Drake Black stepped quietly into Ronan’s room.
Dr. Snow stood at his bedside, checking his vitals. His sallow skin looked thin as paper. Blue veinlike tracks ran up and down every inch of exposed skin like rivers on a map. Bite marks marred both arms where Priest had bitten him at least a dozen times.
Through it all, Drake had been able to do nothing more than watch and pray to whatever God answered a vampire’s prayers to save his son. Both of his sons. Because Micah was being just as uncompromising as Ronan.
Micah had refused to hear him out earlier. To hear nothing of Drake’s explanation for why he had never let Micah know he was alive. Before Drake could get out more than a couple of sentences, Micah had bolted without so much as a backward glance.
And the anger! The fumes of animosity that had come off Micah had been like those from a gasoline can, ready to ignite if sparked.
Drake had hoped for a warmer reception from Micah, the son he’d been so proud of both as a child and now as an adult. He’d obviously misjudged the situation, but that didn’t mean Drake shouldn’t try again. And he would keep trying until Micah heard him out.
A long time ago, Drake had been a male of strength and honor. But that male had died with Isabel. He had died with his entire village. It was only dumb luck that had allowed him to survive, but once he realized everyone he’d loved and watched over his whole life had perished or fled to start a new life elsewhere, all he’d wanted was to die, too. And he would have if Argon and Rysk hadn’t saved him.
Saved.
Such a subjective term.
They had saved his physical body, but his mind and soul had already been fragmenting into a living death state. His heart beat. His lungs processed oxygen. His organs still functioned. But could this really be considered living? This wraith he’d become who wasn’t even half the male he used to be? He had failed everyone he loved, especially his own children.
Look at Ronan. Ronan resented him. Maybe he even hated him. All because Drake had never been able to forget the past and forgive himself for abandoning Micah.
But that didn’t mean he didn’t love Ronan. He loved him more than his own life. Ronan was the only reason he hadn’t killed himself and ended his misery years ago. But every time he tried to tell him he loved him, the words came out wrong. Every time he tried to show him how much he cared, he ended up behaving like a bastard. It’s like he wasn’t in control of his faculties. Not his thoughts, his words, or his actions.
But he refused to stop trying. Someday he would get it right. Someday his mind would fuse back together again, with all the right pieces where they belonged, and he would be able to convey all he’d failed at for the last thirty-six years, since Ronan’s mother left.
He stepped farther into the room and placed his hands on the rail at the foot of Ronan’s bed. “How is he?”
Dr. Snow glanced up, her index and middle fingers pressed against the underside of Ronan’s wrist. “He’s sedated,” she said quietly. “As soon as Priest gave us the word his blood was clean, we tranquilized him so he could sleep off the pain.” She offered a compassionate smile. “He’ll be fine . . . eventually.” She let go of Ronan’s wrist and gently placed his arm over his stomach before pulling a blanket over him. “You should get some rest, too. He won’t be awake for hours and won’t be in any shape to receive visitors for a while.”
“I’d rather stay.” He eyed the cushioned chair in the corner.
Dr. Snow gave him what he imagined was her patented, placating-doctor smile then nodded. “Okay.” She tucked her iPad into the crook of her arm. “Once we know he’s completely out of the woods, we’ll move him to the new facility to begin rehabilitation. He’s suffered temporary nerve damage and will need help adjusting as the nerves heal. You can stay with him in one of the suites there. I’m sure he’d like that.”
“Doubt it,” said a familiar male voice from the door.
Drake turned just as Micah strolled into the room then stopped and crossed his arms. “I doubt Ronan would appreciate either of us offering him a helping hand. Right, Dad?”
Dr. Snow gave them both a confused frown, as if she wasn’t sure whether Micah was joking or serious but felt it best not to ask. “If you need anything, I’ll be right outside.” She quickly left the room.
Silent stares passed between father and son.
Finally, Micah broke eye contact and crossed to the side of Ronan’s bed. “How is he?”
