Chapter 64: Fractured Heart!!

**Nora’s POV**

“Explain this, Nora. Who did this?” Sypha’s unexpected step sucked all the wind from my lungs. I wanted to lunge over and claw at her face, maim it, destroy it and wipe out its existence. The morning sickness and uneasiness, which I had been experiencing for some time, took the worst turn, made me close to hyperventilating as if my heart had stopped pumping blood and all the cells of my body were gasping for breath. An unwelcome shudder crept up my spine, coursing the chill through my body. I stood there like a snowman rooted to the ground, not able to process anything. After gaining a bit of consciousness, I took a sharp breath to face the situation. It was mine doing, and I had to make sure to take all the blame. Rorik is innocent in this; nobody should lay a finger on him. This thing can go serious between the two brothers.

My first instinct was to peek a look at Ronin. As expected, he didn’t want to believe the truth projected out like venom from Sypha’s mouth, but the marks on my body were reciting a different story altogether. He was trying to be angry and about to lose his temper, but he was crushing like a building of cards inside. He was suffocating in his breath. He was silently asking me, ‘Please say all this is a lie,’ but the shame and remorse on my face gave away all the truth as his feelings crumbled in the form of teardrops watering his eyes. The last time I saw him crying was when he revealed his serpent’s curse to me. His legs wobbled under his weight, failing to keep him upright as he dropped on his knees like a man losing all hope, all the will and jest of living a life. He dugged his face under his hands as if a person who has lost everything and found salvation in death as if he is damned for eternity.

I wanted to run to him, hold him in my arms, plead with him, beg him for forgiveness, but my shameless actions were not even worthy of it. Sypha used the correct words for me- liar and cheat.

“Nora, why are you quiet? Please explain, Ronin is waiting-” Sypha’s tongue kept on spitting out words worse than a poison laden arrow.

“Stop it, Sypha! We should not get involved in this. This is their matter. Let them handle it by themselves,” Liam ushered in between, interrupting Sypha’s bitter tongue running and piercing me like sharp scissors.

“Oh really! The people in question are my brothers. I will not keep quiet if any witch tries to play with their emotions and cheats them. She deserves all of this. The price of using both my brothers,” Sypha pointed out at me as if I am some disgusting creature who will infect every damn person.

“Sypha, please. Keep your mouth shut,” Rorik lay out his voice for the first time. The usual playful one was snapped with a strained one as if he was weeping inside, “It was all my mistake. Please don’t blame Nora for this. I will take all the responsibility and accept any form of punishment bestowed upon me. I will leave Crixus and your lives forever once we are done from here.”

“No, Rorik! Stop it! It’s not your mistake. I am to be blamed for all this. You were in a trance. Please don’t take the blame,” I pleaded with him as my breath hitched, and the cry came thick soon after.

“Oh, for God’s sake! Stop this nonsense,” Ronin shouted on us, “I don’t want to hear your fucking stories and stop pointing at Sypha. She speaks upfront about what she thinks, not like others who stabs in the back. I am glad I got to know of this betrayal soon enough, releasing me from the fake bubble I was living in. I could never believe that the two persons I loved the most would betray me in my wildest dreams. I already knew of Rorik’s feelings, but Nora, you surprised me! If you both had asked me even for my life, I would have given that happily…but you snatched away my pride from me,” Ronin growled, making me release one more outburst of spluttered sobs.

“Ronin, please, we can talk and solve this. What is in front of you is not the whole truth!” Rorik tried to reason with him in his shaky voice. I knew it would be in vain, but it would be better to keep quiet as my words would only add the deadly fuel to the fire. No amount of reasoning and pleading will bring salvation in our lives because of this shameless act.

“We are done, Rorik. The mind can live with a cheat, but the heart cannot. You granted me the most gruesome death. You both killed all the love, all the emotions which made me a human. Again, I am the heartless serpent full of venom and can never have mercy in its eyes. Do you know the reality of deception? The one who deceives is often someone special to you. The truth I fucking learned the hard way in my life,” He snarled at Rorik, cursing him.

