by Brenna Lyons
Daniel strode to her, lifting Alyssa out of harm’s way and setting her on the lowest riser. “Go get changed. I’ll wait for you.”
She smoothed her hair, looking at Armen out of the corner of her eye. “Maybe... I think you should just pick me up tonight,” she breathed.
“If you’re sure.” He wasn’t sure about it. Daniel still wanted to spill blood for the wrongs done to Alyssa, and Tim Armen was nearly as guilty as Tom in the grand scheme of things.
She nodded, smoothing the back of her hair again.
“I’ll clean this up before I—”
“No. It’s okay. I’ll get it.”
“I will,” Armen growled, halfway across the entryway, his shoulders hunched, his feet planted for a fight, and his fists shoved into his jacket pockets.
Daniel turned to place Alyssa at his back, prepared to make Armen keep his distance.
Alyssa’s hand closed on his shoulder. “Don’t, Daniel. Go to work. I’ll see you...later.”
He nodded stiffly, giving Armen a wide berth, their gazes locked. “Until next time, Tim.” It was a veiled threat, at best.
“I look forward to it.” As was his response.
Daniel sat in his car and considered staying to make sure Alyssa was safe, but she’d asked him to go. And he still had to hook up with Bear.
He was half a block away when his cell phone rang. Daniel answered it in a rougher voice than he would have liked, a crisp “Yeah?” that made him wince.
“Hey, Daniel,” Bear offered cheerfully. “You okay?”
“Stellar,” he grumbled.
“Oh, that’s nice. As long as I’m not ruining a good mood.”
Daniel groaned. “What now?”
“Just a heads-up for you. Tim Armen will be hitting town sometime soon.”
“A little late, Bear. He’s here.”
“Ah, hell. Sorry I didn’t get to you sooner. I was...delayed.” Sounds of him shifting the phone filtered through. “How bad was it?”
“We didn’t come to blows, if that’s what you mean.”
“He knows about the two of you?”
“That’s a safe bet. He damned near caught me with my pants down.”
“At this time of night?” he asked, seemingly incredulous.
“Lay off.”
A woman’s voice sounded in the background. Bear covered the mouthpiece and replied.
Daniel smirked. “And, how were you delayed, cousin?”
“Lay off,” he warned.
“I think you get my point.”
“Lay off, or you’ll taste mine.”
“Ooooh, I’m scared,” he taunted.
Sounds of Bear dressing were unmistakable. “Lay off, or I won’t make Tim back down.”
Daniel sobered. “If you do that, I’ll never mention your love life again.”
“Consider it done.”
* * * *
Alyssa came down the stairs in a fresh pair of jeans and her black Keds, watching Tim in amazement.
He mopped the juice spot on the floor, his face lowered, paying painstaking attention to the task. There was something serene about him, something she’d never seen in him before.
No, that wasn’t quite right. Alyssa had never seen a Warrior so at ease except with a sacred weapon in hand or while throwing punches...until Daniel. But, she’d already decided that Daniel was unlike any Warrior she’d met before.
Tim didn’t look up, but he spoke softly to her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
Alyssa shook her head in disbelief. Tim sounded genuinely remorseful. She reached to scoop her hair behind her ear, encountered the short style, and smoothed it down.
“It’s okay,” she replied. “I didn’t expect to see you.” And fighting about Tom, to boot. That had nearly stopped her heart.
“I imagine that’s true.” There was no bite of sarcasm or anger in that. Tim was worn, perhaps sad. Was he disappointed to find her with Daniel?
An uncomfortable silence fell between them. Alyssa settled on the stairs, watching the mop move to avoid meeting his eyes. “Why did you come here, Tim?”
“To ask you to come home.”
Her mouth went dry. “I am home.”
He sighed. “Then I came to bring you some things for the baby.”
“I shouldn’t—”
“They’re just old furniture and toys of Tom’s.”
Then I really shouldn’t. “Old? Even the antiques at the Armen manor house are immaculate,” she joked weakly.
