“Yes, that would be great. Before I was captured, I spent most of my time training and fighting, so being confined for so long was difficult on me, and on my magic. Now that I’m free and my magic is at full capacity again, it’s eager to get back to work.”
“You want to train again? You want to fight?” I worried my bottom lip with my teeth.
He shook his head. “No, but… do you…” he trailed off.
“Do I what? You can ask me anything, Ric.”
He smiled a little. “You run in the mornings, right?”
“Yes.” Not since he’d been freed, but typically I did.
“Do you think it would be okay if I came with you, or if you want to be alone, if I went running on a different path? If I exert myself physically, it will help settle my magic.”
“You’re welcome to join me anytime you’d like.” He smiled at me, so I placed a kiss on his lips before turning to the giant mess on the floor. “Time to get cleaning.”
He nodded and the two of us got to work.
Chapter 18
Alaric
Day two of working in Grady’s store was going better than day one. Or at least, I hoped so. I hadn’t knocked over an entire shelf yet today, so I figured it wasn’t going too badly.
“Alaric,” Grady said from behind the counter.
“Yes?” I looked up from the comics I was placing on the shelf.
“Please stop worrying about yesterday. It’s not a big deal.”
“I wasn’t.”
He gave me a look that told me he knew I was full of it. “Baby, I can see you worrying from here, but… I can also feel it.” My heart did a little flip at the endearment again.
Taking a quick glance around the store to ensure we were alone, I said, “It’s getting stronger, isn’t it?”
He licked his lips. “It is on my end… can you feel me too?”
“Yes. It’s a lot stronger today than two days ago.” I licked my lips. “Are you still okay with—”
“Please don’t worry about that. I want this.”
Not only could I see his sincerity, I could feel it through our soul-pledge, so I sent him a relieved smile. “Me too.”
He smiled back, but the bell above the door rang alerting us of a customer coming inside. Grady turned to the two men and said, “Welcome to Hero's Hideout: Comics and Games. Let us know if we can help you with anything.”
As I stared at the two men, something tugged inside me, and after a moment, I realized it was my magic. My magic was reacting to these newcomers like it had yesterday when someone walked by outside, and fear suddenly ran through my body. The only reason it would react to them was if they were warlocks as well. I was instantly on alert, trying to figure out if they were friend or foe. What were they doing here? Why did they come? Did they know I was? Was I in trouble? What if they were here to put me back inside my prison? I couldn’t go back there. Not after knowing Grady. I wouldn’t survive it.
I backed away, moving toward Grady without taking my eyes off them.
Grady asked me quietly, “What’s wrong? What’s going on?”
I shook my head and walked behind the counter, pushing Grady behind me and placing myself between him and them. I felt Tiberius’s panic as he headed back toward the store from where he’d been hunting. The two men faced the front of the store, and I watched their magic release from their palms and form a shield across the front doors and windows. Tiberius was too late, he would be stuck outside until I broke the shield down. Why do they need a shield? What are they planning on doing to us?
“Stay behind me, Grady,” I whispered, drawing my magic to the surface to defend us as they headed in our direction.
One of the men made eye contact with me, his brown eyes locking on mine, and the breath knocked out of me. He stepped closer, a look of pure awe on his face as he took me in. I kept my arm out to block Grady from them, and the man must’ve noticed my protective stance because he stopped moving and held his hands out in a gesture of surrender. And then a voice I never thought I’d hear again said, “Alaric?”
My eyes filled with tears, and I felt my chin trembling as I whispered, “Raphael?”
A huge smile overtook his face, his eyes lighting up in pure joy. “Alaric, is it really you?”
My throat was clogged with the effort to keep my tears at bay, so I nodded.
“My gods, look at you.” He walked over, and before I could do much more than push Grady back a few more steps, Raphael was standing before me. He surprised me by pulling me into a giant bear hug. I was stiff at first, so tense, but then the familiar scent of burning firewood filled my nostrils and I relaxed into him, hugging him back fiercely.
