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“Look after my sons, Gael.”

The horror moved into his face. “You’re just taking off? You’re going to abandon your family?—”

“You offered your help, and now I’m asking for it.” I climbed into the saddle and secured the reins in my hand.

My brother was older than me, but he was the one who looked up to me. But now, all the respect and reverence faded quicker than rain in the dry soil. “You’re a coward.”

I let the words wash over me—and then drown me in despair.

“Your wife is dying and your kids are scared, and you’re just going to leave?—”

I clapped my heels into the horse hard enough to make him take off at a run. I left out of the gate and rode in the night, the moonlight my only illumination. Torches from the village were visible in the distance. I ran even though I had nowhere to go—nowhere to escape the pain I’d caused and the contract I’d signed.

“Callum!”

PROLOGUE V

WRATH

I knew I shouldn’t have come here.

It was the middle of spring, the flowers on the bushes an opulent purple. The garden was lush with greenery. The sky was a pastel blue with only a single white cloud far in the distance. It was exactly as I remembered, the little house I’d built with my bare hands.

I stared at it for hours, seeing glimpses of someone move past the window between the curtains. There was still time to go back. My imagination was torture, but I could always tell myself it wasn’t real. But once I saw reality, I couldn’t unsee it.

I took a breath before I crossed the yard to the front door.

I heard voices inside. Darius. Tiberius. They were fighting about something. My hand moved to the door, but I didn’t turn it.

Then Anya’s voice came. “How many times have I told you not to play with that inside the house?” Her voice was angry, but she was alive and well, healthy.

It brought a mist to my eyes.

My existence was a dark servitude, but it was worth it.

Then I heard another voice. “Listen to your mother, or I’ll make you listen to me.”

I recognized it—because it was my brother.

I was content hearing their voices, but now his presence caused more curiosity. Bahamut said she would remarry and have more children. But had he referred to my brother all along? I turned the handle and entered the house.

It looked exactly the same…but everything had changed.

The boys played with makeshift bows and arrows they’d tried to make themselves. They were on the rug in front of the fire. Anya was in the kitchen cooking dinner, and she was pregnant.

I stared at her small belly. Someone else might not have noticed, but I had been with her every day through both of her pregnancies. I knew her body well, knew when it had changed. And now, I could see she was in the beginning of a new pregnancy, maybe three or four months along.

It’d been a year since I left.

And there was my brother. Helping her in the kitchen like he lived there. They didn’t touch or kiss, but the way they moved together told me they were more than friends. She smiled at him when he handed her the salt. Her eyes lit up, just the way they used to for me.

I’d been replaced.

I’d known it would happen. Bahamut had warned me. But I hadn’t expected it to happen so fast, for her to move on and havemore children with my own brother, to start a new life almost the second I was gone.

“I told you not to come.” Bahamut appeared on the other side of the kitchen, watching them together with mock interest. His blue eyes moved to me, absent of empathy and full of malice.

“I had to.”