Howling pain—the kind of pain no healer could cure, the kind that would dig at you every day.
Every day until you wanted to quit, run away, give up.
“Do you recall anything about that tree, Lucas?”
Tears flooded his eyes as it all came back to him, flitting bits and pieces of memory tugging their way out of the recesses in his mind. “You called me Lucas. You know my true sire.”
Bor stood with his hands behind his back. “I did, and I do. Tell me what you remember.”
Loki stared at the tree and a young lad popped in front of him, a lad angry at the world, swinging an axe at the tree over and over and over again.
The lad screamed and screamed, “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you…”
Loki stared at Bor through his tears. “Who did I hate so badly?”
“Your father, or the man you believed to be your father, and another man.”
He jumped up from the tree stump as the memories returned in full. “I was angry with my father. I hated him. He wasn’t truly my father, but I didn’t know it then. I tried to save my mother from a beating…”
“Instead your father and his helper beat you.”
“Aye. That man, Hamish, threw me in a wagon and took me away. I recalled this before…he tossed me out of the wagon expecting me to die, but I didn’t.”
“Nay, you were stronger than they expected you to be. You fought hard, crawled on your hands and knees until someone found you.” Bor stood unmoving, his hands still behind his back.
“You. ‘Twasyouwho found me.” Memories of a burly, bearded man with a smile and kind eyes flooded back to him. Bor had climbed off his horse and lifted him up, giving him water and telling him he’d not die. “You saved me, brought me to Ayr.”
“I did bring you to Ayr, but you’d already saved yourself. I then brought you here to live with us. Even in this place, your desire for vengeance ate at your insides. Do you remember?”
Loki’s eyes widened. “I do.” He paced in a circle. “I wanted to kill Hamish. Hamish and Blackett, the rat bastard who beat mymother and pretended to be my sire. Only he wasn’t. He killed my mother, I’m sure of it.”
“Probably. You wished to find them and make them pay. I’d hoped you would lose some of your anger if I allowed you to swing at that tree, but it never helped, until one day…”
Loki held his hand up. “Saints above, I remember. Allow me. I swung and swung, and one day, I was so angry that I told you I didn’t want to be called Lucas anymore.”
“Aye, you believed it tied you to Blackett, that he’d chosen the name for you.”
“I hated him, so it ate at my insides…but…” So much had returned, but it still didn’t all fit together. “I wanted a new name. You told me tales of the Norse gods and goddesses, and I wanted to be just like Loki.”
“Aye, you wished to be the wee trickster, and you vowed you’d become one of the largest and fiercest warriors in all the land so that you could return one day to kill Blackett and Hamish. According to your true sire, you did just that.”
“I did. Blackett tricked me first, but good triumphed over evil that day. I hated those rat bastards.”
“Did you defeat them alone?”
Loki settled back on the stump. “Nay, only with the help of my adoptive family, Clan Grant, and our allies, the Ramsays.”
“I doubt the Grants and Ramsays come together for just anyone, do they?”
He dipped his head, thinking of how fortunate he’d been to run into Brodie Grant and Fergus’s sire, Nicol. “Nay, they do not. But how did you know my true sire?”
“I met him not long ago. There are not many men who have one blue eye and one green. I asked him about you, and sure enough, he was your sire. He thanked me for picking you up from the ground where I found you.”
“I remember everything, but why couldn’t I recall it before? I don’t understand.” He rested his head in his hands, trying to work this new information into the tapestry of his life.
“Because the last day you were out here swinging, you lost your balance and hit your head on a rock. It knocked you out. When you awakened, you would only answer to Loki, and you left for Ayr the next day. That’s all I can tell you. As you said to Kenzie, the mind protects itself when it must.”
“I had several dreams about you recently…as did my son. Why? You are the caretaker of lost children. Why would I start dreaming about you now?”
