Jackson’s eyes widened in surprise. “How did you know about that?”
“Because I felt the same way when Oracle informed me that Steel had bitten the Ambassador from the Fae Kingdom,” Maximus said, laughing.
“I did not!” Steel protested, emphatically.
“Oh yes, you did. If you don’t believe me, ask your mother,” Maximus replied.
“Tell me more!” Jackson smirked. “What else did Steel do?”
“Dad,” Steel growled. “We’re talking about Daniel…not me and what I supposedly did when I was a pup.”
“But babe,” Jackson said, grinning, “it would help us if we knew what to expect from Danny.”
“I don’t think so because my son would never bite anyone,” Steel insisted haughtily.
“Right…mainly because the likelihood of an ambassador from the Fae Kingdom showing up here is nil to none,” Jackson laughed.
Chapter 32
Tristan stared at the cottage, now only a shell, devoid of everything that had made it a home. The love and laughter he grew up with were all gone, buried with his mother. Turning away, he hurried to his car, anxious to leave quickly since there was now no reason to stay. Though his mother’s death had now given him freedom to pursue his own destiny, he’d have gladly traded it to have her back in his life again.
Driving away, Tristan took one last look, seeing his mother everywhere and nowhere. She’d gone to a better place where heartbreak and pain didn’t exist, yet he could still feel her close by. Biting back a sob, he turned onto the road that would take him westward, where his future was—and to a father he never knew existed.
It had always been just the two of them—Tristan and his mother—and, when in his childhood, he’d asked his mother about his father, she told him tales of a swashbuckling adventurer who travelled the world, capturing evil pirates. For the longest time, he’d dream of waking up to find his father offering to take him along on his next journey. But it never happened and, in time, Tristan stopped asking, convinced his father was just a figment of his mother’s imagination.
And he would’ve been happy to keep his father buried in his past, had not his mother’s death changed everything when he found his birth certificate and a paternity test among her effects.
My father is real.No matter how many times he’d said that since finding out, Tristan could feel nothing but anger at the man who’d abandoned him. Even with proof that Tristan was his son, his father had simply discarded him like a piece of trash. Andas much as that hurt, it was what else he’d found out about his father that now prompted him to head to California.
~/~/~/~/~
It had been a hell of a day and Kahn wanted nothing more than to go to bed, bury his head in his pillow and forget everything. He stared at the uneaten food on the kitchen table, wondering if he should just throw it out. Neither his sisters nor his mother had come downstairs to eat and he couldn’t blame them, since his appetite was gone, too.
Sighing, he began clearing the table, scraping the cold and congealed food into the garbage before placing the dishes in the sink. After the kitchen was cleaned, Kahn made himself a cup of coffee and leaned back against the counter, drinking it slowly. So preoccupied was he with his thoughts, he never heard the back door open.
“I could use one of those,” Reeve said, setting his phone down on the counter. “Any left?”
“What?” Kahn looked up. “Yeah…I just made it.”
Taking a mug out of the cupboard, Reeve glanced at his mate, noting his defeatist posture. After filling it, he sat down at the island, sipping the hot brew while studying Kahn. It was obvious it had been a rough day, but maybe the news he had would at least end it on a better note. “I spoke to Jackson today.”
“Good for you,” Kahn muttered. The last thing he wanted to hear was more depressing news only confirming what he already knew; Jackson wanted him dead. The only bright spot about that was that Reeve would finally understand why it was necessary for him and his family to leave.
“Actually, I think it’ll cheer you up,” Reeve said.
“Let me guess…he’s willing to settle for just me.”
“Not quite,” Reeve replied. “He’s not interested in getting revenge, period. As he put it ‘The past is the past; let it die along with Josiah.’”
“You believe him?” asked Kahn as a small flicker of hope suddenly leapt to life inside him. They would still have to leave but at least he wouldn’t have keep looking over his shoulder, wondering when his cousin would strike.
“Yes,” assured Reeve, “he wasn’t lying.”
Kahn grunted in acknowledgment, then placed his mug in the sink and muttered, “I’m going to bed. See you in the morning.”
“Wait, there’s more.”
“What?” Kahn asked, keeping his back to Reeve, wishing the man would just disappear. It was all too much, more than he could cope with after spending the day listening to his sisters alternate between crying and screaming at him for letting their father be killed. Between comforting them and trying to calm them, he was exhausted, and his concern for his mother didn’t help. She had aged in front of him and, other than apologizing to his sisters for failing their father, his mother sat on the couch staring at her wedding ring.