“Stable. Recovering. Sedated so he doesn’t feel any pain.”
“Lucky him.” Micah spoke under his breath but just loudly enough—and sarcastically enough—for Drake to receive the message he was sending loud and clear.
“Son—”
“Cut the son crap, Dad.”
“What do you want from me, Micah?”
Micah’s head jerked up, his gaze slicing clean through him. “Honestly, I don’t know. I really don’t. I don’t get why you lied to me all this time, letting me think you were dead. My last memory of you was of you lying halfway inside our cottage, blood pouring from stab wounds all over your body. I thought you were dead. With what I thought was your last breath, you told me to take the box and guard its contents with my life. And then I assumed you died and have lived with that horrible knowledge all my life. The knowledge that I couldn’t save you. That you died, leaving me as the last of our bloodline, with nothing but the contents of that box to remember you by.”
The box was what Drake had called the small wooden chest that had contained everything of value to their family, including a gold crest, gemstones, and faded scrolls detailing the specifics—but not all of them—of his, Isabel’s, and Micah’s births. It had also contained the ankh he’d found during the last war prior to his “death,” while Micah had been training in the king’s city.
Drake knew the ankh’s purpose. He’d always known, because his father had taught him, and his father had taught him, and so on up the family tree, in the same manner Drake had intended to teach Micah when the time was right.
His mistake had been in thinking they had time. Time to find a way to return the ankh to the lycans. Time to talk about their family tree. Time to share all the secrets passed down through each generation of their family. If only he’d possessed the foresight to see what was to come, he would have shared his knowledge with Micah sooner.
But then the attack on their village had occurred, and all that time he thought he had ran out. At that point, all he’d had time to do was tell Micah to take the box and guard its contents, especially the ankh, with his life.
And then he had fallen unconscious, certain he would die.
As Micah continued unloading verbal vomit on him, Drake pulled himself from the past and caught back up midsentence. “ . . .save myself and Kat. You told me to look after the survivors. But it wasn’t your last breath, was it? You lived. And you never came to find me. You never thought to let me know you’d survived. You let me think you were dead. Do you know how much I suffered after you died? When I’d lost both you and Mom?”
“Son—”
“No, Dad.” Micah held up his hand. “You lost the right to call me your son when you let me believe you were dead.”
Micah’s words cut through his heart with surgical precision, but he swallowed his pain and took the lashing he deserved. The choices he’d made hadn’t been easy. In fact, many had been made for him, both by Argon and Rysk, as well as by the suffering that gnawed and devoured him in turns. He’d been kept in a coma-like suspension for much of the time between the loss of his old life and the discovery of the new, when he met Ronan’s mother. Only then did Argon and Rysk step aside to let him return to a more or less independent way of life. But they were never far away, always keeping an eye on him.
Then, after Ronan’s mom was gone, he fell back into suffering, just not as deeply as before. Otherwise, Rysk would have stepped in and put him under to raise Ronan himself.
Drake stayed just aware enough to prevent being put back into a coma, but at no time had he been in the right frame of mind to consider finding Micah.
But what should he have done? He was a male caught deep inside suffering’s grasp, enduring the loss of a bonded mate, as well as the loss of a female he’d fallen in love with but not bonded to. Most males in his situation would have died long ago. And yet, somehow, Drake survived.
Why?
To what end?
He couldn’t be fortunate enough to find another mate, so why did fate keep him alive?
“I’m sorry, Micah. I truly am, but I can’t go back and undo what’s been done. But I can try to explain if you’ll let me.”
“Can you?” The words bit back at Drake with the force of a cobra bite. “Can you really explain, Dad? Because from where I’m sitting, none of this makes a damn bit of sense.”
