“And thus she remained,” Hamish said. “Yma o hyd.”
“What?” Dewi asked.
“It’s the family slogan Father had carved over the front door here when he built this house. It’s a Welsh saying that means ‘we’re still here,’ although I hope he’d be horrified by Faegan’s interpretation of it.”
“Terrific,” Dewi muttered. “Another fucking language I gotta learn.”
“Not really,” Hamish said. “I haven’t spoken it in years. Leastways, not at length. Not sure how much I remember, quite honestly. But I remember how proud Father was of this house. It was a legacy, according to him, because of what it symbolized. A place for our roots to grow and flourish. Unfortunately, Faegan thought more of the structure than of the flesh-and-blood people living inside it.”
“Well, it won’t be long before he’s not thinking much of anything,” Ken said. “He couldn’t really believe his plan would work, could he?”
“Which one?” Dewi snarked.
“Fair point,” Ken said.
“You know,” Dewi said, “remember the night when Trevor brought Tamsin to us? I said then her mom was pretty long in the tooth to be having pups. Looks like I wasn’t wrong, even though I didn’t know it.”
“I remember,” Ken said. “Now we know she wasn’t as old as we believed. But Tamsin also said her mother defied Faegan not to let her be mated off too young.”
“After everything that happened,” Hamish said, “perhaps he simply forgot he could order her to do that. That, or the threat to the cousin Faegan wanted to mate Tamsin to was made directly to the man, and Faegan knew he couldn’t hand-wave that away without drawing more questions.”
“And perhaps he felt the delay could potentially yield an even richer mate,” Trevor darkly said. “He’s a greedy fucking bastard. I wouldn’t put it past him to think he could use that time to instigate a bidding war over her. What better excuse than to blame Hyacinth for that delay?”
“What Prime is strong enough to do this?” Ken asked. “I mean, I know there isn’t a decoder-ring secret society with membership lists to cross-check, but can we logic the shit out of this and narrow our suspects? Didn’t one of you tell me powers differ between Primes?”
“In theory, potentially any experienced Prime could do it,” Dewi said. “But they might not be strong enough to wipe all those memories, just force her to not remember.”
“Callum,” Badger gravely said. “Callum was feckin’ strong like that. People used to tell stories about not gettin’ on his wrong side or he’d snap his fingers an’ make ye forget ye were ever a two-legged human, much less yer own name.”
“Oh, yeah,” Duncan said. “He sure was.”
Something tickled Ken’s brain. “Okay,” he said, sitting back and waving his hands in front of him as if clearing everything away. “Let’s look at this from a different angle.” He ticked off points on his fingers. “Hyacinth…isn’t. Donnel is MIA. Their sister Bryn ‘ran off’”—he used finger quotes—“assumedly with Callum. Callum is a damned strong Prime Alpha?—”
“Faegan doggedly hunted them,” Hamish said. “From the moment they left.”
“Good point,” Ken said. “We know Callum and Bryn’s baby was alive and well at an exact point in time, meaning Callum and Bryn were alive at least as far as nine months prior to that date, give or take. Well, Bryn was. We know Callum was alive at least until the baby was conceived.”
Ken paused, processing. “I mean, Mom.” He swallowed hard. “My mom.” He looked at Peyton. “It’s still hard to reconcile that Mom was Bryn and Callum’s daughter.”
Peyton squeezed his shoulder. “I know.” He gave Ken a moment. “But it sounded like you were on a roll about something?”
“Yeah. Maybe Faegan struck a deal with Callum?” Ken scowled. “Tamsin’s brother. The one who died.”
“Which one?” Peyton, Dewi, Trevor, and Badger all asked in unison.
“She had three brothers,” Peyton continued. “One was executed in custody after he was interrogated by Primes, one was killed at the safe house during the initial attack on it, and one was murdered by Faegan years before Tamsin was born.”
Ken snapped and pointed. “That one. What’s his name?”
“Ben,” Trevor said.
“How old was he?” Ken asked.
Dewi grumbled something. “Hold on a fricking second. Gimme that?—”
It sounded like she grabbed something, then walked away. Seconds later, a beep, a series of clicks, then she said, “Can you hear me on this phone, too?”
“Loud and clear,” Peyton said.
