7. Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven

Kade

K ade inhaled the air of home, and cold filled his lungs.

The white of winter had begun its eclipse on the mountains, snow-capped peaks disappearing into gray clouds. Summer trees had lost their leaves while evergreens and pines stood stiff with frost. Snow dusted patches where the sun didn’t reach, the promise of more in the air.

His eager wolf wrestled to be unleashed. It craved the plush ground of the Vadon forests, to be surrounded by proud, tall trees. The untouched terrain and mountain chill whipped through his fur coat. Nothing compared to the mountain chill.

Crisp, clean.

It awakened Kade’s werewolf spirit and the new power forming at his core—the one he ignored as he made his way through the Drengr Village. The current of his pack moved like nothing was amiss. Pups wrestled and played. Weavers gossiped over their looms. Metal clanged from the smithy. Not a tuberose hung from doors. No pack member wore black.

To Kade’s surprise, the time of mourning for his father had come and gone. He and Tovi’s voyage had been three weeks, but he’d at least expected frankincense and myrrh in the air—an incense symbolizing his father’s spirit rising and leaving this world—and sandalwood, representing his mother as the two mates were reunited again. Kade passed a huddle of warriors, laughing and joking, not a line of solemness etched into their faces.

One foot in front of the other.

Kade didn’t have time to ponder. He weaved down the streets of home, headed to meet his brother. Cabins, cottages, and shops lined the perimeter of the village, leaving the center open, leading to the main fortress. Lār loomed like some beast, rising taller than any of the other buildings and the palisade wall surrounding them. Sharp, shaved tips of the wooden polls pointed to the gray sky, strapped together with clay and rope. Still, the mighty wall was no match for the stoned fortress ahead, werewolf runes etched into the framed entrance.

Kade had sent Tovi to meet his team, the Gray Fenris—alone. Unease swam in his gut. Perhaps he was a fool to trust her, but Kade cringed at the thought of Eldrick meeting the vampyr princess. It was best he found Eldrick by himself, and hopefully Lorkan, too, so they could mourn their father as brothers.

Kade’s feet turned heavy as he ascended the stairs of Lār. Its lack of windows and warmth had frightened Kade as a child. His mother had held both him and his brothers during summer storms, when the wrath of the winds and rain were unseen past the stone. Kade swallowed, a sadness overcoming him. He’d not resided in Lār since his mother’s death. After meeting Carena, he’d learned purpose, to stay busy. Outside his training, he’d built himself a home of his own, a cottage tucked into the forest, a safe haven for him and his team.

A place he’d readied once for Evelyn, a place he so desperately wanted to show her.

Kade shut his eyes and held his breath, grimacing against the mounting pressure on his chest. Missing his mate hurt like fuck. They hadn’t even completed the mating bond, sharing flesh and bodies to tie their souls as one, and yet his magic, his soul, yearned for her insatiably. How maddening would this need to protect her be once they lay together ?

Shaking his head, he tuned into the echo of his boots as he passed under the open doorway, the main hall lined with tables. Ahead, the alpha’s chair—now his brother’s—sat empty. Kade paused, brows pinching, at the sight of his father’s furs still layered atop it as they had been before he’d left. He glanced between the seemingly settled village and rather neat hall. No stains of mead. No evidence of a feast. Kade steadied himself, a contrast to his fidgety body, as he sent out his tracking magic for a moment.

To snuff the spark of hope in his heart.

Colors sprang in the space while emotions washed over him like sheets of rain. Cheer. Joy. Amusement. Purple, blue, and peachy pink. The hall was painted in anything but the colors of grief or sadness. Kade blinked, shifting foot to foot.

Time had passed since he’d received the news, enough time for the Drengr pack to have worked through grief. Kade shut his eyes and shook his head, the pressure in his chest mounting in tune with his racing heart.