Drake lowered his gaze. He had much to atone for. “Honestly, I don’t know, son—Micah. Sometimes, I don’t know if I have the strength to even understand what happened to me, let alone explain it.” He lifted his gaze to Micah’s, surprised to find a sliver of compassion in those navy blue eyes that were so like his own. “But I can sure as hell try. I owe you that.” He turned his gaze to Ronan’s motionless form, which had needles and tubes coming out both arms and an oxygen tube taped under his nose. “I owe both of you that.”
Micah stared in dumbfounded silence at the male in front of him. The male he hadn’t seen in so long it was just easier to say it had been a millennium. The male he’d once looked up to as larger than life but now, despite his physique being only slightly thinner than what he remembered, appeared half as tall and frailer than a blade of drought-weary grass.
Something had taken a heavy toll on his father.
He blinked, and in the split second his eyes were closed, he once again saw his father how he’d been that final day. It was the last memory he had of him, lying just inside the threshold of their home, blood spilling from his wounds.
He’d never found his father’s body. He’d assumed the sun had claimed him. Now he knew the truth.
In less than six hours, Micah had gone from being the last surviving member of his bloodline to having a brother and finding out his father was alive. He was no longer the last hope to carry on the family name, and a certain amount of relief came with that knowledge.
But he still had so many questions. He hadn’t been ready to hear the answers earlier, which was why he’d bolted only moments after Ronan did. Seeing his father had shocked him too much, and not in a good way. But now he was ready.
“What happened to Mom?”
His father’s eyebrows pulled inward as if just thinking about Micah’s mom hurt him. “You know what happened to her, Micah. She died. She was trying to protect—” He winced and blinked several times. With emotion choking his voice, he continued. “Your mom tried to protect me after I’d been injured.” He squeezed his eyes shut then blinked back tears as he opened them again. “She should have fled when I told her to. She’d still be alive if she had.”
Micah gave him a moment then asked, “How did you survive? I didn’t think there was any way you were going to live when I left you.”
His dad dragged a thick inhale through his nose as he wiped his palm down his face. “I came to. Must have been only minutes after you’d left. The sun was about to rise. I saw your mom. I wanted to help her, but I couldn’t. She was already gone. I couldn’t feel her life force inside me, anymore. Her spirit had already left her body.” He blinked several times and pressed his lips together, shifting uncomfortably. “Somehow, I managed to drag myself farther into the hut. Into the shadows.” He cut off and cleared his throat, obviously still tormented by the guilt and sorrow he’d felt that day. “I couldn’t save your mother,” he said softly, bowing his head. “I couldn’t save her.” His whispered words broke with grief.
He sounded like he was talking more to himself than to Micah, chastising himself, facing his guilt but unable to look it in the eye. “I should have let myself die for failing her, but I didn’t. I was too selfish to join her in death, and not a day passes that I don’t wish—at least once—that I could go back, drag myself to her body, and hold her one last time as I let the sun consume us both, together.”
It was as hard to hear the account of his mother’s death as it obviously was for his father to tell it. It was equally hard to hear his father talk of his desire to go back in time and die with her.
“She died, Micah.” His dad’s voice was barely a whisper. “And a piece of me died with her. A very large piece.” He shook his bowed head. “I’m nothing but a coward.”
“A coward?” Why the hell would his dad think that?
The other male’s eyes briefly met his before falling away again. “If I were really as courageous as I thought I was, I would have died with her. Only a coward saves himself while his mate burns to dust under the sun’s light.”
Finally, Micah understood. The vacancy in his father’s eyes. His absence all these years. The pain. The tormented suffering. The mental wasteland that became not just where you lived but how. Micah knew that life all too well, because he’d walked a million miles in those shoes after Kat died. Hadn’t his father walked those same miles? Was still walking them?
Micah had Sam. He’d found his salvation. From the looks of it, his father hadn’t, despite having a second son. Part of him had assumed his father had taken another mate, but maybe he’d assumed wrong. Had his father taken another mate only to lose her, too? If so, it was a miracle his father was still alive.
Maybe he could cut his father some slack, because Micah knew better than anyone how irrational and insane a male vampire could be after losing his mate.
