I'm probably not off base when I say that probably everything about me disgusts you." 

His face shifted from the scowl that had become a permanent fixture on his face, to one that was more relaxed and calm when he spoke, "Honestly? Nothing about you disgusts me, Grey. I actually find your big mouth and constant word vomit to be rather refreshing."

"Are you kidding me?" my words pierced the silent diner and the waitress took a step forward towards the table, more than likely fearing that there was a problem with our meal. When Damian saw her movement towards us from the corner of his eye, he just dismissed her with his hand. 

"You asked for honesty. It may come as a shock, but in my life the name Reever only commands fear, never true respect. Sure, people do as I say and look up to me, but it's done out of a means to remain on my family's good side. It's rare that it's genuine respect that it stems from. People are too afraid to stand up to me, but not you."

"It must be hard to live under that kind of shadow. I'm sorry, I didn't realize."

"Of course, you didn't, Grey. You aren't from around here and you have no experience with the inner workings of the town and the influence that the two families play." When he unleashed that statement, a wave of relief spread over me. If he was truly being honest with me, then he didn't know who I was like his brother did. Maybe my secret was safe with Paxton after all, but could I really trust either of these brothers?

"Then make me understand, Damian."

He set his fork down and looked around the diner to make sure that our conversation wasn't privy to any other patrons, of which there were currently none. When he began to speak, he leaned in and kept his voice low.

"For you to understand, first you have to ask the right question."

"And what exactly would the right question be?" I took my full cup of coffee in my hands and blew on the hot liquid contained within.

"The right question would be, why do the Wyndhams and Reevers hate each other?"

.........................

We sat in silence for the rest of the time at the diner. He never answered the question and I didn't push much farther with it. As we were driving back to the campus, he pulled suddenly off onto a dirt road that was lined heavily with trees. We drove down the road for several minutes, before coming to a circular clearing in the trees. He shut down the car, the engine settling down like a kitten ready for slumber and zipped his jacket up, before reaching in the back to grab a sweatshirt. He tossed the sweatshirt in my direction and instructed me to put it on.

He left the warmth of the car while I fidgeted with my jacket, placing it over his baggy grey sweatshirt. When my eyes looked up, he was standing in the middle of the clearing staring up at the sky. I walked over to where he stood and looked up. The trees were so massive in size that they almost closed in upon us, almost baring the night sky from really casting down its twinkle. Only the faint hint of a few stars could be seen among the large pines. 

In a few dense areas, faint hints of moonlight streamed down, illuminating patches of the ground beneath us. The sound of the wind whipping through the massive branches mimicked flutes tuning up for a concert. Damian gazed in my direction and turned to face me. "This is where it all began."

'Where what all began?" I looked at his face which was void of emotion. I clenched the sides of my jacket to keep my body heat contained, the bitter chill snapping at my bare legs.

"You asked to understand and in order to understand a story, one must be taken back to the beginning."

I stood and listened to his story, the coldness of his revelation bit my skin more than the faint breaths of air against my bare legs. His voice had a chill to it, like a man recounting the murder of a loved one over and over, until it meant nothing. Until there was only revenge to satisfy his hunger.

His story began relatively simply. His clan traced their heritage back to the Scandinavian King Angus Reever. The "Blood King," who made it his life's mission to scour the lands of Europe and the New Americas with one goal in mind, and that was to take. His Vikings would board their massive ships and set sail, pillaging towns and monasteries, securing their wealth, burning the lands, and taking their women for sport. King Reever left no survivors in his wake of destruction, each kill a sacrifice to the Aesir, who were the principal gods of the pantheon. 

They sang songs dedicated to the gods Odin, Frigg, Thor, Baldar and Tyr, as they spilled blood on vast homelands. The blood they spilled and bathed in, was a sacrifice to make themselves stronger in preparation for the impending battle of the Ragnarok, or as some knew it, Judgement Day.

Damian turned to look in my direction, "When King Reever set his sights on the lands known as Anthabask, he had one duty to the gods, spill blood and take what was rightfully his. When his ship docked off the coast, his men gathered on large war horses and made their way to this very spot where the village resided. It was the central hub for their meager kingdom, but they weren't just any kingdom. They had great caves of gold that they hid beneath their feet."

His eyes trailed up to mine as he spoke of the bloodshed that had occurred at this very clearing. His words hesitated before he continued, "He rode in with the great Ravens of Odin on his shield, who were named Huginn and Muninn, or thought and memory. However, once he spilled the blood of the men and the king, he laid eyes on the most beautiful of things, love. Overcome by a desire to take that love for himself, he settled here and built a great kingdom of his own. Bearing two sons per the will of the gods, his beautiful bride, Mahana, succumbed to fate and died."

