8. Farewell

The young fae bounced around the temple, delighting in the columns that told of fae history. Some of the great columns were carved by sidhe artists—and others, like the ones showing their voyage across the Atlantic to the colonies in the late 1700s, materialized not long after the mound settled into the soft earth of the cape on the outskirts of the tiny Beacon Hill neighborhood.

Remi, the Roman brat—Cian thought his nickname fitting for the brooding ancient vampire—prowled behind Celyn as he excitedly examined the columns, all but pissing on the leg of his younger mate to establish his claim. Cian merely ignored the vampire, who took that as a challenge, eyes glowing red, but the happy chatter from the young fae kept Remi from being foolish.

He sensed it when Daniel and Rory entered the temple through the arch. He turned to his new brother and gave him a rare smile. Daniel was a refreshing and heartbreaking image of High Court Sidhe. He was the epitome of their people, and his aspects, the storm and balance, gave him an aura of power, and conversely, calm and peace. It made a great deal of sense, once one got past the surface contradictions. The cleansing peace and washing away of burdens after the storm, the rush of new during the storm, the destruction of the old, the rising tension of the encroaching storm.

Daniel was not so wholly different from who he was the day before—he was more himself. Cian had a powerful suspicion that Danu, his mother, saw Daniel coming all those eternities ago. All Rory had to do was make it through all those very long years to reach him.

Danu predicted the great love between Daniel and Rory. She gave her blessing on his awakening ceremony, and named his aspects herself. After eons of silence, the Mother of the Sidhe moved amongst them once again. And all it took was love.

Rory, present in his mind as always, came to stand at his shoulder, and Cian leaned into his twin, relishing the contact.

"She promised you much the same, if you opened your heart to the possibility."

Daniel stood at Cian's other shoulder, and Cian felt the searching regard of the young sidhe. "Danu? What did she promise?"

"Brother," Cian warned with a sigh, already giving up, knowing that Rory was going to tell Daniel regardless.

"When we left our mother's protection and struck out into the world, she prophesied our path. That I would find the greatest love awaiting me after the longest night, and for Cian…"

"A great love as well?" Daniel asked, eyes wide, the storm-touched hues swirling in response to his excitement. "Cian has a great love too?"

Sighing in exaggerated misery, Cian rolled his eyes and tried to walk away, but both Daniel and Rory caught his arms, and he would never hurt either trying to pull away. Daniel employed the puppy dog eyes and Rory knew all his moves to escape. They stopped wrestling as children. Reading your opponent's mind stopped being a boon in a fight after a series of constant draws.

"I've no interest in romance or sex," Cian declared bluntly. Daniel's face fell, and Cian softened his words. "I'm not averse to it, but no one has stirred my interest enough for more than a quick fuck in the stables, and that lost its appeal several hundred years ago when clean water was hard to come by for washing." He paused, speaking mostly to Daniel, as Rory knew well the functioning of Cian's heart and his half of their soul. "I don't need to go looking for a great love—if it came to me, I may or may not want it. And if a soulmate exists for me, surely a soulmate would understand my position on sex and physical intimacy."

Daniel tilted his head, and a contemplative expression shifted across his lovely face. "Today, we'd put you somewhere on the asexual spectrum. You'd be ace. I mean, if you want to call yourself that."

"A human distinction," Cian began, but he stopped, pensive. "One I never thought to use to define myself. Sex is enjoyable, but I don't seek it out with any burning need for it. If asexual as a term can include the enjoyment of sex, then I relate to the term well enough to use it. Thank you for understanding, Daniel."

"You're welcome," Daniel said, and surprised him by laying his head on Cian's shoulder, hugging both his arms around Cian's elbow. "I won't try and set you up with anyone. But if you need any romance advice…"

"Come and ask you?" Cian inquired with a lifted brow.

"Oh no, not me. And I know Rory is great at it, but I was gonna say Simeon. He made Angel, of all people, fall in love with him. He's a master at romance."

Rory laughed quietly, and Daniel giggled, burying his face in Cian's shoulder, and Cian laughed out loud, shocking himself.

He was happy.

You are happy, it's wonderful to see and to feel. I'm glad, Rory said in his head, making him chuckle again, feeling oddly vulnerable. Daniel clung to him like a limpet, and Rory slipped his arms around them both.

Grit in his eyes and mouth, Rael squinted past the smoke and dust, trying to see what hit them.