“No, Dad. You’re not a coward.” His father lifted his gaze and met Micah’s. Somewhere behind those eyes was the powerful male he’d all but worshipped as a child. “Only the bravest and most courageous male forces himself to live after losing a mate.”
His father said nothing in reply, just nodded in consideration, and then looked away again. Micah could almost feel the shame billowing out of him.
For several long, tragically silent moments, nothing was said. Micah wasn’t exactly sure where to go from here, and his dad seemed in no rush to say more. But wasn’t that how Micah had been during his own suffering? Silent, brooding, secretive?
Rebellious?
Micah shifted uneasily and forced back his own remorse as he glanced down at his brother.
Ronan wouldn’t be here today if his father had died. It still felt odd to think he had a brother when he’d spent his entire life believing he was an only child. And if his father had let himself die, that’s exactly what Micah would have been. An only child.
As angry as he was at his dad for keeping his survival a secret, he was grateful to learn he had family. A dysfunctional family, but that was better than no family at all.
Ronan had the same black hair as he and his father. The same strong jaw and angular eyes. He even had the same full lips. The only feature of Ronan’s that hadn’t come from the Black bloodline was his eye color. Slate blue. Otherwise, the three of them could pass for brothers, not a father and two sons born from different mothers.
“Who is Ronan’s mother?” Micah kept his gaze on his brother, finally seeing him for the first time. Really seeing him.
When his father didn’t answer, Micah turned away from Ronan, frowning when he saw that his dad wore a vacant expression, his eyes watery and glazed over.
“Dad?”
He blinked and looked at Micah. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Ronan’s mother? Who was she?”
His father looked around as if he’d forgotten where he was. He blinked a few more times and scrubbed his palms up and down his face as he cleared his throat. “Ronan’s mother?” He dropped his hands to his sides and looked at Micah as if he hadn’t understood the question.
“Yes. Is she human? Vampire?”
“Oh, uh . . .” He cleared his throat again and paced to the opposite side of Ronan’s bed, where he placed his hands on the rail as if he needed the support. “She was a vampire. A full-blood.”
“Where is she?”
His father shrugged and glanced casually toward the door. “I assume she’s with her mate.”
Micah’s brain slammed on the brakes. “Whoa, wait. What?” He raised his hand, palm out.
His dad shoved himself away from Ronan’s bed. “She wasn’t my mate, isn’t my mate, and will never be my mate.”
“Are you saying you never had a calling with her?”
Creating a child without a calling was like trying to find your way through a maze wearing a blindfold and soundproof headphones. You might eventually find your way out, but it would be a whole lot easier to find your way if you could see and hear.
And didn’t the aristocrats who were in arranged matings experience their own share of miracles when it came to bearing young? It was rare without a calling, but once in a while, a young was conceived.
Looked like he and his father at least had that in common. They’d both found their way through the procreation labyrinth despite their handicaps.
“Are you sure you want to talk about this, Micah? I know what happened with Kat. I know—”
Micah cut him off. “Just answer my question. Did you have a calling with Ronan’s mother or not?” He didn’t want to talk about Kat or how he’d been unable to produce young with her. He was with Sam now, and she was carrying his children. That was where his heart was. As much as he’d loved Kat, she was in his past. He would always love her, and he would have loved having a child with her so a part of her could have lived on, but that’s not how things worked out. No sense dwelling.
His father frowned in the way Micah remembered him doing when he was frustrated. “No, I didn’t.”
What was with the short, clipped response? Micah couldn’t tell if his father was angry, resentful, uncomfortable, or just filled with regret over giving that part of himself to a female who wasn’t Micah’s mother. Or maybe his father had been whoring himself after Mom’s death? Sleeping indiscriminately with any female willing to spread her legs. Had Ronan’s mother been just one of many one-night fucks? If so, it was no wonder he was so angry.
“Who was she to you if she wasn’t your mate?” Micah couldn’t hold back the accusatory bite in his voice.
