Harming a regular human. Any of our own were weak if they were murdered. A culling. We lay in silence for a while, my mind digging through the tangled layers of lie and fact I’d been told for so many years. Lane’s emotions, seeping into me as we lay there, were the only thing keeping me steady. What did my grandfather actually believe, and what had just been lies?
A slam tore through the house, shaking it on its foundations. Scrambling up, I grabbed Lane’s arm as he leapt out of bed.
“Leave,” I demanded, terror clogging my throat. “Get out the window, just go.”
He grabbed me, kissed me, and was jerking out of my grip before I could stop him. I tore after him, taking the stairs two at his heels. The sight of Morgan, narrow-eyed and smirking at the entryway, sent a shock of horror through my chest worse than I had felt the last time I saw him.
“Let Lane leave,” I demanded, “and we’ll talk.”
“Why, when we’re all right here?”
“I know the truth now, Morgan. About everything. You and your family killed mine.”
He smirked at me, no semblance on his face of the man I had first met those five years ago. He was all sharp cruelty and amusement.
“You know some. The man you called your father? He was my first kill.”
Coldness creeped in around my fury. How? Morgan was only twenty-nine. He would have been, what? Eight? Nine? My horror mixed with shock, feeling sick and cold and hurt.
“Why?”
“He killed my uncle, I expect. I saw him kill my father. That was the first time I really used my powers. He was standing over my father’s burning body, and so I made him burn. My father’s men, turned mine, showed me how to wrap up the body and took me to return it to you that next night.”
I felt sick, but couldn’t take my eyes away. “Gramp? Geoff? Why them?”
“It was the old ways, Brett. The only way. I promise, you’ll be fine. I’ll take care of you. You’ll be my family, now. One Langseth, one Sigel, and when you take my name that feud will finally end.”
“You’re sick,” I hissed, tightening my grip on the railing as I eased my way down to them. I wouldn’t let him take anyone else from me.
“I saw you, you know. Finding your ‘Dad’. You screamed, and I can still hear it.” The twist of his lips cut into my stomach. “A broken bottle, some blood, and I had eyes on that garden. Not for long, that old man saw to that, but long enough. Your curls, your big teary brown eyes, I never forgot them. When your grandfather came to see us, begging for an end to the feud, I made the men I had inherited tell him we would accept.”
“But then why did you kill them?” Did Geoff find out, and start everything up again in pursuit of revenge? I didn’t want that to be the answer, but I had to know. I fought back my fear and horror, made myself ask, “Did my brother do something?”
“We were finally old enough to meet, so I made it happen. You wouldn’t stay there alone, and you wouldn’t leave if you still had those weights on you. That wasn’t who you were.”
Who I was. Like he’d known me, even before we’d met. “You watched us.”
“All the time. Your grandfather was desperate, and he let my men spy. They’d leave the broken glass at night, I’d see you, and then he’d destroy it after it sat a few days. Long enough to let us see he wasn’t a threat, I guess.” He laughed, sick and twisted and so amused as he tore out my heart. “I love you. I thought so, then, but as I got older I knew it.”
Another dose of his poison. I was too far removed from it for it to do more than ache, now. I’d steeped in it enough that I would always feel that ache, but at least I now knew better than to believe it.
“You don’t even love yourself,” I growled.
It was the cruel truth. Lane had helped me see it. Each attack on me, the flames of Morgan’s fury, the punishing force of his touch—all had been just a reflection of the emptiness he felt inside.
"You're not the greatest listener, Brett. Never have been." Morgan turned to smile coldly at Lane, ignoring me. "Sorry it had to come to this. If he'd listened and stayed home I wouldn't have to kill you, but he's selfish."
Selfish? I'd done everything as he ordered, gone to the clubs he'd frequented, hovered at his side while he drank and partied and showed off his connections. Still he'd hurt me, blaming me the entire time.
