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Chapter twenty-eight

Brandon

A groan echoed inside my head. Wait, that was my groan, and that pain was in my head. What happened? I lifted my hand and touched my throbbing skull, then peeled my eyes open. A blurry thatched roof was all I saw. Voices mumbled to the right of me. I rolled over, and a sudden wave of nausea churned my stomach. My hand roamed to the back of my head and my fingers found sticky goo stuck to my hair. Blood. Someone had hit me on the head. So hard that it had knocked me out and made me bleed.

I forced my eyes to focus on the two people talking across the room. They wavered in and out of focus for a few minutes while the churning in my stomach eased. The old man came into focus, as did the demon woman who’d flirted with me, the one who’d forced me to dance.

“He’s awake,” the old man said, stumbling over to me on his cane. “Why did you hit him so hard?”

The demon shrugged. “We had a deal, Niall. How I got the human here wasn’t part of it.”

“What’s going on?” The words weren’t like my own. They came out slurred and quiet.

“We need to talk. I have little time left.” His gnarled hand hovered in front of my face then he turned and picked up a mortar and pestle. “Let me heal you first.”

“No.” I struggled to sit, but I did it. My head swam, and the room tilted sideways, but then it righted itself.

He placed the mortar and pestle on the table. “Son, please.”

“I’m not your son. You’re insane.”

“There’s only one way you’ll believe me, isn’t there? You’ll need to see for yourself.” The old man bobbed his head as though agreeing with himself.

“Vizz, carry him to the forest.”

The demon stared at the old man like he’d lost his mind, but I already recognized he had. She strode toward me, and I kicked my legs in her face, but the fuzziness in my eyes and the dizziness in my head made my aim less than accurate. She grabbed my ankles and wrapped them with ropes. I swung my fists at her head, connecting a few times before she tied my wrists together too. She picked me up and flung me over her shoulder. Blood rushed to my aching head, and I moaned and then passed out again.

The cold outside brought me back to consciousness in an instant. My body bounced on the demon’s shoulder, making the nausea impossible to deal with. I retched into the snow. She grumbled but didn’t stop walking .

“Here,” the old man said.

She stopped and dropped me on the ground. “You’re a lunatic, Niall. The wolves in the forest will more than likely kill him.”

“No, he’s my son. He has to see my memory to understand.”

Niall was my father’s name. Was this crazy old fool right? Was I his son? Or was he pretending to be him? He had to be crazy. How could I see his memory?

I shivered as the cold of the snow seeped into my body.

“Cut him loose,” Niall said.

Vizz scowled but slid a knife from a holster and stepped toward me. The blade glinted in the sunlight. I inched backward toward the trees. That knife looked deadlier than the forest. The knife slid through the ropes at my feet. I kicked the demon in the face and sprinted into the forest, ducking and weaving through the snow-laden branches. My head hurt with every beat of my heart, but I wouldn’t let that crazy old man and the demon kill me. Not when I’d had a taste of Roisin.

Not when she’d let me experience her ecstasy on my fingers.

I had too much to live for, and it was Roisin.

All for her.

I ran and ran, not even knowing which direction I was heading. It was foolish and the longer I ran, the less my head hurt until sense kicked in and I stopped and listened. No footfalls followed me. I was alone in the forest. The cold penetrated my fear. I shivered and blew warm air on my tied hands.

Okay, time to head back to the castle. I turned a full circle, but snow-laden trees were the only thing in existence. Well, shit, I’d have to follow my footsteps back the way I’d run. That was the only option, otherwise I’d get lost in here if I wasn’t already. First, I needed to free my hands because if those idiots were still waiting, then I needed to fight them off. Who knows what else they had in store for me?

I slowly walked back the way I’d run, searching every inch of the snow-covered forest for a way to cut off the ropes. My foot kicked something hard under the snow. I dropped to my knees and dug as best as possible with my tied hands eventually unearthing a rock. Better than anything else I’d found. I rubbed the rope back and forth on the rock, hoping it was sharp enough to cut my bindings.

