by Leta Blake
The rest of the evening passed with Xan pacing by Ray’s bed, fretting as his fever spiked and his coughing worsened. He administered Urho’s drugs again as soon as he believed it was safe and was desperately relieved when Ray’s fever broke. After a solid coughing fit, he fell into a deep sleep.
Once Ray was out, Xan held the tin in one hand and the bottle of black elderberry syrup in the other, like talismans against his own fear. When Joon had come earlier to check on Ray, Xan had given him tablets to slip to Pater. Xan didn’t want Pater to wait for medicine that could help him while Xan gathered his so-called courage to walk down the hall and face Father.
He stood by Ray’s window, looking out on the usually busy street below. Now it was silent, and not only because it was nighttime. The city was in the throes of this illness and it wasn’t letting go. He’d noted it on both the ride to his own house from the station in the taxi and during the drive to Urho’s place. The usually bustling city now looked like a resort town during the off-season.
He took off his suit jacket and draped it over the nearby chair, and then undid his tie, and rolled up his shirtsleeves. Going back to the window, he took a deep breath and let it out. He wasn’t going to be kept from his pater any longer. Never mind the tumbling feeling in his gut when he thought of facing down his father—of staring into the man’s cold, blue eyes and telling him the way things were going to be. Demanding it. Because he was the heir and he had rights.
He wiped his hand over his upper lip, collecting the anxious sweat. He closed his eyes, determined to be strong. He took a slow, deep breath, and gazed out the window, searching the sky for the stars. They were the same ones that shone over Virona—that shone over the whole wolf-blessed world, after all—and he focused his thoughts on Urho, expecting to find comfort and strength there.
But instead Xan’s brain served up images of the sanctuary in Urho’s house devoted to his lost Érosgápe. Xan didn’t know why he’d been surprised to find that Riki still dominated Urho’s most private and intimate rooms, but he had been. In truth, he’d allowed himself to nearly forget over the last several weeks that he wasn’t the most beloved man in Urho’s world. That he never could be.
Ray sniffled, and Xan glanced over his shoulder at him, ensuring that he hadn’t woken. Seeing his brother’s eyes were still shut and his breath was coming in even, long strokes, he gazed back out at the night, wishing he could see the night sky without all the light pollution of the city. The way he could back home in Virona.
Home. In Virona.
How odd that he’d come to think of it as home, but he had. He missed the sound of the waves coming in the open windows, the chill of the winter air, the scent of the sea wafting through the house or buried in a fold of bedding or clothing, and most of all he missed the sound of Urho and Caleb’s voices. The men that made him truly comprehend, for the first time in his adult life, the concept of home and family. He sighed.
Xan briefly let himself entertain the fantasy they could live together and never part. Urho had obviously entertained that fantasy, too, but it was absurd. As soon as Vale had delivered the baby, and once Urho knew the state of the sickness here in the city, he’d be on his way back.
And not just for duty.
Because, while he might love Xan, even care for him deeply, he’d never have room in his heart for Xan to be his home. Not in the way he was becoming Xan’s home. Not truly. All that precious space was already completely taken up by Riki—the way it should be between Érosgápe.
Xan had been foolish to think he could be anywhere close to as precious to Urho as Urho was becoming to him, despite all they’d shared. Despite Urho’s promises. If Urho was entertaining the fantasy of staying it was only to escape the pain of having lost his Érosgápe, but in the end, Riki’s memory would win out.
Wouldn’t it?
Tired of that line of self-pitying thought, Xan turned to another. He wanted to see his pater so badly he ached, yet here he was in the same house and he was cowering. Enough was enough. He would see Pater, and he would see him now.
Before he could take a step, shouts from the hallway made him jump. Hesitating for a moment, pierced through with anxiety, he strained to hear words, but could only make out shouts.
Racing out of Ray’s room and down the hall toward the staircase landing, he swallowed back his terror. The shouts grew louder as he ran down the other wing toward his parents’ room.
When he burst into the familiar room, his heart pounding and his pulse rushing loudly enough to obscure the cries, he came to a halt beside his parents’ raised, canopied bed. The room was blazing with lights, illuminating the striped maroon wallpaper and the disarray of a sick room.
