Page 33 of The Gargoyle and the Maiden (Nightfall Guardians #1)

Brandt

W hen Ghantal returned to the eyrie, her expression told him everything. She’d been expecting something like this. His nostrils flared with disgust.

“You knew.” He didn’t bother to ask. It was obvious. “You knew about everything. About what she did. You helped her break our bond.”

“Yes.”

Her matter-of-fact tone enraged him. “How could you?”

“How could I not?” She set down her packages with deliberate calm and perched at the table, flicking open her ledger to record her purchases from the market.

She cracked open a bottle of ink and dipped her quill in it.

“Her blood was being used to track you. To hunt your watchmates. Breaking the bond was the only solution.”

“The only solution?” He crossed the room and pulled the quill from her hands, tossing it somewhere behind him. “The villains responsible were imprisoned by then. The danger was past.”

“Her blood was in the goblins’ hands. The damage was done.” She dipped a fresh quill and resumed her record-keeping.

He plucked it from her hand again. “The bond wasn’t damaged. It was murdered, and you helped.” When she didn’t look up from her ledger, he swept it off the table, pages scattering across the floor. “You had no right to make that choice for me.”

“I had every right.” Ghantal stood, matching his fury with ice. “A mother’s right to protect her son.”

“You weren’t protecting me. You were punishing me for choosing her!”

“She doesn’t deserve you!” The words exploded from Ghantal with years of pent-up disgust. Her wings spread wide, framing her aggressive stance.

His mother was a warrior in her own way.

“She never did. A human with no family, no status, nothing to offer but her weak character. Your watchmates are dead because of her, and the Tower will never forget it. When you finally returned— if you returned—I wanted you free. Free to find a female who would strengthen you. Strengthen your line, secure your rightful place in the Tower.”

The urge to violence that filled him was different from battle bliss. This was deeper and more personal, edged with fresh betrayal that cut to bone. “You destroyed my bond so I could mate someone else?”

“Someone worthy. Someone loyal.” Her chin lifted. “Someone who wouldn’t sell your life to grow a few plants. Someone who’d never seek to break the bond. She was never your true mate. That’s why I didn’t allow her to stay here. The moths would talk, and then it couldn’t be undone.”

“ Get out .”

“Brandt—”

His claws extended fully, tail lashing. “Now. Before I do something that can’t be undone. I’ll arrange for you and your moths to stay elsewhere. Neither of you are welcome here.”

For the first time since his return, genuine fear flickered across her face. But she held her ground. “You’re not thinking clearly.”

“She is my true mate. The bond still exists.” His throat was raw. His heart was raw. “I swear, I can feel it sometimes. Faint, but it’s there. I’m not imagining it. It can be restored.”

Something in Ghantal’s expression shifted.

“What?” He stalked closer and planted palms on the table to he could lean close to her face. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“The bond you feel...” She leaned back, turning away from his bared teeth. “It’s not phantom. It’s real, but it’s not with her.”

The words didn’t make sense. He stared at her, waiting for clarity that didn’t come.

“You have a son,” she said gently, cupping his face in her clawed hands.

The room tilted and his ears rang. Everything narrowed to those four words, and his mother’s guilty, defiant face.

“What?”

“A son. Five years old. Half-human, but strong. Wings like yours.” Each word fell like a stone into still water, ripples spreading outward. “What you feel isn’t a mate bond. It’s the parent-child connection. It fades as the child grows. That’s why it’s so faint.”

“No.” But even as he denied it, a memory stirred. That male scent at Idabel’s door. It wasn’t a rival—it was a child. His child.

“She didn’t tell you because—”

“Because you told her not to.” Understanding crashed through him, and he wrenched away from her touch. “You kept my son from me.”

“You weren’t ready to know. You’re still not ready. Look at yourself. You’re barely in control.”

“I have a son.” He said it again, tasting the words. “A five-year-old son I’ve never met. Never held. Never—” His voice cracked. “His first words. His first flight. Five years of his life, gone.”

“You were at war. You can’t blame—”

“ I’ve been back for weeks !” The roar shook the entire tier. “Every day, you looked at me. Flew with me. Comforted me. And never once mentioned my child ?”

Ghantal looked shaken by the force of his fury. “I worried for his safety.”

He scoffed. “He would be safe with me, and you know it.”

“I feared he would set you back in your recovery,” she admitted.

“ Set me back ?” A child gave him something to live for. A reason he shouldn’t burn down Solvantis with everyone in it. He had been betrayed from the top of the Tower to the bottom. “Get out.”

“I’m your mother!”

“My mother would have told me I had a son.” He moved toward her, each step deliberate. “My mother would have treasured her grandchild, not hidden him in the rookery like shameful secret. You’re no better than the mind masons, building walls between me and truth.”

“I was protecting him! Protecting you both!”

“You were protecting yourself. Your reputation. Your ambitions for climbing the tiers.” He opened the door, holding it wide. “Get out of my home. Let one of your high-born friends take you in until I arrange another eyrie for you. I don’t want to see your face.”

Ghantal flinched as if struck. Then she straightened, gathering the shreds of her dignity. “When you calm down—”

“I will never calm down about this. I will never forgive this.” He met her eyes, letting her see the depth of his rage. “You don’t know the pain of a broken bond.”

“No,” she agreed quietly. “Only the pain of one left intact.”

How dare she fling his absent father in his face, as if there were some parallel? His father made a choice to leave. His mother was the one who’d kept him from his own son. He had no parents. He had no mate. He had no family save the child he’d never met.

“You are no longer welcome here. If I see you again, I will pretend I don’t know you.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“You didn’t raise a liar.”

She studied his face for a long moment, then walked through the door. Just past the threshold, she paused.

“His name is Lo?c.”

Then she was gone, leaving him alone with the ruins of everything he knew as dawn broke and his heart turned to stone. His mate was dead. His mother was dead. His father was dead.

But he had a son.

He had a son.