“Yes. And a daughter, Kayleen. Back before 1900.”
“Da fuq?” Ken said, shocked. “How old was she?”
“She was fourteen, and he caught her kissing a human boy from the village. I don’t think he intended to kill her, but he was so enraged he punched her.”
Slack-jawed, Peyton stared at him. “And no one thought to frag that fucker then?”
“He claimed he chased her when she ran from the confrontation, and she tripped and fell, hitting her head on a rock. He killed the human boy, but back then, unfortunately, that wasn’t something the pack would have thought twice about.
“I wasn’t home when it happened. A few years later, my brother finally admitted to me what he’d done. But after Kayleen’s death, Hyacinth was understandably never the same. She was barely a mother to her sons, once Faegan climbed over her enough to get her pregnant again. Then again, she was already traumatized before Faegan ever married her.”
“How’s that?” Ken asked.
“He killed the love of her life. Or so I’ve heard. I tend to believe the rumors, knowing my brother.”
“What?” they all said, looking shocked.
“She was in love with a non-shifter, and Faegan, being head of the clan, said no to the match. Forced her to marry and mate with him. I wasn’t present when it happened. I’d been off in London visiting cousins, and when I returned home, there she was. Not long after, rumors filtered to me that a man’s death immediately corresponded with the events. No one ever openly talked about it, of course. I couldn’t even get Donnel to tell me the story, and he was usually shoulders-deep up Faegan’s bum and the first one to spread gossip.”
“I hate him more with every new horrible fact I learn about him,” Ken said. “How was he never fragged before now? I mean, seriously? No one thought to sit outside the house and wait and shoot him?”
“He ruthlessly wielded a lot of power,” Hamish said. “There’s not an empathetic bone in his body. Plus, things were done differently then. And that was when he still had loyalists in the pack who thought the same way he did. Duncan certainly made the right decision to leave for America. Trevor here is a true rarity who managed to rise through the ranks and take control while choosing a path of peace.”
Trevor offered him a head-tip in thanks.
Ken darkly scowled. “As much as I hate her husband, unfortunately, I’ve seen what that kind of systematic abuse can do to a woman.” He met Hamish’s gaze. “Mom was killed by a fucker like that.”
“Still, I hope Tamsin doesn’t want anything to do with her,” Hamish said.
“As of right now, no,” Trevor said. “And none of us are asking her if she’s changed her mind. She knows if she wants contact with her, she can ask us.”
“Does Hyacinth want to see Tamsin?” Hamish asked.
“Yes,” Trevor tensely said. “Frankly, I’m conflicted, now that I know she tried to talk Faegan into accepting the dowry, and how much abuse she suffered.” He sighed. “Well, let’s just say I don’t hate her quite as much as I once did. Although I do pity her and no longer wish to kill her. That woman hasn’t known a moment’s happiness in over a hundred years. It’s a wonder poor Tamsin didn’t end up…”
Trevor cleared his throat before he could continue. “She’s an amazing girl. If I didn’t know any better, I would refuse to believe that Faegan is her father.”
“Some people get children and damned sure don’t deserve them,” Hamish darkly said.
“Too true,” Trevor agreed. “Well, shall we?”
Hamish nodded and led the way to the room he remembered used to be Faegan’s office, a sitting room at the far end of the first floor.
It still was—had been—apparently, because there were boxes of papers all over, books stacked on the floor in front of empty shelves, and a general feel of having been torn apart but not completely destroyed.
“We searched his desk,” Trevor said. “Did everything but drag it outside and take an axe to it.”
Hamish walked around it to the back side. It’d been their father’s desk and was a hideous, huge Brobdingnagian monstrosity made of dark, nearly black wood. He couldn’t remember the species of wood, but it had obviously been polished to a gleaming finish throughout the years.
Figured it was one of the few things in the home that appeared to have been taken care of.
He set his glass of water on the desktop but refused to sit in the enormous, albeit modern leather chair.
It stank of Faegan.
Hamish knelt, felt around the bottom trim of the desk under the right-side drawers, and located the barely raised bump in one of the carved motifs. If someone had no idea what they were looking for, they’d likely never find it, even by taking the desk apart.
When Hamish felt the soft click of the latch release, he moved to the left side of the desk and pressed the matching bump on that side. That allowed him to reach up under the footwell and slide a hidden panel out of the way that concealed a tiny, shallow compartment that?—
