Though Laddin still felt like he’d had his insides scooped out, he shouldered his way forward and tried to use his voice for something good. “He saved our lives!”
“Heriskedour lives first—” Nero said.
“No!” Laddin cried, though his voice came out as a heavy rasp. “Irisked our lives. This was my screwup, and he saved us.”
That should have meant something to Nero. The guy was fair-minded, for the most part. But he shook his head at Laddin. “You fucked up, but everybody does when they first meet fairies—”
“Exactly—”
“But I know your motives.” His gaze turned dark and angry as he looked at Bruce. “I don’t know what’s driving him—”
“He came to save my ass—”
“And I know this wasn’t his first fairy rodeo.”
There was silence as everyone stared at Bruce. He had dropped into the chair and was waiting with a bored expression on his face. Laddin knew him well enough to understand what Bruce was doing. He was pretending not to care when he obviously did. A lot.
“He gave up his firstborn child to Bitterroot,” Laddin said softly. “That’s the standard fairy deal.”
Josh paced around the kitchen island. “And how the fuck could you do that?” Josh exploded. “Give a kid to that asshole?”
Meanwhile Bruce jolted with equal shock. “What? No! I asked him that specifically.”
Laddin blew out a breath of relief, but Nero didn’t let it go. “And what did he answer—specifically?”
Bruce frowned as he thought back. “He said that they revere human children. Oh shit.” He grimaced and glared into space. “Bitterroot, you fucking asshole, what did I promise you?”
Everyone waited for the fairy. He didn’t show. Instead, a piece of parchment appeared on the kitchen table. It was the fairy contract, and right there in bold letters it readIn return for More, Bruce Collier will give his firstborn child to Bitterroot. Simple. Bold. And though there were lots more words, those were the important ones.
Laddin read it and sank onto the floor. The idea of losing a child gutted him, and it wasn’t even his. But that was what Bruce had given up for him—to save him and fix his screwup. The knowledge tore at him.
Meanwhile, Bruce leaned back with a sigh. “It’s okay,” he said out loud. “I don’t have a kid.”
“Yet,” Nero said.
“Never. Dad saw to that when I was sixteen.”
Josh whipped around. “Bullshit.”
Bruce shrugged, but his eyes were bright with emotion as he looked at Josh. “Remember when Dad caught me making out with Mary Beth Davis? Well, he had me at a doctor the very next day. He said he didn’t want to chance me having another you.” The hatred inherent in that statement made everyone flinch, Josh most of all. But Bruce didn’t stop. “He never said you were a werewolf. I have no idea how he knew what you were. Are. But he chopped my nuts rather than risk me making another one of you. His words, not mine.”
Josh stood there, his skin pale, his mouth clenched hard. Nero was shaking his head.
“No clinic is going to cut a sixteen-year-old kid.”
Bruce’s gaze went to Nero. “It wasn’t a clinic. I don’t even know if it was a real doctor. All I remember is Dad handing me my usual morning smoothie, then waking up on a table in a place I didn’t recognize. I was hurting like hell, and beside me there was a guy explaining that I’d need to ice my balls for a couple days and there’d be no football until Monday.”
Josh shook his head. “That doesn’t make sense. You’re his favorite. It’d be his fucking wet dream for you to make a dozen little Bruces to entertain him in his old age.”
“I had it checked a few years ago. I was dating someone, and she wanted kids.” Bruce shrugged. “I’m so mangled up with scar tissue that reversing it is out of the question.”
Laddin stepped forward. “Not in the normal way of things, maybe. But with magic—”
“It’s not reversible,” Bruce repeated firmly, his jaw hard. “Because if it was, I’d have to give my kid to that asswipe fairy.”
Right. No kids. Ever.
Meanwhile, Josh was still pacing. “He never clipped me. He didn’t touch Ivy. Why would he pick you?”
