Embrace the Light (Godstone Saga 5)

“Who is he?” The words jumped from Eno’s tongue before he could stop them. Something in him had panicked at the idea of Davi suddenly leaving his sight. He couldn’t wait any longer. He had to know the truth. As scary as it was, the unknown was starting to feel infinitely worse.

Davi even stopped in the doorway and slowly turned to face Eno. There was something in the narrowing of his eyes, the way his jaw tensed, that made Eno think that the same thoughts were crossing his brain about Eno.

“He’s Davi—” Vitor repeated, but Eno quickly cut him off.

“No, that’s not his name. The same way Vitor isn’t your name.” His tone was sharp and harsh. He’d turned to stare at Davi in the doorway. Rayne took a step closer to Eno and placed a hand on his shoulder, easing some of the tension tightening around his heart. Thank the gods that Rayne was there. His Rayne would always be there to support him. “Is he originally from Erya?”

“No,” Vitor replied, but Eno didn’t trust the answer. There was more to it. There had to be.

“Is he Bodhi? Is he Bodhi Xier from New Rosanthe?” There was the slightest tremble in Eno’s voice, and Rayne’s hold on him tightened.

The pause seemed to stretch out for minutes when it couldn’t have been more than a couple of heartbeats. Eno needed the truth, and he was willing to beat it out of Vitor if he needed to, but right now, he couldn’t tear his gaze away from Davi.

At last, Vitor finally said, “Yes, he was born Bodhi Xier in New Rosanthe. He is your younger brother, Lord Bevyn.”

Everything remained still and silent. No one breathed or moved. And then the world exploded.

Air burst out of Eno’s lungs, and he started to fall to the floor as if his legs had given out. The room spun and dipped. Strong hands grabbed his arm to slow his descent. Drayce was shouting curses. There was a loud slap as Davi…er…Bodhi’s hand hit the wooden doorframe as if he were struggling to keep upright as well.

“That’s my brother!” Davi shouted suddenly, pointing at Vitor with the hand that wasn’t keeping him standing. “That’s my brother! You knew who I was going to fetch, and you didn’t tell me that I was going to get my brother?”

“I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to be distracted,” Vitor replied with a surprisingly hard and cold tone that didn’t match his exterior in the least. But then, Eno suspected the spymaster possessed a will of iron. He would need to in order to do his job successfully. “Now, please, the refreshments. I think they are going to be very much needed.”

With a frustrated snarl, Davi shoved off the doorframe and stepped into the kitchen. Eno’s eyes followed him. He started to get up, irrational panic gripping him. If Davi left his sight, he could disappear all over again.

“Stay here. Get your bearings. He’ll be right back,” Rayne admonished.

Eno’s wide eyes snapped to his face as a new thought surfaced. “You didn’t know, right? You always seem to know everything. You weren’t keeping it from me to protect me. You honestly didn’t know that he was working for the spymaster? For the crown?”

Pain slashed across Rayne’s face before he could shove it aside. “I swear upon the crown and the life of my sister, I did not know. After we got Caelan on the throne, I managed to send off one quick message to the Gray Fox about your brother. I gave him what little information we had and told him to do what he could to find him. Caelan also asked Tomas to begin a search in Stormbreak. But I didn’t know he’d been located. I would never keep something like that from you.”

“I didn’t tell him yet, Lord Bevyn,” Vitor added. “Davi has been working for me for just over a year, but it’s only been in the past month that I was able to confirm his true identity. Also, I’m not in the habit of informing Lord Laurent of my network. He deals solely with me, for the protection of everyone.”

Davi stomped into the room with his fist wrapped around the neck of a bottle of whiskey and a stack of bright-blue plastic cups. He dropped the cups on the coffee table and started working on the protective seal on the bottle.

Vitor sighed loudly. “What is this? A frat party?”

“I am not making tea. This is not a tea conversation. This is an ‘I might need to get fucking loaded to handle this’ conversation,” Davi snapped. He stopped working on the plastic seal to point the bottle at Vitor. “You told me I had a brother, but you neglected to tell me that my brother was freaking Lord Eno Bevyn, the king’s damn personal bodyguard!”

Something a little broken and panicked in Davi’s voice had Eno shoving to his feet before his brain even registered the action. He took the bottle out of Davi’s hands and shoved it into Drayce’s. “Open this,” he grunted and jerked his brother into a tight bear hug.

A surprised gust of air left Davi, and then strong arms gripped him in return. Unshed tears burned his eyes as Eno gripped his brother as tightly as he could. His own flesh and blood. He had a fucking brother. Family. Real family. For so long, he thought he’d been alone in the world. His adoptive parents had died a few years ago and his entire life had become about serving the crown.

Yes, Drayce, Rayne, and Caelan had become his new family, but now he had a real brother.

“Ahhh, man, Cael is gonna be pissed that he missed this,” Drayce cried.

“He can pick my brain apart later and relive the moment,” Eno replied in a choked voice over Davi’s shoulder. He had no problem with Caelan reading his mind to experience this moment. He wished the king had been there to share this. Adrian too.

“Do I even want to know?” Davi mumbled.

Eno sighed softly and shifted his hold on his brother to grab him by the shoulders. He stared at him, not quite able to believe what he was seeing. At last, he managed a smirk and shook his head. “No, you really don’t, but I am very glad that I’ve found you.”

“Eno?” Rayne started softly. His name was filled with such hesitance and ache. He knew his lover hated to intrude on this moment, but this was not why they’d come to Brightspire in the first place. They had a god to locate and another god to stop from destroying the world. What’s more, their king was running about in potentially dangerous territory with only one bodyguard. They needed to get back to work.

He flashed Rayne his brightest smile so he would understand that there were no hard feelings. “I know. Duty calls.”

Rayne whispered, “I’m sorry.”