Tobias growled but rose from the table. He gave a slight bow to Gregory and headed out the front door. Leto, however, just stared at Mattie with curiosity in his eyes. She glared back.
“Sir, if you would please follow my son-in-law.”
The firm voice of her father didn’t phrase that like a request. Luckily the Draconian merely nodded to the man and allowed Garin to escort him out the front. The house seemed a lot smaller after the door clicked shut, locking her in with a rather confused and angry man. Those eyes were flashing with a silent demand for answers. Mattie’s elbows landed on the table as she ran both hands over her face. For a moment, all she could do was let loose a prayer:
Please give me the right words to say!
Chapter 11
“Who is Dougal, Mattie?” snarled her father. “Who is he really?”
The silence that had permeated the room had finally tried his patience. Then again, in some respects, hers was also stretched thin when it came to this whole mess! A part of her wanted to punch and slap him for keeping her in the dark; another just wanted this over as quickly as possible. Taking a calming breath, she crossed her arms and placed them on the table.
Mattie’s voice was a little chillier than she had intended when she lifted her head and said, “He is the firstborn son of Princess Delmira.”
Hope warred with confusion on his face. “That boy is Mikhail Braun?”
Mattie nodded, and her heart sank when a tear of joy started to roll down his cheek. His breathless “Thank Adonai.” after that more than confirmed the kid’s relationship. Then the man added fuel to Mattie’s internal fire when he softly smiled and said, “That explains so much. No wonder we all felt a kinship with the lad.”
Mattie clenched her fists and prayed no one outside this room could hear her. “When in the hell were you going to tell me about him, father?” she growled, barely keeping her voice lower than a bellow. “By all rights—he should be your heir, not me! So why in the hell did you keep my brother a secret from me?”
He paled. “So you know the truth.”
“Only part of it! I just don’t know if I should also beat the crap out of you for cheating on mother!”
“Let me explain,” he said defensively, bringing his hands up in a placating manner. “Please.”
“About how a son was born to you a few months before mother died?” The man was stricken by that statement, but the steam of anger had just started roiling. “Yes, I did the math, father. It became blatantly obvious that you had sowed your royal oats with someone other than your wife!”
“The events leading to that point were much more complicated than that!”
“Really!? Because having a child with another woman seems awfully simple to me!”
His expression pleaded with Mattie to understand his betrayal as he rose from his chair and reached for her hand. She quickly snatched it away. Using his fists as support, he leaned against the table with his head hung low. A part of her wanted to leave this place and never come back. But she stayed. She loved the old bear, even when she was pissed as hell at him!
“Mattie, it wasn’t my idea to bed Delmira,” he whispered with shame in his voice. “Believe me when I say that.”
She let her disbelief shine right on through. “So you were coerced into it? Bewitched? Befuddled by alcohol, perhaps?”
“Mattie…” he begged, looking more wretched than he ever did after having an evil entity invade his brain.
“Though I find it highly unlikely, did the king himself order you to do the deed with his little sister?”
He looked like he was going to break when he shook his head in answer to her sharp question. A small part of Mattie’s brain told her to stop, but any sympathy for him, in this regard at least, was gone! “Then who in the hell could have convinced you to do such a thing!?”
His answer was full of sorrow and heartbreak. It also hit Mattie’s soul like a ton of bricks. Once again, her idea of how the world worked was shattered!
“The only one who ever could—your mother.”
***
Did the world freeze? It sure as hell seemed to have stopped turning for a little while. When Mattie’s brain started to function again, she found her father had put his arms around her. Comforting his daughter even though she had basically ripped him apart, his action bringing tears to her eyes.
“Why?”
Mattie’s question sounded more like a choked sob. Her father kissed the top of her head before kneeling down on the floor beside her. She turned around in order to face him.
He too had been crying, tears still rolling down the side of his cheek. “After you were born, we tried for many years to give you a sibling. When you reached the age of six, she finally went to her grandmother for help. No one knows who, when, or how. We only know that the damage was done, and your mother had been cursed with barrenness.”
“There was no way to reverse it at all?”
Mattie’s father shook his head, and anger mingled with his sadness. “No. The curse was slowly tearing her insides apart, and none of the healers had ever seen magic like it. The only thing left was to extend her life for as long as possible.”
A gasp of shock left Mattie’s lips. “That’s what really killed her?”
“Yes.”
His head fell low, and she reached out to him. Laying a hand on his shoulder, she said, “You don’t have to tell me the rest.”
A dark chuckle later, and he lifted his head. “After your snarling match, I think I do.”
