Chapter 14

14

" E iline Brokkr, you didn't tell me you were pregnant last time I saw you," Vanth's grandfather snarled, giving Eiline a hard stare.

"If I had, you would have never let me leave!" she said, defiantly putting her hands on her hips despite her tears.

"Damn straight, I wouldn't have! Now you have a curse on you as well? By Weyland, I taught you better," he roared.

Vanth stepped between them. "I don't give a fuck who you are. You don't get to shout at her that way. Now, back off, old man."

The smith was a good foot taller than Vanth, but he still stepped back and threw up his hands. "Bah! I'm going back to the forge to hit something." He stormed away, leaving them standing in the garden.

"It's okay. Let Grandpa Flynt cool down a little. He will come around. Are you hungry?" Eiline said, like nothing was wrong, and hurried inside the cottage.

Vanth let out a frustrated groan. "This is just great."

"It could be worse. You should see my family," Elektra commented from beside him.

"Least you know they exist. I had no idea about my father or my grandfather." Vanth wanted to go and sit in a dark room for a long time.

Elektra nudged him with her shoulder. "You won't get your answers standing out here and pouting."

"I'm not pouting," he lied, and Elekra's smile widened. Gods, she was pretty even after a dip in the river. He reached up and pulled a soggy leaf out of her red hair.

"Are you always this much trouble, Vanth?" she asked.

Vanth didn't have to think about it. "Yes. Usually, it's not family stuff, but I always seem to have someone trying to kill me for one reason or another. Or people are trying to drag me into their fights as an ally."

"I suppose it's better than being boring. Come on, let's find some tea. I'm cold, and these wet jeans are chafing where I shouldn't be chafed."

"I have a balm for that if you need a helping hand."

Elektra smirked. "Do you always flirt this much?"

"Do you, princess?" Vanth pulled another leaf from her hair. "If it's bothering you, tell me to stop, and I will."

"If it starts bothering me, I will," Elektra replied, following Eiline inside.

Vanth watched the sway of her hips and cursed his dick under his breath. Not the time. Not the time. Not the time.

He considered going and jumping back into the cold river. He probably would have if he weren't scared about what else it held apart from selkies.

Flirting with Elektra felt dangerous, and he liked that about her. He couldn't deny it was also distracting enough to keep him from having a complete meltdown. It wasn't only that she was beautiful; it was the feeling that she was the one person he had met who would understand the dark power in him and not run away screaming. She knew he was the son of Orcus and hadn't seemed intimidated by it either. He certainly fucking was.

Vanth pushed his hands through his damp hair. There was only one way to find out the truth about all the lost parts of himself. He stopped pouting and went to find his mother.

The house was like a cross between a hobbit hole and if the fae decided they loved cottagecore. Nearly everything was made of wood, and the fabrics used on the curtains and couches looked handwoven.

It was meticulously clean, which seemed out of character for the fae that they had encountered outside, who was covered from head to toe in ash and grime.

Vanth found his mother and Elektra in the kitchen. A cast-iron kettle was already hanging over an open fire, and Eiline was helping herself to freshly made cookies out of a jar.

"Are you sure that it's okay that we are here? Grandfather didn't seem too happy to see us," he said.

"He is happy. He's just been thrown off by the idea of you existing without him knowing. He will hammer out his frustration and worry and come in for tea when he's ready," Eiline replied.

At least she had stopped crying. There were a few things that Vanth really couldn't handle, and her tears were one of them.

Eiline pointed to the direction down the hall. "There is a bathroom through there if you need it, Elektra. You look like you could use a change of clothes. Be careful of the hot water. It's heated from the forge, so it will be boiling."

Knowing that she didn't have any clothes, Vanth offered his bag to her. "Everything in it is clean, so help yourself. We can get your clothes washed and dry tonight."

Elektra took the bag with a grateful nod and headed towards the bathroom.

"You like her, don't you?" his mother said. She might have a curse on her, but there wasn't much that she missed.

"And you don't? One of your precious reapers that I knew nothing about until now," he replied, still pissed at all the lies that he had been told. He didn't want to think about what he was feeling where Elektra was concerned.

Eiline offered him a cookie. "I know you're angry with me, but I have only ever done what I could to protect you. I couldn't trust anyone but Maria within the temple, and I couldn't stay under their protection when I found out that I was pregnant. Lazarus had too many spies, and I knew you would be the most gifted of children."

Vanth took a cookie and ate it, the sugar making him feel a little better.

His mother continued. "You were far too unique to have anywhere near the fae either. It's why I couldn't keep you here. These lands belong to my father, but they are too small for someone with your abilities, and as soon as you stepped out of them, there would be one Fae Lord or another trying to entrap you into their service. They might play nice on the Inferno side of their lands to ensure PR is good, but you should never forget what they really are and what they are capable of."