"Mom, you okay?" Rael asked, twisting in his seat and trying to see his mother in the backseat. "Mom!"

Jameson groaned and coughed from the driver's seat, and Rael's heart stopped when he saw the blood running from a cut on his forehead, a long gash that went from eye to hairline. A wave of blood was falling, and Jameson wasn't healing.

Rael focused and grew out his claws, shredding the locked seatbelt. He cut Jameson's belt and his mate slumped forward onto the steering wheel. A hissing from the floorboards by Jameson's feet made Rael look, and his eyes widened in horror when he saw the smoke bomb.

Jameson was still bleeding, his coughing growing worse. Rael finally saw Scylla through the smoke, and she was coughing, barely conscious, and then suddenly Rael's nose woke up and the stench of burning wolfsbane clued him in to what was happening.

Hands came through the smoke and the broken window next to Jameson, and grabbed the alpha by the shoulders, yanking him from his seat and out the window. "Hey! Fuckers! Give him back!"

Scylla's door was wrenched open, and a black-clad practitioner with the emblem of the High Council on his shoulder took one look at Rael's mother and slammed the door shut again, despite her moans and clearly injured state.

Rael tried to climb over the seats to get to her, but the door holding him up was suddenly gone, and Rael tumbled from the car, falling backwards onto the pavement.

He saw the leather boot coming, but it was too fast for him to do anything except take the blow. Darkness fell, pain following in its wake.

Angel sat beside his sleeping dragon, hand on his head, rubbing his fingers over the growing ridge above the fierce yellow and gold eyes. When tiny, Eroch's eyes were a dandelion yellow, and they still were for the most part, but they were developing a golden sheen as he aged, and Angel suspected the yellow would turn to a molten gold when Eroch was an adult.

Dragons lived until killed, whether by design or accident. According to the Brennan twins, the dragon homeworld was a giant planet with gravity and atmospheric conditions perfect for supporting beings who never stopped growing. He wondered if the ability to summon dragons—demons, as they were once colloquially known—through proscribed black magic ceremonies was how the universe tried to find a loophole for a magical creature population that rarely experienced attrition, but then, that was stupid. A typical thing for humans to assume their existence to be an integral part of the grand design of the universe, but he was a practitioner, and that hubris tended to show up even when he tried to avoid it. Arrogance he enjoyed, a flaw he knew well. Hubris was dangerous and beyond it lay ruin.

Dragons once came to Earth without being summoned, so perhaps they had the ability themselves, or knew of a magic that allowed them to cross dimensions without the warping of a summoning and a geas anchoring them to a master and purpose on Earth.

A beautiful, almost impossible laugh had him jumping a bit in surprise, making him turn to look into the temple.

Angel glimpsed Daniel bracketed by the sidhe twins; from the wicked grin on Cian's face, he was teasing Daniel, Rory laughing. Cian's behavior toward Angel's adopted son was interesting. Part of him had expected Cian to fall in love with Daniel as well, on the heels of his brother Rory doing so initially—but there were no romantic elements to the love Cian clearly had for Daniel. It was brotherly, an older (much, much older) sibling teasing and protecting and indulging a beloved younger sibling. Angel had Isaac—he knew well how a sibling dynamic appeared and this was the same.

He was relieved, to be honest. No one deserved to be trapped in an unrequited love triangle with a set of twins for all eternity, especially not Daniel.

Simeon came into the library carrying two large duffels packed with items two men might need and more for a honeymoon abroad. Angel grinned, delighted it was time at last.

He carefully got to his feet and waited for Simeon to reach him before he stepped through the archway into the temple proper.

Cian clocked them entering immediately, though the only reaction he made was a flicker of his mercurial eyes, unbothered in the extreme.

"Simeon, what's that?" Daniel asked suspiciously, brows low in a sweet, teasing glower.

"It is time to leave on an adventure, beloved," Rory said, adeptly disengaging his husband and brother and guiding Daniel to the nearest wall.

"Huh?"

"Honeymoon, kiddo," Angel declared, just in time, as more people stepped over the sleeping dragon to enter the sidhe mound. Cian again had no reaction, though Angel could only imagine he was less sanguine than he appeared at having so many people inside the secret mobile home of infinite power.

"I got the presents," Isaac waved the gift bag, and Constans smiled at his mate, clearly besotted and unafraid to show it.

