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  Not a bad idea, except for the fact that his agents’ covers had been blown for years and Valek hadn’t known.

  “I don’t care if you’ve been protecting us,” Mother said. “They are not going with you.”

  “Calm down, Olya. Let’s go inside and talk about this.” Father placed his hand on her shoulder, but she shrugged him off.

  “They are coming with me,” Valek said. “Either we do this the hard way, and you’ll have no time to spend with them. Or the easy way, and you’ll get...the rest of the day together.” A day of pure hell for him. Another day away from Yelena.

  “I’ll go with him,” Zethan said.

  “No! He’ll kill you. That’s what he does. It’s all he knows,” Mother accused.

  That was the breaking point. Valek moved. In a heartbeat, he unarmed his mother. “If I’d planned to kill them, they’d be dead by now.” He handed the knife to his father. “Now spend time with your children. We’re leaving in the morning.” Valek met Zohav’s gaze. “You know what I’m capable of. Try anything—”

  “And we’ll go to the Citadel as cargo,” Zethan finished. “Got it.”

  “Citadel?” his father asked Valek.

  “Actually, the Magician’s Keep. They need to learn the extent of their magic.”

  “Why are you doing this?” His father yanked on his shirt with his big callused hand—a nervous habit that had endured the years.

  “Because his heart mate would be angry if he didn’t,” Zethan supplied.

  His father didn’t react to Zethan’s comment. Instead, he squinted at Valek with his shrewd I-see-right-through-you expression that came from years of raising rambunctious boys. “That’s not the entire reason.”

  “Let’s just say it will be beneficial for Ixia. Despite the rumors, I’m not just a killing machine.” This he said to his mother. “I do guard the interests of Ixia.” And my family. But Valek wouldn’t voice that aloud. “Go on.” He shooed them away. “No sense wasting time.”

  They shuffled back to the house, appearing a bit dazed. Needing to move, lest his thoughts and emotions ambush him, Valek led Onyx and Smoke inside the gate. He fed them and gave them water. Then he groomed them. Every inch, until they practically glowed.

  A door banged behind him. Valek spun and yanked a knife. Standing in the tannery’s entrance was Patxi, one of his corp. The man held out his stained hands. Valek relaxed and gestured Patxi over.

  The tall man fidgeted under Valek’s scrutiny. “Sorry, boss, but this was the best way to protect your family. I’m with your father all day and sleep in the room above the shop. If something happens, I’m right here.”

  “And Milya?”

  “She helps in the house and stays in the guest room.”

  “How did—”

  “Your father discovered the agents long ago. When you assign new agents, we just take over the jobs. You can’t be too surprised, sir. You had to get your canny intuition from someone.”

  Appealing to his ego—nice tactic. “Do you wish to be reassigned?”

  “No. I’ve a feeling your visit today is going to cause a bit of a problem from the locals. I want to make sure Zeb doesn’t get into any trouble.”

  “Is he a troublemaker?”

  “He’s a fighter. And stubborn. Won’t back down ever. I’ve taught him a few moves to keep him from getting completely clobbered at the tavern.”

  Interesting. “Recruitment potential?”

  “Yes. And now he knows you’re his brother, it’s probably safer for him to get the full training.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  Patxi nodded and returned to the tannery. By the time Valek finished cleaning the horses’ hooves, the sun hung low in the sky. Now what? Having no desire to see what had changed inside the tannery, Valek looped around it.

  The three graves remained in the place that was scarred into his memory. Their names had been chiseled into the black granite headstones lined up in a row—Victor, Viliam and Vincent. At the end sat another, smaller stone without a name. Had his parents put that there to represent him? Perhaps it was better to believe that he was dead instead of an abomination.

  But his father’s words—welcome home, son—didn’t match that sentiment. However, the knife in his mother’s hand clearly did.