“Look, Micah, after your mother died, I was fucked up.” His father tossed a perturbed frown at him. “You of all people should know what that’s like. You lost Kat. You suffered. I know you did.” His gaze fell to the floor. “I suffered, too. Bad. So how about you ease up on the attitude.”
“Fine, whatever.” Micah paced to the side and grabbed a bottle of water from a shelf. He twisted off the cap just so he could expend a fraction of the nervous energy curdling under his skin.
He didn’t like the idea of his father with another female, especially if she meant nothing to him. That disgraced his mother’s memory more than if his father’s relationship with Ronan’s mom had been pure.
Or maybe hearing his father talk about his mother’s death and how it affected him was too strong of a reminder of how bad his own suffering had been after Kat’s death. A suffering that had lasted until he met Sam.
No male wanted to remember such depraved sorrow. The kind that splits your soul into two halves. One half that hurt beyond description because it remembered how good life used to be, and one half that felt like acid because all it wanted was to die, die, die . . . please let me die.
There was nothing good in the suffering. The only hope came from remembering how good life used to be, but sometimes that wasn’t enough to prevent a male from letting death take him. Consequently, it wasn’t unusual for a male in suffering to die.
His father retreated to the far wall then turned to face him. “I was in a bad place, Micah. I was ravaged by guilt. I didn’t understand why I lived when your mother died. I was ashamed because I didn’t die with her. I tried to make sense of her death and my survival, but I couldn’t.” He paced across the room, rubbing his hands together as if his own nervous energy was getting the better of him. “Then again, there’s no making sense of death . . . why it takes one person and leaves another to suffer the loss. All you can do is accept it and move on, but for us, accepting death isn’t so easy, is it?” He turned his navy blue eyes on Micah, and a sense of knowing shone from their depths. Wherever his father had been for the past nine hundred years, he’d seen a lot of darkness and lived through a lot of hell. Was probably still living through it.
Micah shook his head, knowing exactly where his dad was coming from. “No, it’s not.”
The ghost of suffering a male endured after losing a mate was like adhesive residue left behind on the bottom of a vase after the price tag was removed. It still coated a part of your soul, even though it no longer hurt and could no longer be seen. But just knowing it was there was enough to strike fear in a male’s heart, because no male who had experienced suffering wanted to go through that kind of pain again.
Which was why Micah would sacrifice his own life to save Sam’s if it ever came to that. He wouldn’t want to go on living if he lost her.
His father returned to the far wall and placed his hand on the back of a cushioned chair. His head was bowed, and his short, thick hair was mussed as if he’d run his hands through it a few hundred times in the last six hours. His other hand clenched into a fist as if he were reining himself in so he didn’t explode.
For several seconds, he didn’t speak. Then he took a deep breath and blew it out. “I still haven’t accepted your mother’s death, Micah. I’m not sure I ever will. But I’ve come to terms with it.” He turned around. “Savannah helped me do at least that much.”
“Savannah?”
“Ronan’s mother.” A tremulous but gentle smile turned up the corners of his father’s mouth. “He got the grey in his eyes from her.”
“And he got the blue from you?”
His father nodded. “Yes, but he got so much more from me than just the blue in his eyes. My fire. My passion. My rebellious nature.” His gaze traveled proudly to Ronan’s still form. “My stubbornness.”
The qualities his father had just ticked off were all qualities Micah saw in himself, as well. He was beginning to understand why he and Ronan butted heads as easily as they did. They probably always would. They were similar creatures, and when like faced like, one was bound to rub the other the wrong way.
His father’s smile broadened as his shoulders squared. “Ronan is his father’s son, I’ll give him that. Even if my own fire and passion are gone.”
“It’s not gone, Dad.”
His father looked up at him as if surprised by Micah’s gentle tone. “It feels gone.”