"We came with nothing for newlyweds, but here's a handful of cash to splurge with. Nearest bank where you're going has a decent exchange rate," Ashwin said, and gave a flustered Daniel a huge stack of crisp bills, probably from their running away stash.

"Enjoy your time, Daniel. And welcome to the family," Ignacio said in that deep, gravelly voice of his, and Daniel surprised them all by hugging the big man in an exuberant embrace. Ignacio, to his credit, hugged Daniel back without a qualm, showing no regard for the young man's heritage or old name. Daniel was never Ignacio's enemy, and it showed.

Daniel ended the hug only to surprise everyone again, holding up his hands and with a soft purse of his lips in concentration, he pressed the palms of his hands together and then pulled them apart, and in between glowed the lines of a spell. Angel gaped when he realized they were the blue runes and silver lines mapping the technicalities of the sunlight wards that no one was yet able to cast on the Mansion.

"Sunlight wards," Ignacio said in awe, his finger coming up to gently trace the spell in the air, the glowing lights swirling like smoke, only to reform as his finger passed through them.

"The Mansion is your home," Daniel said gently. "I see the Invitational magics arising from the grounds, the floorboards, the very walls, responding to your presence. It's been waiting for you to come home. There's enough there for every vampire member of our family to be safe, if you're able to cast it." That last bit was said with a teasing twinkle in his eyes and a sharp, wicked smile that made Ignacio scoff in disbelief and pride.

"It's marvelous spellwork, young Salvatore, I thank you for the knowledge of it," Ignacio said loudly enough for everyone to hear him comfortably. "Enjoy your honeymoon."

"Angel crafted it a while ago," Daniel said, dropping his hands, Ignacio likely committing it to memory as most sorcerers could upon sight of a new spell. Ignacio's brows went high and he gave Angel an impressed look, making Angel reluctantly nod his head in acknowledgment.

"Time for goodbyes," Angel declared. A round of hugs for all, though Remi and Celyn hung back, awkwardly waving goodbye, probably confused about where Daniel and Rory were going while inside the temple.

Cian solved that confusion by casually lifting a hand and knocking thrice on the stone wall, grinning. He stepped away, and with a flourish, in the place of a smooth, unbroken white wall, there stood a pair of dark gray doors, set in iron and glass, and what appeared to be a dim glow of light beyond.

"Giant's Causeway, Northern Ireland," Cian announced. "An indefinite stay booked at the local inn, with full-access tourist passes and an all-expense paid meals package."

"But…" Daniel tried one last time to protest, but Angel shook his head. He hugged Daniel again, then gently pushed Daniel to his husband, who already had their bags in one hand, easily holding the weight, the other outstretched to Daniel. Daniel took it, and then the doors opened, revealing a fantastic-looking foyer in a much smaller building than the Mansion, but one no less beautiful or ornate. Probably the inn where they were staying for their honeymoon.

"Wait!" Daniel shouted and then broke away from the group, running to the archway where the dragon slept. Daniel knelt and pressed a kiss to Eroch's head, carefully hugging the exhausted dragon, before leaping to his feet and running back. "Eroch would have been so sad if I left without saying goodbye."

"I love you. Be safe, both of you, and we'll see you when you get home." Angel waved goodbye to them both, and Daniel followed his husband through the archway to another country. The door shut with a soft thud, and Cian dismissed the doors with an elegant wave of his hand.

"Any trouble at your sire's lair?" Angel asked Constans, both of them sitting with Eroch as he slept on the hearth. It was odd to see Constans sitting on the floor, as casual as Angel, not a care given for his expensive clothing as he sat on a floor that hadn't been swept in a decade. Preservation spells could only do so much against dust.

Constans was petting Eroch along his back between his wings in long, slow strokes, making Eroch churr happily in his sleep. He shook his head once, eyes locked on the slumbering beastie. "No. No movement. The images are fresh, within the last two hours. Nothing within several miles of his lair, as per usual. And my contacts are looking to see if there's any chatter about Rageshi from their targets. The information from the thumb drive is a few days old and I need to go through it thoroughly, but otherwise I think Rageshi is currently safe."

"Good," Angel murmured, not wanting to wake Eroch, though he doubted anything short of a bomb going off would rouse him. The growth spurt was taking a lot out of the young dragon. "Let me know ASAP if that changes, though. I want you to wake Rageshi if you think the Council is making a play for him first."