My mind focused on his words about Odin's ravens, thinking back to the tattoos that I had viewed, branded on the beautiful skin of both Reever boys.

He stopped speaking and took off his beanie, emotion in his eyes that I had never seen before from him as he ran his hand through this messy hair. When he had composed himself, he finished. "King Reever had many enemies, but none so great as the Scottish King Villem Wyndham. Villem had assassins to do his bidding, but none so deadly as his own third wife, Aislinn. She was the most beautiful woman in the lands and the most feared, and King Villem sent her on a quest to murder Reever, as retaliation for the murder of Villem's beloved brother."

He continued the story of Aislinn's trip to the new lands and how upon her arrival all it took was one look from Reever to steal his heart. The only problem was that in the process, she fell in love as well. Already pregnant with King Villem's heir, she lied to Reever and convinced him that it was his son she carried in her womb. The child she named Arnad and Reever loved that baby, cementing the lie that she had planted. But, Aislinn's duty to her King outweighed her desire to love Reever, so she stabbed him through his heart while he slept next to her and left the lands to return home, with her son in tow. Leaving the land with no King, Reever's son Magnus stepped up and assumed the lands, vowing to avenge his father's death. 

His eyes trailed back up to the trees above us, where large birds swept from tree to tree. "King Magnus eventually sent his own assassin, who found Aislinn staying with her parents on the outskirts of her kingdom. The assassin poisoned their whole house in retaliation for his dead king."

Damian's story then spoke about an occurrence later, when a fifteen-year-old king emerged in Anthabask to claim what was rightfully his and seek vengeance. King Arnad Wyndham waged war on the Reever kingdom, spilling countless amounts of blood in his wake; murdering Magnus' younger brother Hagen in the process, along with Magnus' own son. 

Damian looked down at my face as he inched closer and took my hand in his, interlocking our fingers. "That was the day that the Blood War was declared. It was a pact that we would never stop until every Wyndham was dead and our lineage was avenged. Neither family will ever rest until the other is dead. The town and its people are merely pawns in a hostile game, but their fear is real, because they know the history. They've seen the spilled blood firsthand."

As his last words left his mouth and the coldness returned to his eyes, and a genuine fear spread across my soul. If I could have run out of that clearing and escaped back to the warmth and safety of Minnesota, I would have. The whole blood feud, fighting, hating one another thing was just too much for my comprehension. 

While I internally struggled to grasp what Damian had laid out in front of me, I felt myself being pulled closer to him, his hand grazing my ice-cold cheek. I thanked the heavens that it was a cold night and that my shivering at his touch would be construed as simply the cold; when in fact, it was fear that made me tremble.

I looked into his eyes, the concern was ever present in them and he pulled slightly away. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to frighten you, Talia. Please know that you aren't a pawn."

"I need to go home, Damian. Please take me home." I pulled my hand from his, the hurt in his eyes leached forward from beneath the coldness. He just hung his head and sighed slightly before making his way back to his car.

The drive back was silent. It was the silence that comforted my terrified heart, a silence that I welcomed for the first time since I had arrived in Meeds Hollow.

.......................

I rushed out of what I had previously viewed as the warmth and safety of Damian's car, never looking back. The only thought on my mind was how stupid I had been to disobey Killian's instructions to stay away from the Reevers. I rushed up the stairs of my dorm hall, bypassing the elevator, because I sought the comfort of the sounds of the steps beneath my feet.

When I reached the wooden door of my room, it was slightly ajar and I threw it open, encountering Lizbeth who was sitting casually on her bed, engulfed in a book. Her eyes popped up and a smile formed along her mouth.

"You left me, you bitch!" Before I knew what I was doing, I had crossed the length of the room and in my rage I lunged at her and slammed her into the wall by her bed.

"Talia. What the hell?" Lizbeth clambered to get up from between the gap between her bed and the wall, a look of pure shock across her face.

"YOU LEFT ME! What kind of person do you think you are? You spoiled, pretentious, shit sucking piece of crap?" I couldn't stop myself from the words that were spilling out of my mouth, like a broken pipe gushing water. My whole night had been consumed with word vomit.

"I didn't leave you! I have no idea what you're talking about?"

"What I'm talking about is the fact that when I went outside in hopes of leaving that horrible place, you were gone and I was stuck!"

Her face reflected a sense of horror at my statement. In a pleading voice she spoke, "I didn't leave you, Colin told me that you got a ride back to campus early with Jack Fisher. He said you didn't feel well and couldn't find me. I thought you went to the infirmary and that's why you weren't in the room. Had I known, I wouldn't have left you! You may not like me Talia, but you are my sister and I wouldn't hurt you."

Jack... 