Down the hall and up the stairs, he arrived at Eldrick’s office only to find it empty. With the dip of the sun, Kade headed east through Lār to the training grounds, a place his brother de-stressed. As he hurried on, the large iron doors to the drawing room were cracked, flashes of red, yellow, and orange reflected on the right side. His father’s favorite chair sat beyond those doors, one where he used to sit with Kade’s mother, sharing a glass of whiskey and enjoying the fireplace.

The pop and crackle of logs beckoned.

He inhaled, puffed his chest, and slipped inside the room. Someone sat near the fire, but the armchair’s back was tall and wide, obscuring their identity. He sniffed the air, a Drengr scent close by, but the firewood’s woody, sweet aroma thickened the air, making it difficult to distinguish which Drengr male sat ahead of him.

Kade fought the heaviness in his foot and knees, negated the fear coursing through his blood, and the racing of his anxious heart. He rounded the chair, the heat of the fire singeing the cold of the outside off of him instantly, and shedding light on—

His father, his very much alive father.

Aramis Drengr blinked past Kade’s looming shadow and peered over the rim of his gold-framed glasses. His spring-green eyes grew wide.

“Son! Stars above, please tell me I’m not imagining things now!”

His father sprang out of his chair and grabbed him in a fierce hug. Touched him so he knew it was real. Kade could not move. His boots, it seemed, had melted into the furred rug. His father pulled away, never letting go of his shoulders as his crow’s-feet-rimmed eyes drank him in.

“Father…” Kade swallowed, his throat thick and tight. “It’s so good to see you.”

He whispered, as if his energy had completely drained after so many days of oscillating between hope and loss and grief. To witness his father’s face and wide, joyous smile with his own eyes was overwhelming.

All the relief Kade had found dissipated at the sight of his father’s frail frame. He swallowed bile and blinked back tears. They’d been the same height once—eye to eye—but his father’s shoulders had hunched, and with the strength in his knees gone, he stood inches shorter.

“Kade, I know I look like death, but there’s no need to stare at me like I’m a ghost.” His father chuckled, always one to joke, and palmed his cheek and stared with wonder at Kade’s face. “I see you’ve changed, too.”

His father retreated to his chair, sighing as he fell into it.

“I thought you were dead.”

Aramis’s brows furrowed. “What?”

Kade nodded. He opened and closed his mouth, unsure where to begin. He had so many questions—about his father, about the letter that had brought him home, proclaiming his father’s death, but those could wait. He wanted to revel for an hour in father’s living. And he needed to answer his alpha’s questions first. Steely eyes and obsidian hair, a determined witch and a big heart that cared deeply—his mate, Evelyn.

Kade started from the beginning.

He told his father everything. The murders. Working together. Pretending to be a huntsman. That’d he’d lied. How everything had changed. Why Evelyn had left in the first place. And the last day on the docks, headed home because they believed his father had been killed.

His father listened, silent and observant.

“I’ve rushed home ever since Riven took her,” Kade said. He stared longingly into the fire, the dancing flames a beacon of remembrance for Evelyn. He grit his teeth. “My sole mission is getting her back. It’s what brought me home.”

His father smiled, small and thoughtful. “A mission didn’t bring you home, Kade. Love did.”

Kade’s brows furrowed. It’s not that he didn’t cherish the love he had for Evelyn, it pulsed deep in his heart and sang to his soul, but he wasn’t certain it drove him forward. A mission. Action. It was why he prided himself on being a commander, why he’d fallen into his role as Son of the God with ease. It had given him a tangible purpose.

As if conjured by fate, a fiery touch, warm and inviting, reached through the crevices of his mind. Something pulled at Kade, tugged at his mind so strongly, he fell to his knees. Sights, sounds, smells—she invaded his senses.

Cedar and vanilla. Eyes like night. Strands of spilled ink.

“Evelyn,” he rasped, taking hold of their bond.

His father grasped his shoulders, squeezing firm as he held him upright. “Moons, Kade, what is wrong?”

Kade clung to his father’s hands, voice cracking as he said, “It’s my mate—I can feel my mate.”