Morgan continued to apologize to Lane, explaining how I caused all of this. I saw Lane’s jaw twitch with the force of his clenched teeth. Lane was a good man, too good to die this way. Morgan was intent on him, all but casting me aside, like I was powerless. I took the chance presented by the distraction. My heartbeat pounded in my ears, but I wouldn’t let this chance escape. I just prayed Lane would actually run.
Focusing on Morgan, I dove down the last step past both of them and slammed against the curios cabinet where I kept Gram’s old china. Snatching up the large platter as the rest fell to shatter at my feet, I whipped it at Morgan’s head, smashing it with all the force I had.
I caught him as he was turning. He stumbled with a cry, caught off guard, and almost fell before catching himself with an animalistic growl.
“Bastard!” he growled. Blood streaked down his face from deep gashes, his eyes unfocused, but the rage in them was real.
“This is between us, Morgan,” I hissed, catching and holding his eye. I willed Lane to leave, but he wasn’t going anywhere, still just standing there. I wanted to yell at him to move, but couldn’t. Doing that would turn Morgan’s attention back to him, and any movement might start him using his energy on us. Why wasn’t Lane running? Why was he just standing there?
“You brought the new guy into this,” Morgan chastised me, sounding miffed. “He wouldn’t have to die if you’d just stayed home. I won. You were supposed to obey me.”
He really wasn’t going to kill me, then, no matter what. Nausea filled me at the idea, so much worse than death. Morgan was looking at me fully, now, his back to Lane. Still the idiot I loved didn’t move, just narrowed his eyes and watched with a focus that was worrying.
“I’ll die before I go back to you,” I promised Morgan, knowing it was a lie. I was weak, and he always knew how to get what he wanted. Even now, if he promised to leave Lane be then I knew I’d fall in line.
“You know I can make you.” He gave me a sickening smile, cold and dead. “I need you to stay still now. You need punishment for that plate stunt, and your big friend should see what he can expect.”
I hunched in on myself, grit my teeth in expectation of pain, shooting Lane a look filled with all my sorrow and apology. Still Lane kept his gaze on Morgan, not sparing a glance for me. Even when Morgan lurched, grabbed me. I whimpered behind gritted teeth, barely clinging to consciousness through cycles of pain burning my veins. Morgan wanted me unconscious, and fear of that gave me the strength to hold on through it.
Then Morgan was falling, doubling in on himself with a tortured sound more squeak than cry. He writhed silently, hands grabbing at himself, coming away stained—blood, from his eyes. I stumbled back, horror and relief smashing through me. Morgan coughed splatters of blood against the floor, shuddering.
The council—were they here? Punishing him for the murder of Jeff, of Bennett?
I stumbled to Lane’s side, not taking my eyes off Morgan. Lane caught me with one arm, pulled me close. My stomach twisted as I continued to watch, relief far outweighing the nausea. Morgan went still, and I relaxed, sickened but giddy with relief that it was over.
Lane pulled me into his arms, kissed my forehead, my nose. I looked up at him, realizing he wasn’t shocked. Understanding the only possible reasoning for that widened my eyes. An energy manipulator. A high mage.
It seemed Morgan and I weren’t the only throwbacks in this room.
“You’re safe now.”
I turned to look back at where Morgan’s body lay twisted on my floor, yet another horror of mine dead and left to only haunt my mind. I was shaken to my core, adrenaline crashing through my veins as I tr
ied to make sense of things. Lane, sweet Lane, was the nightmare of my childhood. Here he stood, a high mage in the flesh, holding me as Morgan, the nightmare of my adult life, lay dead, dead by his hands, close enough I could smell the roasted flesh.
“We’ll have to get rid of him.”
Lane kissed my head again, nuzzling my hair. My breath was evening out, but my heart still thudded in my chest.
“I’ll call Carole and Corey.”
Memories of burying Geoff, alone and afraid, teased me; memories of Gramps, too, came to me, his speaking a word and sending his son to the depths of the garden. This was what it was like to have connections.
I turned my face into his chest, breathing in the smell of his sweat and soaking in the beat of his heart. My eyes were burning, and I couldn’t let him see it.