“Is that why you’re uncomfortable there?” he asked, seemingly grasping for straws.
She shook her head. “It’s just not...”
“Home,” he finished for her.
“Yes. Home,” she agreed.
“It could be. You have no family here. We’re—”
She couldn’t let him say it. It was a lie. “I have this house. I’ve lived here all my life...well, for as long as I can remember anyway.”
“Alone,” he reasoned. “You’re alone and you don’t have to be.”
“I have friends.”
“And Daniel Hunter.”
Alyssa fought for a decent breath. “I don’t think it’s fair to say I have Daniel. It’s...” What is it? An affair? More than that? Even she didn’t know for sure what Daniel was to her or what she wanted him to be. “It’s not like that.” Not yet, if it ever would be.
Tim knelt before her, meeting her eyes. “Promise me you’ll think about it,” he pleaded.
She nodded, though she knew she didn’t belong in Armen manor. She’d never belonged there; that’s why she’d kept this house intact when Tom wanted—
“I’ll bring the furniture in. Just tell me where you want it and I’ll set it—”
“I can’t accept it,” she whispered.
“You’re not accepting it. It already belongs to the baby,” he argued.
“I’ve already bought a nursery set.” It probably wasn’t as nice as the one Tim had bought for his son, but it was something she was entitled to, something she’d earned.
“Did Hunter help with that, too?” he snapped.
“It’s not like that. It’s...really not.”
Tim stood, pacing the entryway, his face a vivid red. “That baby is an Armen. Just come home until he’s born. After that—”
“I’d lose my job.”
“You can’t keep it once he’s born anyway, and if you’d draw on your account, you wouldn’t have to—”
“Who says I can’t work with a baby?” she fumed. Was he telling her how to live already? “Jessica and I have already figured it out. And that is Tom’s money.”
“You’re Tom’s widow,” he barked. “What was his is yours.”
“No. I can’t accept it. I didn’t marry Tom for his money. Save it for the baby.”
“I’d rather you use it for the baby. No, I’d rather you come home until he’s born.”
“My life is here.”
“His life is in Armen.”
Her stomach lurched at that. “Not until he’s fifteen,” she managed.
Tim stopped, staring at her. “He’s my grandson. How am I supposed to give him an amulet and blessing when he’s born?”
“Corwyn has already promised—”
“He’s not an Armen.”
“Then I’ll call Scott and Kaitlyn—”
“Do you want him to come to Armen as lost as Scott was?”
“He’ll know Warriors. I’m not stopping him from becoming a Warrior. Not that I could stop it.”
“But, you would if you could?”
Alyssa took a calming breath. “You know that’s impossible. He’s a Warrior. He’ll be raised a Warrior and trained a Warrior...hopefully a good enough one to live a long, long life.” And, knowing I intend to see to it may convince him not to try and take what he really wants. “He’s going to live a really long time, Tim. I won’t stand for less.”
Tim sighed, the tension in his shoulders easing. “He won’t know
his family.”
“We’ll work that out.”
“What? Weekends in Armen when he’s old enough to travel? Weekends here until then, any time I can get free to do it? Maybe a summer vacation, once in a while? He won’t know us, Alyssa.”
She didn’t answer that. It was too dangerous until she knew what their laws said their respective rights were. Daniel would tell her that. Until then, it wasn’t safe to comment.
“Promise me—”
“I’ll consider it.” But, she wouldn’t. Armen wasn’t her home.
“I’ll drive you to work.”
“I’d appreciate that. I’m late.”
“You’re family.”
She faltered, at a loss for a way to answer his insistence that she was family to him, when she couldn’t say the same. “Maybe... Maybe you could put the toys in the nursery. I haven’t bought many toys yet.”
He smiled faintly. “I’d be glad to.”
“I’ll show you where it is.” Alyssa started to push to her feet.
Tim took her elbows, steadying her. He looked around uncertainly. “You’ll want to be careful. I think I got all the glass, but I can’t be sure.”
