32. Cove

Chapter 32

Cove

It was like a pane of glass between me and the world shattered, but it didn’t leave dangerous shards behind for me to cut myself on. It was simply gone. My body no longer tried to collapse, and my movements were smooth and perfect, just as I’d spent decades practicing to make them.

“What the fuck did you do, you little miscreant?” Huxley screamed, and he wasn’t looking at me. He was glaring at Florian’s back, where Florian was facing that little jackass Courtney. Afton’s son, who dared think he could ever replace Florian.

Florian had told me he’d beaten Adger in a duel once, and I knew his stone made him capable in a fight, but I also knew him. I could see the hesitation in every movement he made with the sword. He didn’t want to fight, and damn Huxley, he shouldn’t have to.

You handle Courtney, Iri, I’ll take Huxley, since his...luck seems to have turned.

Done , she chirped, pleased to take anything she could off my plate.

“Emrys,” Huxley barked. “Do what I pay you to. Kill the Moonstriker.”

Huxley was glaring at me, but there was something else there too. Something sly and hopeful. Like even if he knew he couldn’t outfight me, he wanted to stick a knife in my guts and twist it around until he hit the spot that hurt the most.

If Kit wanted to hurt me, it would work. He could incapacitate Frost faster than my dear nephew could blink. Frost was big and imposing, yes, more muscular than I was, even. But he was no fighter, and Kit knew that as well as anyone.

Kit might even be able to best me in a duel, since part of my concentration was on keeping Courtney frozen. I could release Courtney, of course. Florian could handle himself against his cousin, even if I didn’t want him to have to do that.

In part, I didn’t want to take that chance because Courtney was behind me, and I didn’t like that. My back was an excellent target, big as it was, and Courtney would assume he’d be rewarded for slipping his knife between my ribs.

Regardless of Courtney and his delusions, I couldn’t take on Kit and Huxley at the same time, even if Huxley seemed to be having issues with his stone.

Most of all, though, I never, ever wanted to fight Kit. I’d taught him how to duel. Taught him everything he knew about tactics. He was certainly a more difficult fight than Huxley could ever be, but more than that...he was mine.

And I could never fight him.

I looked at him, then back at Huxley, and nodded. “Have it all figured out, do you? How quickly did you get it? When did you start whispering your poison in his ear?”

“The truth is hardly poison,” Huxley said, pressing a hand to his chest like an offended old lady reaching for her pearls. “I knew who he was the moment I saw him. He looks exactly like his mother.”

Frost turned to look at Huxley, ignoring Kit, confused. Kit lifted a brow at his employer. I bared my teeth at the bastard in an angry snarl. My son looked fucking nothing like that?—

“Bullshit,” Florian announced, turning back toward the fight, clearly having figured out that Courtney wasn’t currently a threat. “He doesn’t look a thing like her. He looks exactly like his father.” He looked over at Kit, cocking his head one way, then the other, and shrugging in what looked like apology. “Okay, sorry, maybe not exactly. No one else is quite that good looking.”

“What?” Poor Frost looked like we’d started speaking the wrong language. “I don’t understand. Winter doesn’t look like Mother at all, but...I thought no one knew who his father was.”

Kit looked at me. They all looked at me.

“I’m his father, Frost. His mother is a Dawnchaser. Father gave him”—I paused, looking past Frost to Kit—“My father gave you to Delta to raise. He made me agree to stay out of your raising. To stay away from you.”

Huxley was practically glowing with joy at the misery of it all, like some kind of monster who fed on the unhappiness of others. “You think you can manipulate him with emotions now, Moonstriker? You threw him out of his own home, lied to him his whole life. How could he possibly?—”

“I was wondering if you’d ever say it out loud,” Kit said, his voice unusually soft, staring at a spot on the ground between Huxley and me.

“He’s been planning to,” Florian said. “Not that your life is my business, but he told me about what happened. He was definitely planning on telling you, whether my asshole father interfered or not.”

Kit lifted a brow at Florian, one corner of his lips turning up. “And why did he tell you?”

Florian blushed and looked away.

“Because my worthless son is bending over for daddy dearest, of course,” Huxley interjected. “I’m sure you always wanted a stepfather younger than yourself.”

That, finally, garnered a real emotion from Kit. He pursed his lips and turned to look at Huxley. “Do you really think you get to judge that? I’m well aware of how old my father was when I was born.” He turned and looked at me, finally meeting my eye, and there was something fathomless and sad there. It felt all too familiar, and I suspected he was seeing the same fucking thing on my face. “Never thought you’d admit it out loud, though.”

I turned and faced him, meeting the situation head-on. “I wasn’t allowed to. My father’s deal with the Dawnchaser family was that they would turn you over to be raised by us, but I couldn’t claim you as my heir or they would press their claim on you. Or more importantly to my father, on the Moonstriker fortune through you.”

His face crumpled, lips drawing together in a tight line, and I wanted nothing more than to sheath my sword and hug my fucking son.

But Huxley was still there and still a threat. I couldn’t forget that, not even for a second.