Father was the source of the commotion. He sat on the bed by Pater in rumpled pants and shirt, shouting, crying, and begging. And Pater only lay there, skinnier than Xan had ever seen, clearly unconscious, paper white, and struggling to breathe. Father clutched Pater to his chest, and between wordless shouts he called for help and a doctor. His eyes went wide when he saw Xan, confusion and rage flashing briefly beneath his utter terror, but he only shouted at him to get help and to hurry about it.
Xan climbed onto the big bed and shoved in close to his pater. His father tried to push him off. “Get help!” he shouted.
But Xan held up the medicines. Father, eyes wild, balled up his fist and reared back as though to punch him. “I said get help!”
“I have help!” Xan yelled back, a hot rush flowing into him, rage pure and strong. “I have medicine for him! Get out of my way!”
He used all of his strength to shove his father aside, wrenching his pater’s limp body from his father’s arms. Then he propped his pater up on the pillows as his father struggled to get between them again. The last time Xan had seen Pater, he’d been a robust, happy man. But now he looked horribly thin and scarily sick.
He didn’t have time to think about that, though. He shoved his father back again, opened the bottle of elderberry syrup, and managed to get some of the reddish purple syrup between his pater’s lips. Father tried to get between them, a growl in his chest.
But Xan was stronger now. He’d been taking boxing lessons from Urho, and he was over thirty years younger than the frightened, tired man who was frantic for his Érosgápe’s life. Xan massaged Pater’s throat, working the liquid medicine down as Father begged Pater to breathe.
“Please George.” His voice cracked. “Please breathe, baby. Breathe, my sweetheart, my one. Breathe. Breathe.”
Xan poured more syrup into his pater’s mouth and hoped it didn’t choke him. He couldn’t be sure how much was getting into his stomach.
“Get a doctor,” Father said desperately. “What are you giving him? He needs a doctor!”
Joon appeared in the doorway then, wearing pajamas and a sleep-addled expression. He gasped as he came closer to the bed. “I’ll call for a doctor, sir. I’ll see if I can find one.”
“Call for an ambulance if necessary,” Xan said over his shoulder, wondering if there were any hospitals still accepting patients.
“No!” his father shouted. “The hospitals are full of sick people. We need to keep him here away from further exposure.”
Xan ignored that, watching for another moment when he could slip a bit more of the black elderberry syrup between Pater’s lips. Taking the opportunity when it finally came, he was relieved when Pater finally coughed and took a deep, rattling breath. Xan administered the syrup twice more, hopefully getting the amount of a full dose into his pater.
Then he sat back, watching and praying to wolf-god above to spare Pater’s life. Father seemed to do the same. No words were spoken between them, but they both heaved a sigh when, after he’d coughed up a large amount of phlegm, Pater breathed more easily.
Joon appeared again, clearly wide-awake now. “I called all the doctors on our list, sir, but every last one of them is with other patients. I left word with three to come as soon as possible.”
Father nodded
, brushing soft, brown hair back from Pater’s face where he’d regained some coloring. “We’ve turned the corner again, hopefully,” he said, meeting Xan’s eye. “Thanks to Xan.”
Xan shook his head. “Thanks to this.” He held up the bottle of medication.
“Black elderberry?” his father whispered. “That’s been out of stock for over a week. Even hospitals are running out.”
Xan turned to Joon and asking, “Were you able to give him the willow tablet?”
Joon shook his head, looking ashamed. “I couldn’t find a time to introduce the idea. I’m sorry, Mr. Xan, I know I promised. But he was sleeping so well earlier. I hated to wake him, and your father said he thought Mr. Lofton was coming around on his own.”
Xan pressed his hand to pater’s forehead and then looked his father in the eye. “If you’ll help me wake him, I have another medication for fever. I gave it to Ray and he’s doing much better now.”
Father stared at him for a long moment before nodding. He lifted up Pater and patted his cheeks gently. “Darling, wake up. Can you hear me, George? I need you to wake up.”