“We’ll take him somewhere,” Lane murmured into my curls. “No basement for him. Let all that crap die. You don’t need that. He has no family left to guard, anyway.”
“Thank you,” I whispered.
We sat there for a while, silent. I wondered if he knew how much fear I was battling, looking up at him. This was Lane, I kept telling myself every time I felt that thrill of understanding drive back awareness of just what held me. Lane, who kept my secrets and protected me. Lane, who loved me and taught me I could love and trust again.
“You killed him,” I finally acknowledged. I think he had been waiting for me to work my way to that. He tilted back and smiled at me, a sad sort of smile.
“Actually,” he told me, “he killed himself.” His fingers stroked through my curls. I needed to cut it soon. “I’m a throwback, too. It runs in families, mine the same as yours. I can sense and manipulate energies. I just had to wait for him to use his, then twisted them back.”
Like what had doubtlessly happened to Geoff, and to my father. It was a horrifying way to go, experiencing your own self twisting against you in those final moments before death.
Morgan deserved every horrifying moment, and I hoped they had stretched into an agonizing eternity.
“When we went out west, to Gramp’s ranch.” I swallowed, trying to fit my messy thoughts together. “It wasn’t for my benefit, was it? The trip.”
“No,” he answered, voice heavy. “It was absolution for me.”
Permission, to take out the target. They knew what he was, and it was likely the same as his father before him. These things ran in families, after all. And there was more, too.
“You already knew what I was.” I’d been too torn up at the time to realize it, but if he was an energy manipulator then he would have felt that secret in my energy the first time we met. He’d known, and kept it to himself, letting me come to him in my own time.
Then his surprise…
“Yeah,” he answered, obviously nervous. “I figured it wasn’t something you wanted known, not the way you hid it. That you showed us at all.” He gave me a sweet smile, all Lane, and I didn’t need to feel him to know the warmth of his love.
Lane was gentle and sweet, carrying a kindness I had never imagined another person possessing. The reality of his existence still boggled my mind even after the realization of what he was. A high mage. The most dangerous.
“You were given leave to take him out.”
“Landings doesn’t allow outsiders to interfere with our own. We have enough people here who were part of the ones you call ‘the Faded’. As long as we keep to the rules, we can take care of our town. Lakewells, Briggs, and the Hunters.”
Not actual members of the governors, but close to it. I searched my emotions for any traces of fear or horror over what Lane was, but only found the surface horror from my own memories and the idea of his capabilities. Lane was still Lane in my thoughts, the goof I was falling for, and I was relieved.
"I thought people like you, the inverted with your power, had to be part of the Faded.”
“No. They wanted me, same as they wanted Da when he came on their radar, but I wasn’t interested. I like my life here, same as Da likes his now that he’s retired.”
And no one tried to force him to make any other choice. They also knew just what I was, and not one of them had tried to harm me.
“I always thought there were no choices. Inverts, throwbacks like us, are either useful or, if they had no use, dead.”
“Oh, they thought I’d be useful, but there are enough people out there who want power. When I wasn’t one of them, the Faded moved on. When Da decided to retire, they patted his back and filled his position with enough others that the loss was little more than a sigh for them. Centuries ago, yeah. Things change, Brett. I promise. You’re safe now.”
And, somehow, I really was willing to accept that. “They really aren’t going to kill me, are they?”
I felt him stiffen even as his horror at my words rocked through him. I’d never told him that part, had I? I’d said what I’d been taught brought the rest of my family’s deaths, but never what I expected would cause my own.
“Jesus, Brett.” His horror was very real. No one could feign that. “No. Hell, is that part of what your great-grandfather taught you?”
“Inverts like you, like…” I shuddered but forced his name past my lips. “Like Morgan. Those with actual power. Gramp said they were acceptable, as the Faded had use for them. The stronger the better, as tools or governors. My kind, though? Gramp said those like me were too dangerous for the Faded to let live. That’s why I wasn’t to let anyone know. If they knew, they’d kill me.”