"I will do so if I must, but I hesitate. Rageshi left firm instructions, and one of them was to prevent him from becoming a weapon. He had enough of that from my father. Rageshi hates the nature of his existence, but he's pragmatic enough to realize who he does want in control of him if he must be woken."

"You?" Angel asked. He watched Constans' face for his answer.

A faint grimace, and a nod. "Yes."

"Not a bad choice." Angel said, and he smirked a bit when Constans raised surprised eyes to look at him. "He could do worse for a master than his own sired fledgling."

"I…" Constans cleared his throat and tried again. "Thank you."

"Don't mention it," Angel grumbled, but not unkindly.

He was sitting alone with Eroch again when the sharp chime of his phone had the slumbering beast stirring in complaint, and Angel quickly pulled it out and answered the call.

"My son has been kidnapped," Scylla Morrow growled, literally, through the phone. Rael's mother was over two hundred years old, a powerful werewolf with the triad of forms, and she was terrifying.

Simeon came to his side instantly, kneeling next to him, and Angel suddenly found himself surrounded by several people, either fae or vampire. He looked up at his concerned friends and family. "When and where?"

"Less than five minutes, so whoever took him and Jameson are going to be still on the road unless they've got a safehouse in Cambridge. We were looking at houses for rent," Scylla coughed, growling between gasping for air, as if it was impossible to stop growling, even in distress.

"Scylla, where are you?"

"Cambridge, Broadway and Third, just off Longfellow Bridge. Stopped at the intersection waiting for the light to turn." He heard the creaking of metal and the savage roar of a werewolf caught in the Change. Her voice when it returned was warped by what he suspected were rather large teeth. "Council enforcers took my son and his mate. Find them before I do or they all die screaming."

The line went dead.

"I can get you there," Constans said, standing from the couch nearby with Isaac, Iggy and Ash following.

"You've done thousands of miles already today," Angel said, half-protesting. He was not sure if vampires suffered from magical exhaustion like humans did, but he was sure he didn't want his brother's mate to find out.

"And the jaunt to Cambridge won't be the final straw," Constans promised, giving his concerned mate a soft smile and a kiss to his hair. "Give me a short while to gather the strength—choose your combatants, necromancer. The first salvo of the war has been made."

Angel and Simeon held each other's gaze for a short but meaningful moment, the beat of a silent heart. War had come again, and people close to Angel were going to get hurt, maybe even die.

War ended in death. Always.

"Celyn, please stay here," Angel directed. "Either in the temple with the Brennans' permission or here in the house. My little cousin is asleep upstairs."

"No need to babysit, I'll be staying with my son." Ashwin stated, and Angel agreed with the decision.

"Ignacio, if you'll stay here as well, please. The Council is actively pursuing you, and may try a concentrated attack to kill or capture you for access to Leandro. I'd rather not explain to another kid that his parent is dead."

Ignacio's jaw tightened, but Ashwin put a hand on his mate's arm, silently speaking to him in that way longtime mates had—and Ignacio agreed with a dip of his chin.

"I don't mind staying," Celyn replied. "I can't fight in any way. I can see magic, all kinds apparently, but I'm not a fighter."

"No need for it, kedvesem," Remi said, hugging his young mate. He looked at Angel. "I am a soldier, from before my first death to now. The sun has set—I will fight. My kin need me."

"Thank you," Angel said with a nod. He spun back to Constans. "How many people can you transport?"

"This short of a distance, everyone present. If Elder Simeon would lend his strength for this number, as I cannot take so much from Isaac."

"I will, Master," Simeon replied, and before Angel could ask what that meant, Remi stepped out of the temple and over the drowsy dragon without falling or missing a step.

"I can help you as well, cousin."

"Cian, Isaac, and myself, Simeon, Remi, Constans. Six of us to find two werewolves and help Scylla get her revenge. She's a huge lycan that can scare you shitless, so don't get in her way." Angel checked his phone. "Cian, stay glamoured so no one can see you're not dead." Cian nodded in agreement. "Two minutes. Get your weapons, ready to fight. Meet in the foyer. Vampires, do what you need to help Constans transport us all."

"Seven," a strident voice broke the tension, and Milly pushed her way through the crowd around Angel. She frowned at Angel, who immediately put up both hands in surrender. "Are you having fun without me, Angel?"

"I would never," Angel swore, and Milly's frown cracked, and she nodded with a smug smile. "Alright, seven of us. Let's get moving."