I could feel Grady’s distress behind me, but I didn’t know how to fix that right now. Not when I was hugging Raphael for the first time in centuries.
Raphael tucked his head down to my shoulder, muttering, “I never thought I’d see you again. I’ve searched for so long, but I couldn’t sense you anywhere.” His voice was hoarse and raw, and I could feel tears on my neck.
I still couldn’t speak, so I tucked my face into him as I cried as well. He held me tightly, as if he was afraid I’d disappear if he didn’t have me in his arms. And I held him just the same. We hugged for a long time before Raphael slowly lightened his hold on me. He grabbed my shoulders and held me back some, looking me up and down. “Let me get a good look at you, little runt.” His smile was bright and watery. “You look good. You’re all grown up.”
I finally found my voice. “Raphael, you’re here… I don’t… how are you here?”
“Isiah and I felt your magical blast, and I recognized it right away. As soon as I realized it was you, we had to track you down.” Raphael was still holding my shoulders and he squeezed them. “I can’t believe I finally found you. After all these years.”
“Raphie, I…” I shook my head. I didn’t know who Isiah was or what magical blast he meant, but that didn’t even matter right now. “How are you here?”
“I just told you. Sorry it took a few days to track you down after you released the beacon, but—”
“No, Raphie,” I cut him off as the tears spilled over my eyelids. “You… you were dead. You died.”
He sucked in a breath, then closed his eyes in frustration. “Of course, that’s what he would tell you… that asshole, prick of a father that—”
“Shh, Raph, not the time,” the other man, the stranger I didn’t know, cut Raphie off with a hand on his back.
“Alaric?” Grady’s voice was quiet and unsure.
I pulled away from Raphie and said, “Sorry, Grady. I’m alright.”
“Oh shit, there’s a human right there,” Raphie said. “Um… did you bring the chuimi root, Izzy? We have a memory to wipe.”
Grady’s eyes widened and he took a step back, but I stepped in front of him, blocking him from Raphie again. “Do not touch him.”
Raphael’s eyes widened before he chuckled and lifted his hands in surrender. “Alright, alright. But you might want to work on altering his mind because we used magic to block everything out, and he saw it.”
My eyes narrowed. “We will do no such thing. Grady is soul-pledged to me, you will not touch him, you will not harm him, or you will pay the price.”
Raphie’s eyes widened again, then a grin tilted his lips. “You have a soul-pledged? That’s wonderful, Alaric.”
“Promise me you won’t touch him. You or”—I glanced at the other man—“your friend.”
“A soul-pledged is sacred. We would never harm one on purpose. My apologies, little brother.”
I nodded, and Grady whispered, “‘Little brother.’ I thought…”
Holding my hand out behind me, Grady grabbed it and linked our fingers, so I pulled him forward and wrapped that arm over his shoulders in a protective maneuver. Raphie said they wouldn’t hurt him, but I hadn’t seen the man in centuries, and… “I don’t understand, Raphie… how are you here? Father told me how you two were
attacked by the witches in the west village and you died protecting him from a fracture spell. He said it… that it split you apart so badly… your-your body was…” I shuddered at the memory of the body my father brought back, the body I’d mourned thinking it was my big brother.
Raphie shook his head and sighed. “Father is a liar. He always was. He took me out there and sacrificed me to the witch coven for one of their black magic rituals. He made some kind of deal with them, and he told me if I managed to live through it or escape, I was exiled. He kicked me out and fed me to the wolves.”
My heart was beating rapidly. “H-he gave you to that… that coven? That dark, evil coven? How… why would he do that?”
“I questioned his authority and didn’t like the way he was treating the people in our village and the surrounding farms. I gave some of the farmers special herbs and things to help make their land more fertile and he… didn’t agree. It went on for a few years, and when he caught me helping Silvia and Donovan in the barn, it put him over the edge.” He stepped closer to me, placing his hand on my shoulder again, opposite where Grady was. “I never expected him to turn on you, though. If I would’ve known what was going to happen…” he trailed off with a shake of his head.