He cursed against my hair, and hearing that from steady Lane, the man who raged at Corey when Corey got a little too mouthy? That made me listen.
“Brett,” Lane said. “I kept it secret because I knew you didn’t want anyone to know, and I made Corey promise not to tell, either. We both thought it was a safety thing, that you felt vulnerable and were scared to let people know you lacked that defense. That’s all.”
I took his words in, but they didn’t make sense, not really. He read that in me somehow, and I could feel his desperate sorrow.
“No one was angry when they found out. Da said it made things a lot clearer. Honestly, I think it made him soften to you. I’ve never heard a word spoken about any of the things you just said, not once in my life. I’ve never met another throwback like you, but I heard tell of them growing up. Rare, yeah, but that’s it.”
“And a liability to our kind.”
He scoffed, the sound soft and not really felt; I was thankful for his pretense, even as he must have known I could see through it. The words he shared, though, he did mean. “You aren’t a liability, Brett. And maybe you aren’t powerful the way other mages are, but what you can do instead? It’s so rare, Brett, and is something to be treasured. Da finding out what you were? That’s half the reason he stepped in and pushed for me to be the one allowed to deal with Morgan. He told them that, since you were mine, it was my right.”
The shock of those words hit hard. I twisted around, staring, and Lane looked back with a straight face and serious eyes.
I could feel how much Lane believed what he’d said, and the actions of the others backed his words. The peace that settled over me in the wake of my horror was staggering. A weight slipped off my shoulders I hadn’t truly realized until just that moment. I wanted to laugh, but even more than that, I wanted to feel Lane’s lips on mine. Taste him.
I closed my eyes and pressed a kiss against his lips, needing him. He deepened it, and I pressed closer, enjoying it.
“Ow! The eyes!”
We broke apart at Corey’s screech, and Lane stuck his tongue out at his brother. I laughed, startling all three of us, me more so than any other, I think. I couldn’t seem to get stopped, but Lane just stroked my back and let me.
“Creep’s gone,” Corey told me, ruffling my hair in passing and smirking as I got myself under control.
The creep was gone, and along with him went layers of fear I’d lived beneath since before I truly knew what I was.
There was a ra
ttle of the fridge door opening, and Corey crowed at what he found. “You dweebs want beer?”
We definitely did. This was a day beer would definitely help.
I spent the rest of the evening curled against Lane’s side, listening to them snipe back and forth and letting the horror I’d experienced fade into contentment. Now that I knew about Lane, Corey was having a blast regaling me with old “horror” stories.
“When Lane first figured out what he could do, you should’ve seen Da!” Corey snickered. “Da was trying to start a little fire in the fireplace, just calling up enough spark to ignite the paper. Idiot here thought it looked fun, and that he could do it better. He reached his energy right out, snatched the power away, and pretty near roasted the entire place! I was small, but I still remember Ma’s screech, Nan’s cackle, and Da’s desperate curses as he wrested back control and the flames collapsed down in a wall of angry, air-sucking vacuum. We were all choking on smoke.”
Lane patted my back while I choked beer back down the right pipes.
“He’s trying to kill me,” I laughed, leaning into Lane.
“I’ll just have to get him first, then.”
He gave Corey an unexpected shove that toppled him from the couch with a squeal, spilling his beer all over the place as he wind-milled. He hit the floor with a crash and a splash.
“Hey,” he squawked. “Asshole!”
“Quit swearing, brat!”
Just like that, I was laughing against Lane’s shoulder. My cheek brushed his, and a wave of his contentment swelled through me, chasing away the last of my chill. I rubbed the damp spot where beer was soaking into my pant-leg, relishing the comfortable feelings I was sharing.
A knock on the door startled us, and Lane stood as I got up to answer it.
Joe and Lillian, arm in arm and smiling through the screen.
“We just wanted to check in,” Joe told me, patting my shoulder as I waved them inside. “Greg said there was a bit of a to-do, so we wanted to have a look ourselves and be sure you were well.”
Upon the River Shore Page 18