Micah shook his head. “No. Only dimmed. It’s there, and someday, when the time is right, it will flame back to life, and you’ll be your old self again. You’ll be the hero I always saw in you as a kid. The hero I wanted to be when I grew up.”
A beat of silence passed between them as Micah’s words sank in.
“I’ve failed him.” His father glanced at Ronan. “I’ve failed you both.”
“You didn’t fail me, Dad,” Micah said. “I turned out all right.”
“You have, but what of Ronan.” His father’s sad eyes swept up Ronan’s motionless form. “I haven’t been the kind of parent Ronan needed. He needed the hero I was for you, but I couldn’t be that for him. I couldn’t even be my own hero, so how could I be his?” He sighed then turned his gaze to Micah’s. “And I allowed you to think I was dead. That’s not very heroic or courageous, is it?”
“Yeah, well . . .” Micah was still angry about that, but not as angry as he had been a few hours ago. “I’ll get over it. And, you’ll see, Ronan will eventually get over it, too.”
They stood in silence for a while, watching Ronan as he slept. Okay, so it was more like he was passed out cold from heavy meds.
“Why didn’t his mother raise him?” Micah asked.
His father shrugged as if in surrender. “Another male mated her after Ronan was born. I met her about fifty years ago, in the late 1960s. She was a full-blood vampire living in Louisiana at the time. There’s a pretty large vampire community in Louisiana, and for a while, those I was traveling with took up residency there.” He scrubbed his hand over his face. “I’ll be honest, Micah. I was extremely messed up until I met Savannah. The people who were taking care of me often had to take turns guarding me to ensure I didn’t try to kill myself or do something equally stupid. I was kept in an induced coma more often than not, but when I was awake, I was more like a ghost than a living being. When I was lucid, they had to force me to eat. Sometimes they even had to force me to feed. Most of the time, I held little regard for my own survival, and I struggled with taking blood from someone who wasn’t your mother. But they forced me. Their will to keep me alive was stronger than my own. I’m grateful for their protection and efforts now, but at the time, I was a fucked-up mess. That’s why I never came to find you. Most of the time, I could barely think about anything beyond surviving through the next minute.”
Bad memories of Micah’s own trip through the wastelands of suffering popped into his mind again, and he took an aggressive gulp of water to force down the lump in his throat.
“At any rate,” his father continued, “I met Savannah, and suddenly the world wasn’t such a dark place. She was the proverbial breath of fresh air so many people speak of, and I quickly became addicted to her smile and her laughter. We began spending time together, and we fell in love. I didn’t mate her, but I definitely loved her.
“A few years later, we were surprised to discover she was pregnant. I hadn’t experienced a calling, so this came as a shock to us both. A welcome one, but still a surprise. Then Ronan was born, and things were great for a while. I was actually happy again. I hadn’t been happy in such long time that it felt a little strange, but then I got used to it, and life began to feel normal. Then the worst thing that could’ve happened did.” He frowned then sadly bowed his head. “Another male mated her. Ronan was still just a little boy, and his mother was taken from him.”
The way his father scowled and bit out his words made the reason for Ronan’s paternal upbringing clearer.
Sometimes when a vampire mated a female who already had children with another male, he rejected the children and forbade his mate from bringing them into their union. This meant the father of the young usually had to become a single parent, or, if the father was already dead, the young was sent to an orphanage, while the mother was whisked away to begin a new life and family with her mate.
In Micah’s opinion, such situations were ten levels of cruel and fucked up. He would never force a mother to abandon her children on his account, and neither would his father, but it was obvious by the disgruntled expression on his father’s face that Savannah’s mate clearly hadn’t shared their opinion.
“He should have been raised by his mother,” his father said of Ronan. “She would have done a much better job than I, but that’s not the way it was meant to be. So I took Ronan and started a new life with him. By then, with Savannah’s help, I was no longer a threat to myself, and Ronan gave me purpose, but getting through the days was still hard. The first year was the hardest. The people looking after me stayed away, though. They were never far, and there were times I feared they would take Ronan away from me, because sometimes I struggled just to get out of bed, but they never took him. They kept their distance, letting me find my own way back, but by then, I’d already fucked up Ronan’s life so badly we hardly had any kind of relationship.