“All that was only necessary because you fucked my cousin and then refused to marry her,” Huxley pointed out, poisonous as ever.

Florian turned and stared at him, eyes wide. He was incredible. After twenty-two years of living with the man, he still had the capacity to be shocked by cruelty. “What the hell is wrong with you? Afton was in her twenties, and Cove was fifteen. She”—he looked at me, and I nodded, entirely wanting him to speak his mind to his father—“she fucking raped him. She’s a monster.”

Huxley scoffed, rolling his eyes. “She was beautiful. Every man wanted her. He should have been thrilled she gave him what he wanted, and instead he went crying to his daddy.”

Frost, still standing next to me, let out a little squeak. There were tears in his eyes, and his lip was trembling. I wanted nothing more than to turn and hug him, but again, Huxley was still a threat.

It was funny, though, how most people had reacted the same way as Huxley: like I’d been given a gift and should have been grateful. Some, like Delta, had been uncomfortable even thinking about the situation. The rest were like Frost, and somehow I ended up being the one comforting them, making them feel better about how I’d been violated.

Not that I didn’t want Frost to feel better, but also, it felt unjust deep down in my bones. I’d been the fucking wronged party, drugged and taken advantage of, and no one had ever...

Florian’s arms closed around my waist, and he leaned up to kiss my cheek. “I know I said this before, but I’m so sorry she did that to you. She truly is a fucking monster, and I’m glad she’s ruined her life.”

“Has she?” Kit asked, coming around to stand slightly between Huxley and me, so he could meet Florian’s eye. “I don’t know anything about her.” He scrunched his nose in disgust and glanced back at where Courtney was still frozen. “Well, other than that apparently he’s my brother.”

“He’s not,” Florian was the one to deny. “I mean, sure, he’s Afton’s son. But he’s no more your brother than I am. Frost is your brother, even if you have different parents. As far as Afton, yeah, she screwed up her whole life. She squandered her family’s fortune trying to seem more successful than she was. She basically lives on the family’s goodwill now, so you can imagine how that’s going for her. Turns out scheming and raping people isn’t actually the path to success.”

“Yes,” Frost agreed. “I mean, the part about me being your brother. I don’t care who your mother is, and we never thought we had the same father. You’re my brother, Winter.”

Kit smiled at him, shaking his head, then he paused and looked over at me. “Delta named me, didn’t she?”

“She did. Named the lot of you for the weather outside the moment you were handed to her. She was so annoyed she couldn’t just rename Ember as though she was adopting a stray cat and not a school-aged child.”

Kit buried his face in a hand at that, and Frost’s eyes went round, staring at me in shock. “What would she have called her?”

“Storm. It’s still what she calls her sometimes in private.”

“How very like her,” Kit said, dry as dust. Then he looked up at me, and a sly little smile bloomed on his lips. “That’s why Kit, though, you know.”

I raised a brow, uncertain.

He shook his head, amused as always, lips tilted into a wry smirk. “I knew. I’ve known for years. I heard you fighting with Delta when I was ten about how you promised, and you needed to stay out of it. And you said...you said that you wished you’d never agreed to let her raise me, even with the Dawnchaser threats. That you wished you’d taken me and left both families behind.”

My breath caught in my throat, my vision going blurry. He knew. He’d known for twenty fucking years. And... that’s why Kit, he’d said. He named himself Kit because Kit was ours, his and mine. I’d told him the stories, and he’d taken them to heart. Become them.

No wonder it had been no effort at all for me to switch to calling him that in my head.

Wow , Iri said, almost startling me. Sometimes I can be really dense. A ten-year-old figured out what you meant in that fight and I didn’t .

You usually retreated when Delta and I would fight , I pointed out. You probably didn’t even hear what was said .

Point .

“I still wish that sometimes,” I said, trying to blink away the wetness in my eyes. “I was a terrible father to you. I let Delta?—”

“You made the best of a terrible situation,” Kit said, and Frost nodded wildly. “I didn’t understand how terrible until I got here and Dawnchaser started making intimations, but I’ve always known that we were both trapped in a hell made for us by other people.”

“People who were supposed to love and protect you,” Florian added, as though he hadn’t lived that very situation himself. Huxley should have adored and cared for him and Fawn, and instead, he’d tormented them. Made them constantly afraid for their futures.

I was ready to sit down right there, on the paving stones in the middle of the lavender field, and talk about it. This place had been the home of my nightmares for almost thirty years. The feelings of helplessness, of being awake and aware but unable to move, came back to me over and over in my sleep. I’d spent so much more time there in dreams than I ever had in reality.

And suddenly, it wasn’t so scary. Because I was there with my family. With people I loved. With Florian.

The moment I was making that realization, however, an unholy screech rent the air.

Huxley.

As much as I’d kept trying to remind myself he was there and a danger, even though I still had my sword in my hand, ready to fight him, I’d mentally dismissed him.

Sword in hand and outstretched, he threw himself forward.

But the tip of that sword wasn’t aimed at my heart. It was aimed at Kit.