“Your words are more confusing than clear—what are you trying to tell me?” she asked, although she had a very good notion. She just didn’t want to make any mistakes. It was all too important.
“He has this stubborn notion that if he were to make a commitment … well, ye see, it is all about what happened to his mother …” His voice trailed off, and Morgan LeBlanc looked to the heavens and closed his eyes.
She felt a wave of sympathy and compassion for him and said softly, “I know. Chance mentioned something—not all, but something.” She had fallen into step beside him as they walked, but at her words he stopped and turned.
His tone was incredulous. “He told ye aboot that, did he?” He slipped her hand into the crook of his arm and began leading her back towards the house. “Then I’d best be telling ye the rest.”
“Oh, not if it is painful, sir …”
“Morgan, ye call me Morgan. Aye, painful—it will forever be painful, but I’ll be telling ye all the same.” He shook his head and sighed. “My own dear sweet …” He sighed again. “She was a stubborn one was my bride … the darling mother of m’bairns.” He stopped again and looked at her. “Forgive me. It has been a long time since I spoke of it.”
“Don’t … then …”
“No, ye must know. Right then, we—a team of our own—were rounding up a few escaped Dark Fae, keeping the humans safe some centuries ago, as we do when ye Fae don’t heal the breach in the magic wall of their prison quick enough. I asked her to stay home with young Lana, but would she?” He shook his head. “Not she. When we took too long, longer than she expected, she left Lana at home with a friend and went into the village—our village, which should have been as safe for her, night or day, as was her own home.”
He stopped, drew breath, and closed his eyes. “As it turned out, one of our hunters—one who wished me ill—had doubled back to Dravo. He was drunk, and he had long lusted after m’bride, and when he saw her in the village …” Morgan LeBlanc stopped and looked long at Royce before saying, “Evil has no gender, no race, no religion. Evil is—remember that, lass. This one’s soul had always been damaged, but that night he turned evil. He had with him what we call hobbles. They are magical. We designed them so that we could toss them onto a Dark Fae and keep it from shifting—or moving for that matter. The trouble is, they work on us as well. Never had reason to worry over that before.” He stopped again.
Royce stroked his hand, and said, “Don’t … this is too painful for you …”
“Aye, but ye must be told,” he answered and continued. “The brute waited his chance, and as he caught her in conversation—she wanted to know about me and Chance—he hobbled her and dragged her into the alley. M’lass … m’own dear lass, put up a fight. She scratched and bruised and beat at him as he tried to take her … and she screamed for help … and she called for me. We have a mind link, but I dinna get there in time …
“Villagers heard her scream and shifted to her at the moment the villain said, ‘If I canna have ye … no one else ever shall.’
“Chance and I arrived just as he pointed his Death Sword at her heart. I jumped him, but … his sword scratched her … it nicked her all the same …”
He stopped and collected himself. Royce knew he saw it all in his mind, fresh and awful to remember. Then he said, “Chance took to beating him while I tried to heal her, but even the scratch of a Death Sword … as you know, is fatal. It took her days to die … and we said our good-byes, and I managed to ease her pain … but lose her I did.”
Royce couldn’t speak because she was crying. She had seen the entire tale with her vivid imagination, and her heart broke for him. After all these centuries he still missed his wife.
He spoke quietly then. “Vengeance did little for me. Oh yes, Chance beat him till he coona move, and then I tortured him—ye need not hear those details, but I tortured him long before I put him to death. It did not heal me, and it did not bring her back, but it was necessary at the time.”
Royce felt her insides twist. “Oh sir, sir …”
He smiled sadly and wiped the tears from her cheek with a handkerchief he produced out of nowhere. He then put his arm around her. “There, there … ’twas a long time ago.”
“What are ye doing, Da, with m’woman in yer arms?” Chance demanded, looking none too happy as he stomped their way.
~ Eleven ~
“THERE YE ARE,” Morgan LeBlanc said with something of a smirk curving his lips. Royce saw with avid interest a bright look in his blue eyes and wondered about this father and son’s relationship.
“Aye, and there thee be …” Chance retorted, grinning, as he walked over. He put his hands on his father’s shoulders and shook them with great affection. He then took Royce’s hand, pulled her away from his da, and held her tightly against his side.
Royce was so intrigued with watching the two that she forgot to object to his possessive handling. She would have to do something about that, but not just at this moment, she decided. At any rate it felt so darned good to be pressed up against him.
Damn, she thought as she ran her gaze over Chance as inconspicuously as she could. He looked so buff in his lightweight gray tee and ragged blue jeans. His thick blond hair fell about in layered waves and framed his handsome face—styled so differently than his father, who wore his blond hair slicked back and tied at the nape of his neck. And then his eyes looked into hers, and she was filled with warm delight as that blue gaze of his was obviously alight with boyish happiness. Could she love him more than she did at that moment?
She watched as he conversed jovially with his father and sensed the respect and love they had for one another. She smiled sweetly when he touched his father’s shoulder and said gruffly, “I haven’t seen ye about in some days, Da …”
“I needed a quiet time to grieve alone for our girl. I will forever miss our Lana … but now, we must move forward. There are matters, new matters that must occupy our attention. Tell me, what news have ye of the devil bastard?”
Chance sighed heavily and began telling his father what they had been doing and what they knew of Pestale’s present whereabouts—which was zero.
His father looked at Royce and said, “And do ye have a scent of the villain, lass?”
“Not yet, but I think I soon may,” she answered with determination. These two men, now a part of her life, needed closure—justice, whatever one chose to call it, they needed it—which in essence meant they needed to destroy, not imprison Pestale. Her queen wanted Pestale captured, she knew, so where would her loyalty lie in this regard?
“Right then,” said his father. “Well … the morning moves on, and we must return to the manor! We have a very important guest arriving shortly.”