“I struggled to provide the emotional support he needed, because there was still a part of me that was suffering, too, no matter how small that part was. And maybe I bragged about you too much when he and I had disagreements.” His brow furrowed as he bowed his head almost shamefully. “Maybe I talked about you and glorified you too much . . . told him how much I missed you . . . how you were the perfect son any father would be proud to call his own.”
Micah swallowed past the lump that formed in his throat, understanding not just the source of Ronan’s resentment, but also how deeply his father’s love ran. “If you missed me so much, why didn’t you ever come and find me?”
“Like I said, I was lucky just to get through the days, Micah. Until I found Savannah, I hardly knew day from night. I honestly didn’t even consider it. That’s how ravenous my pain and suffering were. Anguish ate at me every day. The weeks blurred into months, and those blurred into years. To be honest, I was shocked to learn how much time had passed when Savannah brought me out of my living corpse.”
Irrational anger began to rise inside Micah’s heart again, fed more by the latent grief he’d suppressed for centuries than his outrage at being kept in the dark all this time. “But what about then, Dad? What about after you met Savannah? After you came back into yourself and were no longer caught inside suffering’s grasp? Why didn’t you come and find me and tell me you were alive then?”
His father’s face twisted into an expression of apologetic misery. “I couldn’t.”
Micah took a step back. His annoyance, fury, heartache, and sorrow bubbled up inside him like he was a boiling pot over a fire pit. “Couldn’t? You couldn’t? Do you know how much I suffered, Dad? Did you know what I was going through?”
The guilt that shone back at him when his father lifted his face was all the answer Micah needed.
“You knew. You knew how close to death I was and how important it could have been for me to know you were still alive. And yet you felt no compulsion whatsoever to contact me? To tell me you were alive and that I had a brother?”
“That’s not what I said.” His father stepped around the bed toward him, but Micah didn’t want anywhere near him right now and stormed to the other side of the room. His father blew out an exasperated exhale. “Don’t put words in my mouth, Micah. I never said I felt no compulsion to contact you. I wanted to contact you every single goddamn day.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
His jaw clenched. “Because I couldn’t,” he said again.
“What the fuck does that mean? You couldn’t? What? Was someone forcing you not to see me?”
His father’s scowl deepened, but so did the air of guilt hanging over him.
Micah reared back as it dawned on him that it hadn’t been his father’s choice. Someone else had kept him from reaching out.
“That’s it, isn’t it? You let someone force you not to come to me?”
Who would do such a thing?
His father held up his hands in a calm-down gesture. “Not exactly.”
“Then what? What aren’t you telling me?”
“I wasn’t forced to stay away, son, but I was told I shouldn’t see you. I was told it could put us all in danger.”
“Us? All? Who are you talking about?” He marched left then right, feeling caged in. He needed to escape before life as he knew it changed yet again, because he got the feeling his father was about to blow his mind for about the hundredth time tonight. That whatever his father was hiding would rock him to the core.
His dad tracked him, drawing closer, hands held up almost pleadingly. “Micah, this is a lot bigger than just you and me. There’s a lot you don’t know. Things about our family. Things I never got the chance to tell you. Things that could get a lot of people hurt or killed.”
Micah spun toward his father. “What people?” He was one decibel away from shouting. “Who the fuck told you not to contact me?”
“I did.” The air stirred with Digon’s presence a split second before he stepped into the room. His weird sidekick, Rule—oh, that’s right, Rysk—entered behind him. Both wore earnest, wary expressions.
Micah scowled at Digon then looked at his dad before turning his focus back to the dreck. “You did? You told my father not to contact me?”
“Yes.”