  He knelt next to Vincent’s grave. Running his fingers over the cold stone, Valek envisioned Vincent’s face. Grief surged through him. Valek wondered for the millionth time how his life would have been different if his brothers had lived. An idyllic scene with all of them older, married with children, gathered around the huge dining room table, laughing, teasing, complaining, arguing. His mother spoiling the grandchildren, his father teaching the next generation how to tan and dye leather.

  Then the questions would start. Would the King’s family still be ruling Ixia? Would the monarch’s corruption make that homey scene impossible? Would he have been content to work in his father’s tannery? Would he be a different person?

  And the most important question: Would he have met Yelena? The answer to that one was no. When he focused on her and their baby, then all this didn’t hurt so much. It still smoldered deep inside him, and he still wished his brothers hadn’t been killed. But the promise of having a family again pushed him past all the heartache and grief. Motivated him to find a way to get Ixia and Sitia back on good terms, so his future of laughter, teasing, debates and love would be...not quite assured, but would have much better odds.

  “Thought I’d find you here,” his father said.

  Valek straightened and wiped the dirt from his knees.

  “I think of those boys every day.” His father tucked his hands into his pockets. Staring at the gravestones, he rocked on his heels. “Those soldiers that were killed about two years later...were they the ones?”

  “Yes.”

  Father lifted his head. “And that Captain who died in the woods?”

  “He ordered his men to pick a family to use as an example of what happens when you don’t pay your taxes to the King.”

  “And you lodged a complaint with the King?”

  “Everyone knows I assassinated him. Why are you asking?”

  “Rumors can’t be trusted.”

  Valek waited.

  “I want to hear it from you.”

  “That I’m a killer, like Mother said? Yes. I am. I personally delivered my complaint to the King, Queen and the entire royal family.”

  “How did it feel? Once you finished...complaining.”

  “Satisfying and freeing. But by then, it wasn’t all about revenge. I’d seen the rot and the deaths the King and his family were responsible for. I agreed with the Commander’s vision for Ixia. He’d never murder a child because his parents couldn’t afford to pay taxes.”

  “True. And my taxes were reduced after the takeover.”

  “Is that why you had more children?” Valek couldn’t resist asking.

  “No. We were devastated and lonely. Our house had been full of four energetic and boisterous boys and then...all gone. So quiet. Your mother didn’t think she’d conceive, but Zeb was born four years after the takeover, then the twins three years later.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “When their magic started causing problems, I’d thought you’d show up and...”

  “Here I am.”

  “Later than expected, and not before we thought we lost them, too.”

  Dark shadows of grief haunted his expression. More than any one person should be asked to bear. But that was the problem with grief. No one ever asked for it. It arrived with its bags already packed for an extended stay. It settled into your best guest room and demanded to be waited on all day long, and when it finally shuffled out the door, it left behind permanent scratches on your furniture.

  Valek wished to ease his father’s pain. “They’ll be...safer in Sitia. I’ll make sure they learn how to protect themselves.”

  “Thank you. Come inside and get something to eat.”

  “No thanks. I belong here
with the dead.” Valek pointed to the unmarked gravestone. “Mother would agree.”

  “That’s not yours. It’s for that damn dog Mooch. The twins were so upset when he died. Made me dig a grave and buy a stone. Never did get around to carving his name in it. And do you know what’s really galling?”

  Amused, Valek shook his head.

  “Out of the dozen dogs we’ve had, that damn dog hated me. Bit me three times, and I couldn’t do nothing about it or they’d get upset.”

  “Which explains why it remains unmarked.”

  He laughed a deep chuckle. “You always were a quick study of people. I’m sure it helps with your job.”

  “It does.”

  His father scuffed his boots in the dirt. “I’ve thought about you every day, too, wondering if you’d ever come home.” A pause. “If you hadn’t run into the twins, would you have returned?”

  “You made it quite clear—”

  “And you’ve never said something in anger that you regretted later? Never uttered the wrong thing when you were out of your mind with grief?”

  Cracks appeared in Valek’s calm demeanor. Funny how being threatened by a butcher knife hadn’t affected him at all, yet his father’s words had the same effect as a blow to his head, followed by a punch to his solar plexus, leaving him dazed and unable to suck in a proper breath.