Pater’s lashes fluttered, and with obvious effort he pried his lids apart. He sought out his alpha’s face, and when he saw him, he smiled softly. “Doxan?”
“Shh. Don’t try to talk right now. Xan’s here.”
Pater’s eyes opened wider, a spark firing deep in them. He sought out Xan, and a weary smile spread over his face. Xan took hold of one of Pater’s hands and squeezed.
“I’m here.”
Pater licked his lips, but his mouth was too dry to talk.
“Get him some water,” Father said. Joon was there instantly with a glass.
Father and Xan held Pater up so he could drink, and when he was done, he lay back on his pillow, Exhausted but staring up at Xan with hungry eyes.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Pater finally rasped. “You’ll get sick too.”
“I’m healthy as a horse. Don’t worry about me.”
Pater darted his eyes to Father. A worried expression flitted over his face, but he didn’t give voice to it. Instead he turned his attention back to Xan and said, “I’m so happy to see you. I’ve missed you so much.”
Xan’s heart clenched hard, and his lips trembled. He leaned over and pressed a kiss to his pater’s forehead. “I’ve missed you too. I love you.”
Father said nothing beside them.
Pater’s eyes filled with tears. “I was afraid…”
“Shh. I’m here now.”
Pater nodded slowly. “Thank wolf-god. My prayers were answered then.”
Xan’s heart ached. He’d missed his pater so deeply, and somehow it didn’t make it hurt less to hear that his pater had felt the same. “Pater, I have medicine I need you to take,” he finally said when his throat relaxed enough that he didn’t think he’d burst into tears. “Right, Father?”
“Yes, George,” Father whispered. “Take the pill. Xan has brought it just for you. It’ll make you feel so much better, my one.”
With effort, Pater sat up enough to take the small tablet with another sip of water. He smiled up at Xan as he lay back in the bed. “Your hair is different. And you look older.”
Xan kissed his pater’s forehead again. “Caleb’s barber in Virona said this style would suit me.”
“It makes you look like a man.”
Father snorted, but otherwise remained quiet.
Xan squeezed Pater’s hand.
“I’ve wanted to see you so badly,” Pater whispered, his eyes filling with tears. “I thought I might never again.”
Father loosed a short, hurt noise, but when Xan glanced his way, he was staring hard at the wallpaper across from the bed with a grim expression.
“You’re going to get well now and we’ll see each other all the time,” Xan murmured.
“I hope so.”
Wanting to provide his pater with even more reason to recover, Xan said, “Caleb has a heat soon. You’ll see your grandchild by next year’s Autumn Feasts with any luck.”
Pater’s soft smile warmed Xan’s heart, and they stared at each other, letting their devotion be felt. Xan curled up with his head against his pater’s chest, listening to his heartbeat and feeling the soothing tug of his fingers in his hair until his father said, “He’s asleep.”
Sitting up, Xan saw that Pater’s eyes had closed. Father touched his forehead and frowned. “Still feverish, but much better than before.” He turned to where Joon stood by the door watching the events unfold. “Stay here with him. If his fever breaks, change his pajamas and the bedclothes. Xan and I have things to discuss in the library.”
Joon swallowed hard and met Xan’s gaze with an anxious eye, but only said, “Of course, sir. It’ll be my pleasure to watch after Mr. Lofton.”
As Xan followed his father toward the staircase, his gut doing somersaults and his knees feeling like water, his father shot a glance toward the nursery wing and said, “Ray is doing better?”
“He’s sleeping well. His fever has broken, and his cough seems to be under control with the elderberry syrup.”
Father nodded curtly and took off down the steps at a rapid pace. Xan, shorter than his father by a good number of inches, had to work to keep up. The library was dark in the middle of the night, but it smelled exactly the same: a hint of old books and leather.
His father snapped on the light. The leather sofas positioned opposite each other next to the fireplace and the big wooden desk Xan had bent over on more than one occasion as a child to receive his father’s belt for poor behavior were all illuminated with memories stretching back through his entire life.
