Shades of Midnight (Midnight Breed 7)

"That's right," someone else chimed in confidentially. "It's only because Victoria insisted that Kir even permitted a gathering for the funeral rites. It's as though he wanted to simply sweep Seth away like he never existed."

Kade ignored the quiet wave of whispered speculation behind him as he made his way to the altar at the front of the chapel. His father's shame and disapproval didn't surprise him. The fiercely disciplined, rigidly perfect Kir would never tolerate a Rogue in the family, let alone willingly deign to admit that his favored son had fallen to Bloodlust.

Kade was ashamed, too, not so much for his brother's weaknesses and unforgivable misdeeds but for his own failure to help Seth turn his life around before it was too late.

"This moment belongs to my brother," he said, addressing the assembled group of his relatives and the other residents of the Darkhaven. "I have no wish to take even a second of this time away from Seth, but there are things you all should know. Things all of you need to understand before you condemn him for what became of him in the end."

"Sit down, Kade." His father's voice was low and level, but his eyes crackled with command. "This is neither the time nor the place."

Kade nodded. "I know. I should have come forward a hell of a lot sooner. Maybe if I'd said something earlier, my brother would've had a chance. Maybe he wouldn't be dead." His father rose, coming up off his seat on the bench. "Nothing you say here will change a goddamn thing. So hold your tongue, boy. Let it be."

"I can't," Kade said. "I've carried Seth's secret for too long. I've been carrying my own secrets, too. It's long past time I let them go."

Kade's mother blinked back a fresh rush of tears, one slender hand cradling the swell of her stomach, where another pair of twin boys was growing inside her. "What are you talking about? What secrets, Kade?

Please ... I want to know."

He looked past the disapproving glare of his father, to the plea that swam in his gentle mother's moist eyes. Maybe what he said in this room, before all of these witnesses, would someday help the new pair of brothers who would soon be born with the same talent--the same seductive, wild calling--that he and Seth possessed. For that reason alone, he had to speak.

And then, there was Alex.

Kade's gaze strayed to the back of the crowded chapel, where she had entered in silence and now stood near the closed doors, her steady gaze as tender as it was strong. She nodded faintly, the only approval that truly mattered in this room.

"My brother was not well," he told the quiet gathering. "From the time we were boys, we both struggled with the ability we inherited at birth. Maybe in someone else, like you, Mother," he said, glancing at her as he spoke about the unique gift she also possessed, "the talent might have been a strength. For Seth and me, it became a curse. It was too much power for boys who were stupid with arrogance and too naive to understand the consequences. We abused the talent we inherited from you. At first, we treated it like a game, running with a pack of wolves in the woods, hunting with them ... killing with them. We let the wildness rule us. At some point, I realized Seth could not stop."

"Oh, my son," she gasped. "I am so sorry. I had no idea--"

"I know that," he said, interrupting her before she could assume any more blame that wasn't hers.

"No one had any idea. It was wrong for Seth and me to conceal the truth. I made it worse when I left Alaska last year."

Kir's scowl deepened. "Worse, how?"

"Seth had killed a human." Kade ignored the horrified gasp that traveled the congregation, his eyes rooted on his father. "He'd killed, and I knew he had. He promised me it was a mistake he would never repeat. I didn't believe him. I wanted to, but I knew my brother too well. I should have done something then.

I should have found a way to ensure he wouldn't do it again. Instead, I left." Silence fell over the room as Kade spoke. It stretched endlessly, a cold, sodden weight that bore down on his shoulders as he weathered his father's unreadable gaze. Kade's mother rushed to fill the terrible quiet.

"You had to leave, Kade. The Order needed your help in Boston. You had important work to do there--"

"No," Kade said, shaking his head in slow denial. "I was glad to join the Order, but that's not why I left. Not really. I left Alaska because I feared that if I stayed, I would become like Seth. To save myself, I abandoned my brother--abandoned all of you--and I ran to Boston for my own selfish reasons. There was no honor in what I did."

He glanced to the back of the chapel as he said it, meeting Alex's gaze. She was listening without judgment, the only pair of eyes in the room that wasn't fixed on him in contempt or stunned disbelief.

"What Seth did was wrong," Kade continued. "He was sick, maybe beyond help, even before his weakness turned him Rogue. But despite all that, he died with honor. Because of Seth's sacrifice a few hours ago, I am alive. More important, there is a beautiful, extraordinary woman standing at the back of this room who's also alive because of Seth's actions in the final moments of his life." As a whole, the group turned to look on Alex. She didn't flinch at the sudden attention, nor at the whispers of speculation and curiosity that traveled the chapel on Kade's announcement.>"Tell me what has happened to my son."

Kade had never heard his father's voice shake, not even at Kir's worst. The tremor in that deep baritone now was like a knife to Kade's gut.

"Father ... I am sorry."

Kir thundered down the steps and into the snow. He stopped in front of Kade and Alex, reached out with a shaking hand to lift the blanket that covered Seth's face.

"Ah, Christ. No." The words choked in the back of his throat, raw with anguish. He looked once more, longer now, as though forcing himself to take full measure of the Rogue's face that had been hidden beneath the shroud. "I prayed this wouldn't happen again. Goddamn it, not to one of my sons."

"Kir!" Kade glanced up as his pregnant mother strayed out to the porch, her silk nightgown engulfed by the large parka she'd apparently grabbed and thrown on inside the house. Her steps faltered as she saw Kade standing there in the snow, his arms filled with an unmistakable bulk. "Oh, my God. Oh, no. Oh, dear lord, no! Please tell me that's not--"

"Stay back," Kade's father barked. Then he gentled his voice to a heartbreaking softness. "Victoria, I beg you ... don't come any closer. Please, my love, go back inside. Do as I say. You don't need to see this." With a sob, she inched back toward the door, aided by Maksim, who'd just come outside in that moment, as well. Max took her arm to steady her as he brought his brother's mate back into the Darkhaven.

"Give him to me," Kade's father said once the doors had closed and both Max and Victoria were back inside. "Let me have my dead son."