Micah’s gaze swung angrily toward his father. “Is this who watched over you? Is Digon the one who looked after you while you were in the suffering?” Micah didn’t know what hurt more, that his father hadn’t reached out to let him know he was still alive or that he had allowed a dreck to be his protector instead of seeking out Micah to fulfill that role.
“Micah, you don’t understand—”
“You’re right, I don’t.”
Digon shimmered briefly before shifting into his blue-skinned dreck form. “It had been for the best that he remain hidden, Micah. That the world thought he was dead.”
Micah bristled. He had been in enough dreck altercations to know they shifted to blue for two reasons. Either they were in full-on attack mode or they wanted to demonstrate peaceful intentions by openly revealing themselves. How was that for duality?
Micah got in Digon’s blue-tinted face. “What right did you have to manipulate my father? To keep him from his own son?”
“Micah, calm down.” Rysk tried to push between them.
Micah shoved him aside. “This doesn’t concern you, so fuck off.”
“You’re wrong. This does concern me.” Rysk’s tone was benevolent but assertive. Then he glanced sideways at Digon, as if deferring to Digon’s lead, although Micah sensed Rysk was bursting at the seams to say more.
“It concerns all of us.” King Bain’s booming voice broke through the mounting tension in the room, and all eyes turned toward the king as he strode into the small, getting-more-cramped-by-the-second space.
Bain’s crisp, blue eyes scanned the room, landing on each person’s face long enough to convey that there would be no more talk of this matter in the open.
And that sat about as well with Micah as a dagger up the ass. He scanned the faces around the room. “Someone had better tell me what the fuck is going on here and fast, because I’m—”
“Micah.” King Bain’s firm voice was as effective as a slap on the face.
Micah spun, ready to square off with his king, when he pulled up and snapped his mouth closed. Something in Bain’s grave expression silenced him. Both heaviness and duty shadowed Bain’s eyes. Whatever he had on his mind wasn’t something he looked forward to revealing, but he appeared ready to unburden himself anyway.
“Come with me.” Bain walked toward the door.
“Where?”
Bain stopped and glanced over his shoulder, but he didn’t make eye contact. “To my home.”
Micah exchanged looks with his father, who remained stoic and silent. From his aware expression, he seemed to know what this was about. They all did.
All of them but him.
Anticipation prickled the hairs on the back of Micah’s neck. He had known there would be more, but something about the way the energy shifted in the room made his stomach clench.
First he had learned that Ronan was his brother. Then he learned his father was still alive. Then—surprise!—Sam was pregnant. Next came the news that Ronan had been bitten by a werewolf, and not just any werewolf, because then he learned from the lycans—welcome to Chicago!—that mutant werewolves known as motleys had been created with the purpose of murdering the vampire race. That had led to making an alliance with the lycans, who now stood nearby, watching the unfolding drama curiously.
And for the coup de grâce, King Bain was inviting Micah back to his home.
Bain never allowed anyone into his home except on special occasions, which were few and far between.
It appeared there was at least one more kick-in-the-nuts awaiting him before dawn.
Bain headed for the exit, walking as if he fully expected Micah to join him.
Call him a glutton for punishment, but Micah had to know what remained unsaid. He knew it would probably shatter his reality even further, but he wasn’t one to slowly peel off a Band-Aid. He ripped it off to get past the pain faster. If a little skin came off in the process, oh well. It would heal.
Without another word to his father, Micah followed Bain out of the room. “Why are we going to your home?”
“Because what you need to see is there.”
“And what do I need to see?”
“Your family tree.”
Micah nearly stumbled over his own feet as he threw his gaze back in the direction of Ronan’s recovery room. His father had told them their family tree had been destroyed. That no record of it existed. That all Micah had of his lineage was the details of his own birth, and the births of his mother and father. Another lie, perhaps?
“Why do you have my family tree?” His mouth was so dry that his tongue felt thick as balled-up cotton and stuck to the roof of his mouth.
Bain stopped and faced him, his gaze penetrating Micah’s. “Because I’m on it.”