“I will,” she promised.
* * * *
Their voices reached Corwyn before he reached the door, passing through the hardwood in a manner that told him, without the proof of Tim Armen’s Blutjagd, that the other man had no calm left about him.
“She’s fragile, Brandon. This will kill her.”
He sighed at the scene ahead, pushed through the office door, dropped into a chair, and offered Tim and his cousin each a weary smile and a nod.
Brandon recovered first. “If you don’t mind, Bear...”
“Actually, you’re going to want my input,” he countered.
Tim’s Blutjagd stepped up another notch at that pronouncement, then was forced back by the Warrior in question. “This hardly needs König intervention.”
“If you’re considering having Brandon order Daniel away from Alyssa, it will go before König when Daniel appeals. It’s only expedient leadership for me to inform you what advice I will give my parents when they ask for it.”
His Blutjagd went up and didn’t come immediately down. His muscles tensed. “You’d recommend I lose?”
Corwyn didn’t hesitate. “Hell, yes, I will.”
“Bear,” Brandon warned.
“I think it’s safe to say I know more about this situation than either of you do.”
Tim leaned forward in his chair, his expression fierce. “You knew he was fucking Alyssa?”
“I don’t suggest you accuse Daniel of something so crass.”
“Alyssa is newly widowed,” he thundered.
“Yes. She is that,” Corwyn admitted.
“He cannot believe she’s serious. She’s rebounding. She’s confused.”
“I don’t think so, but that’s a chance Daniel is willing to take.”
“She can’t heal this way!”
Corwyn didn’t answer that. In truth, he didn’t know that Tim was wrong. The only thing he could operate on was his gut instinct. Since Alyssa and Daniel had...well, whatever they had formed together... She was happier, calmer, more whole than he’d ever seen her.
“This is insane. What can he possibly offer her?”
“A positive experience with a Warrior.” He hadn’t meant to blurt it out that way, but it was the honest truth. No matter what came of this, Alyssa would know she didn’t have to fear every Warrior on the face of the planet.
Tim was abruptly on his feet, his hand fisted on the hilt of his sacred weapon. Corwyn waved Brandon back, regarding Tim calmly, one eyebrow raised in disbelief.
His opponent backed off slowly. “Alyssa loves Tom.”
“Loved Tom,” he corrected. “She did love Tom, but Tom is gone, Tim. He’s gone.”
Tim floundered for words. “A pos... You actually believe whatever insane lies Daniel is—”
“Again, I don’t suggest you call Alyssa a liar. Not to Daniel...and certainly not to me.”
He looked toward the door, murder in his eyes.
“Sit down, Tim.”
“You have no right—”
Corwyn pushed to his feet, staring his opponent down. “I said ‘sit,’ and I mean now,” he ordered.
Tim scowled at him, then sank into his chair. “Afraid I’ll find out the truth?” he challenged.
Corwyn sighed. “If Alyssa was afraid to talk to you before, do you honestly think that scaring it out of her or shaking it out of her is going to work?”
There was no sign that he would relent from his course so easily.
“Explain,” Brandon requested, looking annoyed at being usurped in his own office.
“Tom was everything to you,” Corwyn addressed Tim.
“He was my son, König. I pray you never know what it’s like to lose your son.”
“And, when you lost him?”
Misery replaced fury in his expression, and he seemed to age a decade before Corwyn’s eyes.
“You destroyed everything in your sight,” he repeated what Alyssa had told him about that night. “Alyssa shudders when she recounts it.”
Tim winced.
“And you question why she’d be afraid to tell you that your son wasn’t as perfect as you’d like to believe he was?”
“I never would have hurt Alyssa.”
“She was new to our world. She couldn’t have known that, and no one had bothered to explain it to her.”
“I can’t believe Tom was abusive. I won’t believe that of him,” he whispered. “You didn’t see them together. I did.”
Corwyn settled back in his seat. “He wasn’t.”
Tim nodded. “Then what? What is he accused of?”