“It’s alright,” I whispered.
His eyes hardened. “No, it’s not. It’s never alright to beat someone bloody and leave them for dead out in the woods.”
Grady gasped and gripped the back and front of my shirt tight, and it brought my brother’s attention to him. Raphie smiled. “Hello, I’m Raphael. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Alaric-soul-pledged.”
Grady’s eyes went wide before narrowing a little. “My name’s Grady.” He continued holding onto me tightly, like he was afraid I’d float away.
Raphie smiled. “Grady.” He nodded, then gestured back to the guy that had been standing a few feet from us this whole time. “This is Isiah, or Izzy for short, if you want to piss him off.” Raphie sent his friend a smirk.
Isiah walked forward. “It’s a pleasure to meet you both. Please ignore the jackass. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. My true friends call me Iz.”
“I’m your only true friend and I don’t call you that,” Raphie said, still smirking.
Isiah lifted his hand with his middle finger raised at Raphie, who chuckled.
I wasn’t sure what to make of Isiah, or my brother truthfully, so I only nodded at him. “Nice to meet you.” Grady nodded as well.
Raphie scanned the store, then focused on me and asked, “Is there someplace more private we can talk?”
I glanced at Grady, and he gave me a nod, so I turned back to Raphie. “Grady’s house is nearby, but we have to wait until Lizzie comes in.” I looked at the clock. “We have an hour.”
Grady said, “Um, Alaric, we can leave now. I’ll call Lizzie and tell her I had to lock up. She can reopen when she gets here, she has a key.”
“Are you sure?”
He leaned into me and muttered, “Your brother just came back from the dead and you haven’t seen him in two hundred years. Nothing else is important right now.”
He was serious, so I said, “Okay, thank you.”
He grinned at me and shook his head. “Manners.”
I snorted before turning back to Raphie. “Do you have a car you can follow us in?”
My brother was grinning as he looked between Grady and me, and the expression on his face sent a bout of grief through me as it brought up memories of him from when we were kids. Raphie was older than me by nearly twenty years, but he’d always made sure to spend plenty of time with me whenever he was home. And when he’d died—when Father had told me he’d died—I’d been devastated and lonelier than any child should ever have to be.
Raphie’s eyes seemed a little watery as he whispered, “Yeah, we can follow you.”
I nodded and turned away before my emotions got the better of me. Staring into Grady’s eyes, I asked, “You sure this is okay with you?”
“Yep.” He sent me a soft smile. “Is Tib close by?”
“Yeah, he’s impatiently flying above the store waiting for us.”
“Alright, let me grab my keys from the back.” He squeezed my hand before heading into the employee only area.
Raphie said, “He is hot, little bro.” He smacked my chest. “Good for you, lucky bastard.”
My brow furrowed. “Hot?” It took me a second to get it. “Oh, you mean good-looking. I would prefer if you didn’t talk about him that way, Raphie.”
Raphael’s eyes widened before they turned sad and he whispered, “You really were locked inside a prison for years, weren’t you?”
“Why?”
“The way you’re behaving is…”
I narrowed my eyes. “Is what?”
He shook his head. “Never mind… you were really locked away, though?”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Nearly two hundred years.”
Raphie’s eyes filled with pain before he slammed them shut. “I’m so sorry.”
“You weren’t the one who trapped me, so there is nothing for you to be sorry about.”
Isiah wrapped an arm over my brother’s shoulders, dragging him into his side, and from the way my brother leaned into him automatically, it seemed like they were perhaps a couple. Isiah pressed his lips to Raphie’s temple and whispered something to him that I couldn’t hear.
Raphie nodded, then focused on me. “If you were trapped for so long, then you only recently escaped… was that the magic surge we felt?”
“I didn’t send out any beacon, so I suppose it must have been.”