The name struck a familiar bell and for a second, all I could see was his ugly smile and those bloodshot eyes. I could swear that I could smell the faint hint of vomit and beer on my closes and in an instant, I was throwing my jacket and clothes off me like they were on fire.

"What's going on Talia? How did you get back?" I froze at her question, I couldn't tell her that Damian Reever had rescued me off the side of a freezing road and brought me home. I couldn't tell her that when he held me I trembled in fear and that my heart raced at the same time. I couldn't tell her that he had essentially told me that his family would kill me if they knew who I was, regardless of how he felt about me. 

I looked down at my bed and at his sweatshirt that was slung over the post and my eyes darted up suddenly. "Some girl. I don't know her name but I saw her leaving and asked for a ride."

I walked into the en suite and opened the shower, the water getting hot almost immediately, as if it knew exactly what I needed at that moment. I leaned up against the tiled wall for a second, trying to will my heart to stop beating a mile a minute. My thoughts were stuck on Damian. The feel of his eyes on me, the feeling of losing myself when he touched me and then my thoughts went to Jack and his disgusting touch.

I scrubbed at my skin for what felt like forever. Anytime I thought about Jack anywhere close to me or his fingers on me, I scrubbed violently. When I was done, my skin was red and almost raw. I wrapped my hair up in a towel and changed into a pair of skinny sweatpants and my purple Sex Pistols off the shoulder sweatshirt.

Without Lizbeth being alarmed by my actions, I carefully walked over to my side of the room, snatching my phone off the top of my desk and secretly hiding the new phone which Damian had gifted me, in my backpack. I then excused myself, acting like I had to take a call. I ran down into the stairwell and propped myself up against the cold window ledge. My fingers frantically thumbed through my contacts until I reached Seth's picture.

The phone rang and rang, sending it to voicemail. Seconds after giving up, his name flashed on my screen.

"Hey Talllliaaa." I could hear the music in the background and that paired with the way his voice sounded, I knew it signaled one thing, Seth was drunk at a club. Biting back the tears that were forming, I knew that I couldn't unleash my torrent of tears on him, because when Seth drank he got angry easily. It didn't take much to set him off at a situation when alcohol was involved and the last thing I needed was Seth getting arrested for being irrational.

"Hey Seth," my voice sounded oddly timid in its attempt to sound like nothing was wrong.

"What's wrong?" I could hear the anger welling up in his otherwise calm voice and knew that I only had one option: I needed to lie to Seth, for the first time in my life.

"Nothing's wrong. I just had a boring time at this party and wanted to see what you were doing." I hated myself for lying to Seth, but it was either lie or risk an arrest or him attempting to drive here in his terrible condition. Both outcomes would have been devastating.

His demeanor seemed to shift back to casual Seth, given that he knew I would never lie to him. "Ahh shit, that sucks. You were supposed to make some friends and have some fun. I would be sooooo fun if I were there with you. So fun that you wouldn't know what to do with me. Hey! I'm wiggling my eyebrows right now, but you can't see me Picks. See wiggle, wiggle." I hated myself for lying to him. He was my rock and I loved him, but I had just betrayed his trust and he didn't know it.

"I bet it's a sexy wiggle, Seth. Hey, I'll let you go. Go have fun and I'll talk to you tomorrow." I could hear the voices of other people closing in on Seth and just as he was going to answer me, a female voice announced that she was going to make him so happy tonight. I cringed when I heard her shrill voice and the thought of Seth sleeping with groupies sent a wave of nausea across my body. I had no right to be hurt though, Seth wasn't mine and I didn't even live in Minnesota anymore.

Before he could speak I chimed in, "I gotta go, Seth," and I clicked end call on the phone.

I slid down the brick wall and buried my face in my knees, my arms wrapped around them. I let all the tears flow. All the pent-up tears from my mother's death, the forced move to this horrible place, the party and Colin's betrayal, the realization that I was in too deep with this whole place; it all just flooded out, until there were no more tears. I must have fallen asleep with my face buried, because I didn't realize that I was being picked up and carried somewhere.

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A/N: Hey guys!

Hoped you liked the chapter. I wanted to give you guys some background on the heritage of both families. All questions regarding their feud and other stuff will be revealed in time, so be patient.

Predictions Timeeeee: Who came and snatched Talia up???

How did you feel about Damian opening up to Talia about his family? Is he a good guy underneath it all?

So before I get asked the question: Yes, the part about the Gods is documented mythology, including Odin and his ravens. However, the backstory about the 2 Kings is not factual. It is entirely one big concoction of my brain based on years of studying history at Uni.

As always, check me out on Twitter!!

Love all the comments and I love hearing your thoughts, predictions, and hopes for the future of the story. <3

Amina :)