The window with the potted palm next to it was the one he’d broken with a ball when he was seven and Ray was teaching him to hit. The child-sized chairs in the corner, clustered around a low table and surrounded by a mini-library of children’s books, was where his pater had taught him to read.
Xan swallowed hard against a sudden influx of emotion, nostalgia hitting him like a weight on his chest.
“Sit,” his father said, motioning toward the couches. He straightened the collar of his rumpled shirt. It looked as if he hadn’t changed in days. He went to the liquor cabinet and poured only one drink.
Xan tensed at the lack of common courtesy, familiar with the disrespect inherent in it. His father never failed to offer a drink to Ray, or to Janus, or any other man he admired or, at the very least, respected. He stood defiantly.
“You shouldn’t have come,” Father said, turning back to Xan with a tight expression. He took a sip of his drink and crossed to the wall where the belts still hung—the ones used for punishment, the belts he used to make Xan choose between. He fingered them one-by-one and then sighed. “You’re too old by far to take a belt to you now. It’s a shame. It was the only way you ever behaved.”
Xan grit his teeth together, a rush of fear and rage shooting through him. If he’d ever “misbehaved,” it’d only been because he was a child with too much energy and no place to put it, and too many expectations on his shoulders from almost the very beginning.
His father turned to him again. “You’re reckless and selfish and make decisions from your emotions. Pathetic. Useless. At this point, I’d be happy to leave the estate to Janus.”
Xan’s nostrils flared.
His father cocked his head and lifted a brow. “Do you know what Janus and I talked about when he was here?”
“No.”
“He didn’t tell you?”
Xan stared up at his father, the fear that had always underscored his interactions with him hardening into something more like loathing. He opened his mouth to tell him that Janus was sick and had brought the flu to Virona, but he clomped his lips shut again, holding that information for a later time.
“I’m surprised he didn’t choose to gloat. Perhaps he’s growing up after all.”
Xan lifted a brow.
“We talked about a lot of things. But he regretted having to tell me about t
he quality of the work you’re doing—or rather not doing—on the satellite office there.”
Xan’s soul hardened that much more. He knew it would do no good to argue that he was, in fact, the one doing the brunt of the work while Janus played around at the gentlemen’s club, sucking up to people who may or may not ever become clients and wrestling other alphas for money.
Perhaps his father already knew all of that and considered that the greater work to be done. It didn’t matter. Xan wasn’t going to give his father the satisfaction of arguing with him. Not yet.
“We also talked about the arrival of Jason Sabel and his pregnant omega. I’d say that friendship is the only thing in your life you’ve ever done right.”
Xan scoffed. If his father knew that Jason had once been his lover, he’d probably change his mind about that. Or maybe not. Perhaps the connections with the Sabel family and their estate was worth putting up with a little sexual deviance in his father’s mind.
“But apparently, they weren’t alone,” his father said in clipped tones. “An alpha came with them. A doctor.” He glared at Xan. “One Urho Chase, whom, no doubt, is the source of the medicine you gave your pater tonight.”
How his father managed to make that sound aberrant, Xan didn’t know. He took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and lifted his chin in the face of it. He might not know anything, but he knew this: he couldn’t live like this anymore. Not for one more minute.
“I’m not afraid of you,” Xan said slowly. “I know that’s what this ‘talk’ is all about. You want me to cower like I used to, promise to stay away from pater, or swear that I’ll be a better son and heir to you. Well, I won’t. I’ve taken worse hits than you ever gave me and I did it by choice.”
His father stared at him, lips flattening and a light of disgust shining in his eyes.
At least Xan’s torture at Monhundy’s hands was good for something. It’d shown him how much pain he could take and how little he cared for a life lived according to his father’s rules. So little that he’d have let Monhundy kill him.
But no more.
Xan had something to live for now. A future promised to him by Urho and Caleb. And he wasn’t going to let anything—not his father, not his insecurities, not Urho’s dead Érosgápe—stand in his way. He would have his home in Virona with Urho, the man he loved with all his heart. He would have his omega and friends, and he would have his children, and his pater, and his brother. And there was nothing his father could do to stop it.
