Page 49 of Against the Veil (Endangered Fae #3)

Chapter Twenty-One

A New Innocence

“Courage? No, see, real courage is getting up to go to a hard job every morning at oh-dark-thirty ’cause you have to take care of the kids. Fighting against something you know’s wrong. Those things take courage.”

“So you don’t see yourself as a hero?”

“Different question. A hero’s someone in the wrong place at the wrong time who had enough momentum and enough crazy to do something stupid that worked out better than it should.

Courage is perseverance…persistence. Heroism is just an adrenaline-charged temporary loss of sanity.

” —Zachary Morrison, interview on CBC News

“ B eloved, stop, please!” Finn seized his husband by the shoulders and gave him a little shake, trying to halt the steady thud of Diego’s head against the wall as he rocked in agony.

For a moment, Diego only stared at him without recognition, muscles trembling under Finn’s hands. “I killed her.”

Finn held his chin in a hard grip. “Did you make the roof fall, bucko?”

A hard shudder and a shake of Diego’s head preceded his renewed struggles to wrench himself away. “No,” he whispered. “I didn’t need to. I’d already killed her. By bringing her there. By creating such chaos.”

“It wasn’t you! Do you hear me!” Finn tried to wrap him in a tight embrace even though Diego stiffened and fought harder to get away. “You cannot say it was you when you were not whole, only half of what you should be.”

Diego abruptly stopped struggling and looked up, his eyes full of such terrible desolation that Finn whimpered. “They told us the darkness was coming. I was na?ve and arrogant enough to think I could prevent it. I couldn’t, Finn. I couldn’t. Because I was the darkness.”

“My love, my hero, my own…” Finn traced a gentle finger over Diego’s jaw and down his throat, over the rope burn from Diego’s failed attempt to hang himself the night before.

“I caused such destruction, caro . I enjoyed it while I was…like that.” Diego lifted trembling fingers to touch Finn’s cheek. “I hurt you. Again. I hurt you. I’m too dangerous to let live.”

“No,” Finn got out in a fierce whisper, dragging Diego into his arms to let him sob against his chest. “Don’t say such things.” Don’t leave me. By all that’s holy, my light, don’t leave me.

A shuddering cry woke Lugh. After a moment’s anxious confusion, he realized it was his own.

“Hey, everything’s okay.” A warm hand stroking his stomach accompanied the soft words. “Home in bed. Welcome back, Rip van Winkle.”

Zack lay beside him, leaning on one elbow, a tender smile on his face.

“Who is that?”

“Oh, sorry. This guy in a story who slept for a whole bunch of years, maybe fifty or something like that.”

Shocked, Lugh gaped at him. “I have slept for…years?”

“Crap. I didn’t mean to get you all worried.” Zack pressed a kiss to his forehead. “No, babe. Didn’t mean it literally. You’ve been asleep for three days. Your mom said to just let you sleep.”

Lugh lifted an arm, his forehead wrinkling at the sight of burgundy flannel. “I seem to be wearing…pajamas.”

“Yeah, we were having trouble keeping you warm. Biggest damn pair Carol could find and we still couldn’t button the shirt. How’re you feeling?”

“Parched. Weak as a newborn rabbit kit.” He hated how badly his hand shook, but he still reached out to cup the worried face hovering over him, the most beautiful sight in both worlds. “Overjoyed to see you.”

“It’s good to see you, too. You don’t even know.” Moisture glinted in Zack’s eyes, but he cleared his throat and seemed to catch himself as he took Lugh’s hand in a steady grip. “Really thought…never mind. It doesn’t matter now.”

“My deepest regrets for causing you such worry.” The hand around his felt like sunlight, like spring rain. I have him back. Sweet Mother I don’t deserve it, but I have him back. “Is everyone safe? Diego? Finn? All the human children?”

Zack turned his gaze out of the window. “Mostly. Almost all.”

“Who?” Dread gathered around his heart. “Whom have we lost?”

“The werewolf girl, Lila. Faolchú brought the ceiling down. Not something he wanted to do, but she was caught in it.” Zack hesitated, his eyes searching the garden.

“We tried to find family. Someone to tell. To turn the body over to, at least. But she didn’t have anyone.

Faolchú took her across and buried her himself.

He…it was by the Alainn, where he said he’d want to rest if it was him.

Big guy took it hard. Sits by her grave and howls at night. ”

“It is hard for us, any of us, to have a hand in harming a human child.”

Zack turned back to him, teeth worrying at his bottom lip. “Even an abomination?”