My fingers grew numb, then my hands, but I kept sawing my arms back and forth until the ropes gave a little, then a lot, and my hands fell apart as the ropes tumbled to the snowy ground. I staggered to my feet. Every inch of my body was growing numb with the icy cold around me. The fancy clothes for the ball did nothing to protect me against the elements of the Winter Court. I’d grown up in Ireland where it was cold, but this place was extreme.

I forced my legs to the nearest tree and tugged on the branch hoping to rip it off to use as a weapon, but the second I touched it, my head swam with a vision .

A tiny baby swaddled in a thick blanket. A beautiful woman rocking the baby in her arms. She lifted her head and smiled.

“There you are, Niall, I was thinking you’d got lost,” my mother said.

“I’m here,” my father said.

Niall looked exactly like the photos in our home. He was handsome. The same coloring as me. Everyone said I looked just like him and here he was in my mind, alive and well. I longed to reach out and hug him.

He crossed the room and wrapped her in his arms, cradling me, too. “I love you both so very much.”

“I love you too, and young Brandon will grow up loving you.”

“My beautiful wife, I wish I could be here to see that.”

“What do you mean?” Mother frowned.

“I made a mistake. I learned a secret that I shouldn’t have. You appreciate how I am. How I go digging until I have to learn everything. I wish I could take it all back now, so I’d be here with you both.” He stepped backward. “I discovered the source of the magical bookshelf in the library. The source of the Fellowship.”

Mother placed me in a bassinet.

“Niall, please, tell me what’s going on.” She stepped toward him, but the Demon King materialized between them. She gasped and raced back to the bassinet, putting herself between me and the demon.

“I said to say goodbye, not tell her the secrets,” the Demon King said.

“I didn’t tell her,” Niall said .

“No?” The Demon King’s eyes blazed with power. “You were about to, though. I can’t trust you, Niall. This is the only way to keep the secret.”

The Demon King stepped closer to Mother and snatched her in his arms. She screamed, but he lowered his head and drew her scream into his mouth. Magic sparked dark and deadly in the air. Mother’s eyes rolled back into her head, and she collapsed in his arms. The Demon King lowered her to the ground.

“What did you do to her?”

“I removed this memory. You were supposed to say goodbye, and that was all, but now she won’t even have that to look back on fondly.” He stepped toward Father. “I gave you an option, Niall, and yet you chose the hard way. It would be easier if I killed you now.”

“No,” Father said. “Please let me live. Let me live knowing my son is growing into a fine young man even though I’ll never see it.”

“The Winter Court is a death sentence for a human, anyway.” The Demon King clasped Father’s arm and created a portal.

They vanished.

My eyes snapped open. It was true, the old man was my father, and I’d refused to believe it. Refused to spend time with him while I’d had the chance. No wonder he’d grown desperate and forced me to accept the truth. What was this place? How had it shown me this memory? I stared at all the trees, not daring to touch any of them. I’d failed to pull a branch free, but my hands were bloody as though I’d left bits of my flesh on the branch. They stung too. I wiped them on my snow-covered clothes.

I glanced up. Snow was falling, and I’d failed to even notice while in that magical memory. It lay thick on my clothes. The cold seeping into my aching head was like a soothing balm, but this was more than likely to kill me. How long had I been in that memory? My limbs ached and barely moved when I tried to stand. I stared at the fading footprints in the snow, then dragged myself on my hands and knees. Inch by frozen inch I’d make my way out of here.

I’d find my father and hug him. Tell him I understood it wasn’t his fault that he’d left us. Tell him I love him.

Then I’d find Roisin with whatever strength I had left to make it to the castle. I’d find her and tell her I love her, and she was free to find her fated mate. Free to be with her destined love, because I was dying a slow, agonizing death and she’d live forever.

Forever without me.

The way it was supposed to be for a Fae.

And I was merely a human.

She deserved to be happy. I’d tell her that with my last breath.