“Tom was...Tom. He was impatient, impetuous, and sloppy.”
“I don’t think I understand that.”
Corwyn ran a hand over his eyes, searching for a tactful way to begin tearing a man’s image of his older son apart at the seams.
“König?” Tim prodded him.
“You’ve come this far, Bear,” Brandon added.
“I know it.” He met Tim’s eyes. “Alyssa really did love Tom. I don’t doubt that she did.” Though I’m not certain how much he loved her. Enough to seal printing, though as unbalanced as he was, only the gods know if it was real.
“But?” Tim asked. “There has to be more.”
“She wasn’t sure yet. She needed time that Tom wouldn’t give her. She probably would have been ready to accept him soon, but...”
Tim paled, swallowing hard, a sour look on his face.
“Every time he wanted something from her, he...” Gods, how do you say it to a man’s father?
“What?” His voice was tremulous.
“Tom convinced Alyssa that he couldn’t wait, that being a Warrior meant he couldn’t wait for anything he wanted. Once it had worked on her once, he kept—”
“No.”
“Either she sealed with him immediately, or she’d lose him to madness. Either—”
“He told her that?” Tim croaked, understandably repulsed by the thought of it, as any normal Warrior would be.
“Either she let him produce an heir, or he’d go mad in wanting one.”
He buried his face in his hands. “Dear gods? How could he?”
“I won’t even go into how he got her into bed the first time...or the second or third. That alone would have seen him dead. I hate to tell you this, Tim, but you have to know it. It’s only fair to Alyssa that you do.” Now that he was on a roll, the words were coming easier, though the trauma they’d do a grieving father was incalculable.
“Once it worked the first time,” Tim whispered hoarsely.
“And once he’d, from her point of view, trapped her in our world, he got himself killed. She never had a chance to accept that she was an Armen, Tim. Alyssa wasn’t ready for any of it, but she was afraid to lose him to madness, so she agreed. Knowing what she’d do
ne...that she’d agreed just to save him and not because she was sure... She felt even less worthy to be an Armen. She felt like an imposter, masquerading as your dead son’s wife. Then—”
Tim looked up, grief-stricken. “She really lost him, and I... Oh, gods. Why didn’t she tell me? I would have killed him myself. You know I would.”
“Until Daniel, Alyssa didn’t realize the failing was Tom’s. She didn’t know he’d been dishonorable. She was afraid to admit the story, even to a Hunter. If weren’t for her son, she was afraid you’d strip away her amulet for it. Trusting Daniel with her story was a monumental step for her. From Alyssa’s limited knowledge about our laws, she was risking everything on the slim hope that he’d understand why she did what she did.”
“I would never—”
“Did anyone ever explain that to her? Armen has a long history of failing in this respect...even as far back as Sharon and Jannelle. It is a weakness of your house, ‘claiming’ family members without considering the consequences of your words.”
Tim winced, but he didn’t deny it.
“I want to make my intentions clear, Tim.”
“Are you threatening me?” His Blutjagd didn’t even twitch at that. He seemed weary, defeated.
“No. I am trying to right a wrong as best I can. Alyssa wasn’t given the proper consideration.”
“How can I possibly right that? I wasn’t even... Well, a portion of it was my fault, but I didn’t know. I’d just lost my son, and within a day, your sister agreed to take away his bride and son.”
Corwyn leaned forward, bracing himself for an argument. “I want her son to have a choice, and I want Armen to support it. This isn’t about you anymore. This is about Alyssa and what’s right.”
“You want him to be a Warrior of Hunter.” He didn’t question it.
“I want him to have that choice. He will be raised by his mother in Hunter range. His only close relationships will be with Hunter Warriors. Knowing what you do, do you think it’s appropriate to force him to Armen and away from his mother at fifteen?”
Tim started to speak, but Corwyn cut him off.
“Do you think it’s appropriate to force Alyssa to return to Armen to be with her son?”
“No,” he admitted. “I don’t.”
“Then present it to Tyler. Don’t make me force this on you.”