“Even so, though that is a word we should discourage.” A fit of coughing cut him off and Zack reached over to snatch a bottle of water from the table, an arm behind his back to lift him so he could drink.

When he’d finally caught his breath, he leaned gratefully against his sergeant, unable even to lift his head. “Who else?”

“Magnus is kind of a puzzle. He ran out of the asylum, we know that. Trackers followed his trail to a steep gulley. They think he fell down the side in the dark but they couldn’t find him. Sionnach said he ‘smelled death’ down there but no one knows for sure.”

“So the authorities have been notified? About the deaths?”

“Hmm. About that. We made discreet inquiries about any connections, but we know if we reported it to the police, the whole incident would have every alphabet agency from Langley to Los Angeles crawling all over this. We can’t do that to those kids.”

“And Diego?” That Zack had avoided the subject worried Lugh more than anything else did.

“Um, yeah. Diego. He’s…” Zack cleared his throat again and shifted to wrap both arms around Lugh, letting him rest fully against his chest. “He’s home and safe. He’s our Diego again, no doubt about that.”

“But there is guilt.”

“There’re huge freaking mounds of it. He just can’t seem to dig himself out.

The first day, he was just sick and listless.

The seizure was really bad. But after that…

” A shuddering breath ran through Zack. “It’s serious clinical depression.

Says he doesn’t know how to live with what he did. He’s…tried to kill himself twice.”

“The things that were done, though, they weren’t done by him . Surely, he understands that.”

“Yes and no. He knows he was under a compulsion but he still blames himself. Even Danu’s come to tell him that none of us hold him responsible, but it doesn’t seem to help.”

A shiver raced through Lugh and Zack hugged him close.

“Tell me he is never alone.”

“Never. Not anymore. We make sure poor Finn gets a break sometimes, but there’s always someone in the room with him who understands him and loves him. Maybe with enough time…” Zack’s arms lifted and fell as he shrugged. “I just don’t know.”

“When I’m stronger, I will speak with him.”

“I love you and all, but I don’t know why you’d make a difference when Finn doesn’t.”

“Still, I will do my best. We all must, I think, and perhaps he needs someone’s forgiveness.”

“Hadn’t thought of that. Yeah, maybe.”

He had thought perhaps that they might need to shield Diego from some of the consequences of his actions, that he would need to be removed from the public eye for a time in order to combat some of the things his other self had set in motion.

The thought had never occurred to him that they would need to protect Diego from himself.

How Finn must be grieving. How terrible must be the burden he carries.

There must be something. When I’m not so blasted tired and can think again.

“Are the other children here still?”

“Some of them. Our coven’s still here, of course, and Jasper…did you meet Jasper?”

“I don’t believe so.”

“Nice little vampire we picked up in Memphis. Kinda attached himself to Nate. Anyway, Jasper stayed and his friend, Auden, too. But most of the other kids just wanted to go home.”

“Theo? Is Theo well?”

“Why him specifically? ’Cause he took the steel collar off?”

“He was kind to me when he had no reason to be.”

“Got it. He wasn’t in the best shape when we brought him in, but he’s recovering.

We have him in the containment room downstairs for now.

Hard to say how he’ll react when he’s good to go again.

Doesn’t say much. He asked about Diego once, but other than that and to tell us when he needs to feed, he won’t talk to anyone. ”

A hundred and three things needed doing.

Too many sticky problems needed solutions.

Grains of ideas whirled in his brain in little sandstorms, refusing to settle and coalesce into anything useful.

It was no time to lie abed. He tried to lift his head again and got no further than three inches from Zack’s chest before it clunked back down. Perhaps not yet.

Zack’s hand resumed its soothing stroking of his stomach, the warmth seeping down into his bones. He nuzzled the top of Lugh’s head and declared, “I’m still really pissed at you, you know.”

“Are you? Odd way to show it, love. Not that I will complain.”

“This would be a good time to take this seriously. Just so you know.”

Lugh turned his head so he could see Zack’s face. He swallowed hard at what he saw there. “I do most humbly apologize for ignoring your sound advice, for running roughshod over your sensible protests, and for stealing off into the night.”

“Okay. That’s a good start.”

“Must I beg forgiveness, then?”

Blond eyebrows rose, Zack’s expression a mix of disbelief and stern censure.

“You know what I need, Highness. I’ve hung out with you sidhe boys long enough to know how this works.

You need to give me your oath and you better not be thinking of loopholes when you choose your words.

This is never, ever happening again, hear me? ”