  “Assassins learn to shut off their emotions,” Valek finally said.

  “That’s bullshit. If that was the case, then you wouldn’t let the twins stay overnight, you wouldn’t be here by your brothers’ graves, you wouldn’t have a heart mate. Should I go on?”

  “No. You’ve made your point.”

  “Then what’s the answer to my question? Would you have returned?”

  He hadn’t planned to, but with marrying Yelena, and the baby... “I don’t know.”

  “Fair enough. Now come on inside.”

  “I... Mother would get upset. I’d ruin her time with the twins.”

  “Put that intuitive sense to work, boy. How would you feel in her place? It’s a lot to take in, and she’s not going to see them again—”

  “Why not? You can visit them during the hot season when the Keep’s on break.”

  His father jerked straight. “But they’ll be in Sitia. We can’t...”

  “You can if I help you. In fact, Sitia has tanneries, too. If you want to live there, I can arrange that, as well.”

  “You can?”

  “I can.” Even if he no longer worked for the Commander.

  He gazed at Valek for a few heartbeats. “I’ll think about it.”

  “When you decide, just tell Patxi. He’ll get word to me.”

  Valek’s father returned to the house. Movement seemed the best cure for his...confusion. Valek retrieved his pack from Onyx’s saddle and built a small fire near his brothers’ graves. It might be morbid, but to him it was comforting. The horses moved closer to the heat.

  He boiled water and sorted through the travel rations, ensuring there would be enough to last. The crunch of footsteps sounded to his left. Valek jumped to his feet, knife in hand.

  “Easy,” Zethan said. “Just bringing you supper.”

  Valek slid the weapon back into its sheath as the young man stepped into the ring of firelight. Zethan handed him a fork and a plate with two slices of roast beef and a pile of mashed potatoes, all covered with a dark brown gravy. The smell alone was intoxicating.

  “Did you draw the short straw?”

  Zethan laughed. “No, I volunteered.”

  “Thanks.” Valek sat next to the fire.

  “I didn’t bring you a knife to cut the meat, ’cause I figured you already have about ten of your own.”

  “At least.” Valek smiled.

  Zethan took that as an invitation to sit down. “Mother’s coming around to the idea of us leaving. Although Zohav doesn’t believe you have the authority to let them come visit us.”

  Zohav’s comment wasn’t a surprise. “Consider it one of the perks of my job.”

  The teen pulled a half-burned twig from the fire. He sketched designs into the dirt with it. “What’s it like at the Magician’s Keep?”

  Between bites of the smoky beef, Valek explained the five-year student curriculum. “You probably won’t have to start at the beginning, but I’d guess you’d be there two or three years.”

  Valek answered a bunch of Zethan’s questions before Zebulon arrived with a piece of apple pie.

  “Zee, Father wants to talk to you and Zo alone,” Zebulon said. “I expect you’ll get the same lecture that you got when you left for the coast. Plus, a bonus warning not to get captured by pirates,” he teased.

  “You mean we weren’t supposed to get captured? Why didn’t he tell us that before?” Zethan brushed dirt from his pants before heading to the house.

  Zebulon handed Valek the pie. “Mother said you can sleep in the house.”

  “Thanks, but I have my bedroll and I’m used to sleeping on the ground.”

  He shrugged. “Suit yourself.” Then he sat on the other side of the fire. He poked at the wood with a twig. Sparks shot into the sky.

  Valek waited while Zebulon worked up the nerve to ask the questions he held inside. He studied his...brother—still a difficult concept to accept. Around nineteen years old, Zebulon’s personality appeared to be a mix of the twins, cautious like Zohav, but with a bit of a sense of humor like Zethan. Valek wondered if he had Vincent’s mischievous streak. Perhaps when the man relaxed, his true personality would show. Would any of them ever relax around Valek, the King Killer? He doubted it.

  “What you mentioned to Father about moving south, does that apply to me, as well?”

  “Of course.”