“Ronin, give me a chance to explain,” Rorik tried one more attempt but this time made the mistake of touching Ronin. He roared, and his serpent glare erupted from his eyes as if they were radiating a flame of red. I saw this side of Ronin before when he saved me from goons. Ronin stood up as if a roar of lightning, crushing through the dense black clouds and strike on its victim. His hard, untamed punch found his place on Rorik’s face, where it landed like a thud, making him fall backwards, almost losing his footing as he fell flat on the uneven surface of the cave. The strength was enough to knock out the air from his lungs. Rorik’s hand automatically fell on his nose as the splutter of blood trailed through his nostrils and a small laceration on his lips. Before Rorik can be back in his senses or finds his foot again, Ronin lunged forward towards him, grabbing him by his collar, bashed his knee on Rorik’s stomach as he crashed behind on the rough wall of the cave.

“Stop it! Damn! Both of you!” I shouted as the floods of tears crashed my face, “I am telling you, again and again, it’s all my fault. Rorik is innocent.”

“Oh really, I can understand you are telling him to flash, and he, like an innocent, naïve, love and hormonal tanked, curious teenager, shoved out his dick on your face. Can you please explain the fucking meaning of innocence for a twenty-seven-year-old man who just cheated with his brother’s pregnant girlfriend?” Ronin spurt out his anger on me like a wild beast determined to slay its prey, sucking every last ounce of self-respect from me, which was already crumbling due to my shameless act.

“RONIN! Enough! I made a mistake, but we didn’t fucked. The realization stumbled on me, and I stopped. If you don’t want to believe it, I won’t even try. I am done answering and listening to your accusations. You can think whatever you want to. The only link which is keeping us together are our babies, and once I hand them over to you, we are done for good,” I declared, but my voice was shaky and itchy full of sobs which were not helping my case.

“So that’s it? This was my real worth in your life? Now I don’t have any right to ask you any questions? You used me, played your cheap game on me, scraped me inside, leaving only a shell behind, and now you are discarding me as if I am trash? At least you would have waited, sleeping shamelessly with him till birthing my babies. I would have left you both, getting far away from your happily ever after, but you did this behind my back. If Sypha didn’t show me the true colours of both of you today, I would still be that fucking joker under the false impression of being loved unconditionally by his loving girlfriend and dear brother. I should have understood it the day you kissed Rorik for the first time and blamed it on Rebekah. It was you all along, doing all the dirty and shameless things and getting away from it by making a fool of me. I hate you both. I hate you,” he screamed, looking at us as if we were the most disgusted people in this whole damn universe.

Meghan squeezed my shoulders silently, asking me to relax. She and Liam looked at me with sympathy, but that doesn’t change the fact that I am a cheater of the worst kind, who created a wedge between the inseparable brothers, the Gemini Twins. I want to die, never to show my face again to anyone, the damned and condemned one, the shame is killing me, tearing every bit of me from my body, shredding every last piece of tissue, running deep in my bones.

Rorik was sitting on the floor; his eyes seemed distant and hollow, with blood still dripping on his shirt. Zach was trying to control Ronin’s outburst in which he was failing miserably. Sypha’s sneering level crossed all the limits, and now her face seemed satisfied as if she had achieved the goal of her life. Meghan tried to console me, making me understand the effect of this stress on my health and babies, which also calmed Ronin to some extent. Liam went to grab some water for me.

“Am I interrupting something?” Cut a voice through the damp and depressing air of the cave. It was not from any seven of us but an outsider and unfamiliar one.

Shit! Everyone almost jumped on their feet, with shock on the face and a mild attack on the heart as it missed a beat. Zach and Ronin were quick to draw out their weapons. Liam took my side, and Rorik stood from his sitting position. Every pair of dumbfounded eyes drank in the sight of a stranger standing near the entrance of the cave.

A woman, tall and slender throughout, draped in purple overalls along with half of the face, stood there as if waiting for us to calm down and invite her in. The half facial skin which was visible seemed pale, but her eyes were the ones that caught the attention of everyone. The almond-shaped eye was nothing like the normal one. It was completely black like a midnight sky, devoid of whites giving her a scary appearance, a nightmare of kids who don’t sleep. She looked a bit strange, but deep inside me, I knew her in the depth of my heart. I also saw her in one of my visions. She is from my past life in Azra.

“Rebekah”, she spoke as I gulped the fear.