It was a lecture that Vanth had heard many times before. It was one of the reasons why he was so surprised that his grandfather still lived and that his mother actually loved him. She had always made a point of telling him how much she hated the fae and how they ruled their people.

He said, "And you changed our name from Brokkr to Vanth so they wouldn't connect us with your dad?"

"Yes. My father is notorious enough. As I told you before, I took the goddess Vanth's name for protection. She is a psychopomp and guides souls to the Afterlife," Eiline replied. "I was a devotee of hers."

Vanth's jaw was clenching too tight. He tried to steady his thoughts before opening his hurt, angry mouth.

"I understand why you never told me when I was a child. I just don't understand why you didn't tell me when I came of age so that I would understand some of this. I mean, for fuck's sake, Mom, my father is supposedly the god of the dead," he said and took another cookie. He didn't want to yell at her and had to check himself before he did just that.

Eiline took the cast-iron kettle from the fire and poured steaming water over tea leaves into a porcelain pot.

"There is no 'supposedly' about who your father is, sweetheart. Orcus is your father. That is why your necromancer power is so strong. You get your abilities from me as well. I was never meant to fall in love with him," she said, staring out of the windows at the forest beyond.

A change came over here then, just the slightest shiver of air moving around her, and she stared at the cup in her hand, her expression blank.

Vanth knew that the curse had hit her again, and her temporary reprieve from its power was gone. He took her by the hand and guided her to the chair by the fire.

"Sit down here, Mom. Stay warm, okay?" he said and took the cup from her hand. "I'll make the tea."

Vanth wanted to hurl the cup at the wall. It wouldn't solve anything. It wouldn't bring her mind back or help him get the answers he needed.

Instead, Vanth made tea and sandwiches and tried to process what he had learned in the last few days and puzzle out the weird magic Lazarus was doing.

By the time Elektra came out of the bathroom, Vanth had set everything out on the table and was waiting for her. She was wearing his faded Tenacious D shirt, the bottom knotted in one corner, and a pair of his black boxers.

She still had the patches on her wounded leg, but she must have bathed because she no longer smelled of river weed. Her scent was sweet and sexy, and he wanted to bury his nose into the fire of her hair. He remembered how her soft skin felt on her calves and thought about what it would taste like.

Vanth stared at Elektra silently for a minute, all worries of his parentage and Lazarus and the Veil disappearing under the burning lust that punched into him.

"What? Did I miss mud? I found some in my ear of all places," she said, sitting down at the table.

"No. It's just weird seeing someone wear my clothes. Can you keep an eye on Mom? She's drifted again, and I need to get rid of mud too," he blabbed, his hands starting to shake.

"I'll watch her." Elektra's gray eyes turned suspicious. "Are you sure you're okay?"

Vanth stared at the firelight dancing on her curls. "No, I'm really not," he said and hurried towards the bathroom before he gave into his irrational instincts to drag her off and fuck her senseless.

In the bathroom, his bag was next to the iron tub, and he shut the door behind him, careful not to slam it. He could smell Elektra's scent in the small room, and his whole body burned.

He didn't know if his attraction to Elektra was fae instinct or something else, but he really hoped she hadn't seen the bulge in his wet jeans. He shouldn't be having that kind of response to her scent. He shouldn't be thinking about her in that way at all. His world was burning down, and all he could think of was getting her naked and under him.

Vanth's hands shook as he stripped off his muddy jeans, breathing a sigh of relief as his full erection sprang free and his piercings stopped digging into his zipper.

He turned on one of the shower taps, and it came out ice cold. Perfect. He stepped under the spray and tried to will the fire in his veins to disappear.

It had to be some kind of stress reaction , he lied to himself. He barely knew her. It wasn't like him to ever feel out of control.

The cold water wasn't helping, so Vanth reached for his dick. The first stroke had him biting down a moan. He couldn't remember being this horny or his dick so sensitive. He jerked himself again, fingers tugging against the bars through his end.

"Fucking hell," he whispered. He tried to summon enough embarrassment to be ashamed of himself, but it felt too fucking good.

Vanth imagined Elektra on her knees before him, full lips and wicked tongue moving over him. Her husky voice whispered dirty things through his imagination, and within a minute, he was coming so hard, he had to put his other hand on the wall to stop himself from toppling over.

He rested his burning forehead against the cold wall as a phantom Elektra whispered in his ear, "Good boy."

There wasn't a single thing about it that wasn't totally fucked. He needed to get his shit together, not lose it over a pretty girl because he hadn't been laid in months.

"Stress reaction," he told his bedraggled reflection in the bathroom mirror. Steam was rising off his skin despite the straight cold shower. That was new. He stared into his dark eyes, "You are so fucked."