  “What if we decide to stay here? Can we still visit the twins?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why do you care? You didn’t even know we existed until today. You didn’t care enough to ask your...agents how my...our parents were doing. How can we believe that you care now?”

  Valek imagined Zohav had asked the same questions in the house. “I’ve many enemies. People who wouldn’t hesitate to use my family in order to get to me. But only a handful of trusted people know where my parents live, and I’ve assigned agents to protect them just in case the information is leaked. If I didn’t care, the agents wouldn’t be here. As for not knowing about you and the twins...” Valek swallowed. “I...ordered my agents not to tell me anything because...” He gazed at the gravestones.

  His father’s comments about regret over harsh words repeated in his mind. Had his avoidance really been due to his parents telling him never to return or Valek’s own fear that if they became a family again, he’d be vulnerable to the intense heartache of losing them, like the grief he’d experienced when his brothers died? Or was it just pure stubbornness? Or the fear of being rejected if he’d returned? Perhaps all three.

  “Because I couldn’t handle hearing about their lives continuing on without me and my brothers.” Because it would mean they’d moved past the tragedy and grief, while he hadn’t. When he’d told his father that killing the King had been freeing, he’d lied. Everything he’d done up to this point had been a result of that day. It was as if he’d been frozen in time.

  Yelena had been the only one to reach him through the ice, drilling a small opening.

  “What about now? Can you handle it?”

  Could he? From the hole, cracks zipped along the frozen surface, creating a pattern. If he let his family through the barrier, would he shatter? Sweat raced down his back as a burning pain bloomed around his heart.

  Unable to sit still, he stood and strode to the graves. He’d told his father that he belonged among the dead. That unmarked gravestone could easily be for him. He’d let Yelena in, but it had taken eight years for him to realize just how precious she was to him. The scar on his chest seared his skin. He knelt on Vincent’s grave and traced his name with a finger. Valek leaned his hot forehead on the cold, hard granite.


  This was what he had been for so long. Cold. Hard. Why was this so difficult? He’d faced assassins, rogue magicians, the Commander, criminals of all sorts, and would gladly face them all a second time rather than watch his family be destroyed again. Yet he saw the murders so clearly in his mind. He relived that day over and over and over and over. Even with all his efforts to keep Ixia safe, they remained dead. The family of his childhood was gone and would never be the same.

  Could he handle it? A new family that wasn’t just him, Yelena and the baby? A fire suffused him, and then it disappeared. Cold air fanned his face. Just as Janco had said, Valek had found a family despite being surrounded by ice. Yelena and the baby of course, but also a rather unconventional one that included Ari, Janco, Leif, Opal, Devlen and a number of horses.

  Could he handle it?

  Yes.

  The admission zipped through him, and the invisible yet ever-present weight lifted from his shoulders. Breathing easier, he straightened. Zebulon remained by the fire, watching him with a worried frown, hoping Valek didn’t go crazy and kill them all. Odd that Zebulon’s thoughts should be so clear to Valek.

  As he returned to the fire, the air smelled different. He picked up a number of scents—the ashy smoke from the burning coal, the earthy aroma of leather and the sweet odor of grass from the horses. Tendrils of wind caressed his face. The strangeness continued. He recognized distant sounds and his night vision sharpened, extending his range of sight. It was as if he’d been bundled head to toe in thick furs and had flung them off.

  “You okay?” Zebulon asked.

  “Yes.” He focused on the flames, blocking the extra sensations. Then he addressed his brother. “The answer to your first question is also yes. I can handle it.”

  “Good.” Zebulon laid another branch onto the fire. Then he met Valek’s gaze. “I’m not sure I can. I’m pissed at Father for not telling us, but if everyone knew, we’d be targets.”

  “Which is why you’re not going to tell anyone. This little visit—” Valek’s hand traced a circle in the air “—is me checking that you don’t have magical powers before I drag the twins to the Castle, where they will be executed. Understand?”

  “Yes. And you need to understand that just because we have the same parents doesn’t make us brothers.”