I let my anger simmer, trying to cool it down from the boil that’s still raging.
I jerk my chin toward my father-in-law. “Master Hull has quite the collection of furs. He’ll see to it your men are dressed.”
Master snorts. “After all these years of shit talking, my clothes finally save the day.”
“Your service is noted, Master,” I say in jest, although every word rings as true as the Hunter sword swings.
Master Hull pushes himself to a teetering stance before steadying and striding to the door. “Come on, Ned, let’s raid my closet.”
Ned rises, gaze lingering on my wife. “I’m sorry,” he says and spins on his heel, Longton filtering out behind them.
Riot takes his chair again, stretching his massive legs toward the fire. “Well, that was awkward,” he drawls, and Grace bursts into laughter.
Uncle Brachett cracks his knuckles. “That Hunter has always had something to say. Pissed me off more than once.”
Riot looks at me as I finally sit back down. “I’m so ready to get into Goreon Castle and kill some assholes. I still think our access is going to be through the dungeon, like your father said.”
Riot has been a strategist since the day I met him; he can’t help himself.
“I need to vet it.”
He nods. “I’m not arguing with that.”
“Have you forgiven him yet?” Uncle Brachett asks suddenly.
My eyes flick to him and his pointless question. “You know that day will never come. Unless you can bring my mother back from the dead.”
Brachett sighs. “I miss that beast of a Mother. Gods bless, was she a force.” He leans forward on his elbows, his bushy eyebrows furrowed and features shadowed in the firelight. “Your father didn’t have a choice, Kade.”
“He had a fucking choice. He just made the wrong one,” I growl. “They’re both dead—why bother with forgiveness, Uncle?”
“It was all of us. It was his Hunters or your mother.”
I look him dead in the eyes. “It was thewrongchoice. He acted too early. He doesn’t deserve forgiveness for the price he chose to pay.”
Brachett shakes his head at me and stands. “Death is a faraway thing until it touches us. Don’t let it poison you, Kade.”
I stare into the fire, watching flames lick the wood, momentarily wishing I could hurl myself into it to escape this conversation.
“I’ll see you back out there,” I tell Brachett and wait for him to leave.
His boots finally scrape into the distance.
Grace slides into my lap and curls herself around me, my being softening from stone underneath her. My head finds home against her collarbone.
“Let’s go have some fun with the boys. We need to take a break tonight before all of this is upon us,” she says.
Grace knows how I wear my stress, like a thick, heavy chain around my neck, and it tightens and coils until I can’t breathe.
And right now, I can’t stop thinking about Sam. And Lou.
“Sam is stubborn, and that makes him hard to kill,” Grace says, a small smile playing on her lips. “Believe me, I’ve tried.”
I shake my head at her with a creeping grin. Grace walks through life with confidence and mental strength like no one I’ve ever met.
I stand us up, Riot leading the way back toward the hoard of Hunters dining and drinking in the main chamber.
Stuffed bellies, half-empty kegs, and outlandish fighting bets land us in the pens an hour later.