My brother nodded again, but Grady came back out with a smile aimed at me. “Lizzie is coming in a little early and knows to open the store back up when she gets here, so we’re good to go.” After I smiled at him, he glanced at Raphie and Isiah. “Do you guys want my address to put into your GPS? Um… assuming you know how to use one?”
My brother chuckled a little, although there was still some grief hidden beneath the sound. “We’ve been around a long time, but we’ve kept up to date on technology throughout the years… we all haven’t been as… sheltered as Alaric.”
Grady’s eyes narrowed a little, but he nodded before jotting down his address on a notepad and passing it to Isiah. Then the four of us headed out, Isiah and Raphie dropping the protective shield around the store. As soon as the shield was dropped, Tiberius flew right into my chest. I scrambled to catch him, but managed to and hug him to me. He was almost panicking, and I felt terrible that I hadn’t come outside sooner to get him.
“Shh… it’s alright,” I cooed. Tib clucked in my face before chirping at Grady.
Grady leaned over and asked the owl, “You alright, big guy? I know you were worrying.” I shot him a curious glance. Had he been able to sense Tib’s feelings as well?
Tib launched out of my arms and onto Grady’s shoulder, and while he wasn’t fully used to it yet, Grady didn’t flinch. He started petting and cooing at my familiar as Tib rubbed over his cheek and hair. Right before we reached Grady’s car, Tiberius turned his glare on Raphie and Isiah and began chirping angrily at them.
Raphie held his hands up in surrender again and quietly said, “Hey there, Tiberius. My apologies for keeping you out of the shield. I’m not sure if you remember me, but I’m Raphael, Alaric’s older brother.” Tib clucked at him angrily. “Right, of course you remember. This is Isiah.” Tib clucked angrily at him, too.
Isiah said, “I’m sorry as well, Tiberius, and it’s lovely to meet you. I wasn’t aware that you were waiting to get inside, my apologies.”
Tib made a noise in his throat, but settled down.
As Grady unlocked his car, Raphie and Isiah walked a few cars down. I could see a cat and a bird inside the car Isiah unlocked, but I didn’t get a good look before my brother waved and hopped inside.
Once we were in Grady’s car, my soul-pledged asked, “Are you doing alright?”
“I’m not sure yet. I… I never expected to see him again, and I don’t think it’s hit me that he’s really here yet.”
He nodded, but didn’t start driving. “I want to say something before we get back to the house.”
“Yes?” I turned in my seat to give him my full attention.
“I’m very happy and excited for you, Alaric. I can’t believe he’s here, and I’m grateful for it.” He reached over and grabbed my hand. “I wanted to make sure that you understand something before we get home, though.”
“Yes?” Nerves fluttered in my stomach.
“The house, it isn’t only my home, it’s our home. It’s yours and Tiberius’s just as much as it’s mine now. It’s our home.”
A soft smile tugged at my lips. “Thank you.”
He chuckled. “There’s those manners again.” He shook his head, but looked pleased. “The reason I’m telling you this is because I want you to feel comfortable enough to invite your brother and his friend to stay with us, if you want. We have the guest room that we can set up. I didn’t want to say anything in front of them because I don’t want to pressure you either way. If you want space from them, that’s fine, you don’t need to invite them. But if you do want to, you’re welcome to. You don’t need my permission, I just wanted to make sure you knew the option was there. And I’m not trying to tell you either way. After we spend some time with them, you decide what you want to do, and I’ll support you, no matter what.”
After a few moments, I cleared my throat. “That’s a very kind offer, Grady. Thank you. I’m very grateful for you, and for your hospitality.”
He smiled at me and bent down to press a kiss to the back of my hand. “Please let me know if you want to talk about anything. You’ve had a lot of big changes and shocks this week.”
I grinned. “Thank you.”
He groaned. “Stop thanking me. For crying out loud, you don’t have to thank every tiny thing.”
My grin grew, and I leaned over to place a short kiss to his lips. “Nothing you’re doing feels like a tiny thing. Not to me. You’ve been kinder to me than anyone has ever been in my entire life.”
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