Mattie’s voice was heavy with apology, “Father…”
His index finger was on her lips a second later. “Your anger regarding your mother’s honor is understandable. I can’t tell you how much I still hate myself for going along with her plan, but she did hand me a good argument. And you know how stubborn that woman could be when she felt she was in the right.”
Sniffling, Mattie nodded. “She was at that.”
His shoulders slumped before he heaved himself off the floor. After stretching himself out a bit, he began to pace the room. “She feared what would happen if my crazy plan to make you my heir didn’t work. Even an acknowledged bastard son would have helped keep the sharks away from Crosshawk.”
A blush then reached his cheeks before he continued, “Your mother knew Delmira would be a willing participant; the girl always had a bit of a crush on me. Her having little to do with the royal court was an added bonus, as was the fact her home was up the coast and far from Nova Forte. The likelihood anyone found out the reason for my visits was small.”
He shivered as the shame entered his eyes again. “The original plan was to acknowledge the lad on the day of his birth with your mother’s blessing, but the universe had its own ideas. I had just returned from a trip to find your mother’s condition had worsened during my absence when the messenger delivered the news about Mikhail. There was no way she could have survived a trip to Nova Forte, and a newborn child has no business traveling for weeks at a time, especially at the start of winter. Then you know what happened soon after spring blossomed. Having just lost the woman I loved as well as almost losing you in the process, I just couldn’t handle the thought of the boy’s existence for that first year. Delmira seemed to understand, and she helped me a lot during the grieving process.”
He saw Mattie’s eyebrow rise at the implications behind that statement, causing him to snort. “My daughter has the gutter mind of a barmaid. It was her friendship, that’s all. She knew I was busy with your lessons and with all the odd jobs Easton had me doing. Even when we traded stories about the difficulties of raising a child alone, she never pressured me about saving her honor and revealing the truth to the world. I saw Mikhail from time to time, but it was mostly from a distance. And I can’t help wondering that, if I had bothered to talk to the lad more often, I would’ve known who Dougal truly was from the start.”
Mattie shrugged. “You didn’t see him until after the spell was broken. I barely recognized the older
version of him.”
“I wish the whole fiasco with Caligo had waited a few months at least,” lamented her father as he ran a hand over his white-speckled auburn hair. “My hope had been to introduce you to your brother the year they sent me off on that damn mission! Depending on how you two had gotten along, I was ready to finally acknowledge him as my own.”
“Not sure if my reaction would’ve been any less volatile.”
“True. But you also would’ve had a chance to work all that out together.”
As Mattie was taking a moment to wonder if she would have thrown Mikhail down a well faster than she had Bran, her father sighed heavily, “If only Bridget could’ve changed Easton’s mind about the timing of the excursion. Delmira said the woman tried her best to convince her husband to let me acknowledge Mikhail before the court first.”
Mattie’s immediate reaction to that was: Oh, shit!
Her eyes widened at the full implication of events, and she couldn’t help the momentary panic in her voice when she asked, “Bridget? As in Bridget Evermore Braun?”
Her father’s brow furrowed when he tentatively responded, “Yes. When I told Delmira I wanted to finally acknowledge Mikhail, she had gone to the queen for advice. I had no problems with that because your mother had already told Bridget everything. Actually, she had even agreed with Annabelle that Delmira was the perfect choice for our plan because she was the most trustworthy noblewoman to have ever stepped foot in Nova Forte.”
Damn. Damn. Damn!
Her furious thinking was interrupted when her father’s worried question hit the air, “Mattie, what’s wrong?”
She was momentarily torn between the options of telling him everything or keeping her mouth shut. This kind of news could only bring problems that usually ended with charges of treason and a hangman’s noose! Then she looked into his tear-filled eyes, and that expression caused her to growl. Trouble had already hit this family repeatedly from the shadows because they didn’t have a name for it.
But they sure as hell did now!
“Queen Bridget is what’s wrong!” Mattie said with a hiss. “Or at least trusting the bitch with anything got us into this mess! She was the one who had ordered all those horrific spells to be placed on Mikhail! Too much of a coincidence that it happened right after you had planned to claim him, isn’t it?”
The gleam in Lord Gregory’s eyes went from sorrowful to murderous in no time flat. He was pissed, no question about that! Mattie didn’t even bother to stop him as he headed for the back door, though she followed and stood there as he transformed into an owl. A piercing screech of anger left his beak before he took off to skies unknown.
He would be back once he cooled off, and then they could start to plan their family’s revenge.
Chapter 12
Garin never thought he would see his wife in this mood again anytime soon. Today, he stood corrected. Mattie was pissed, no doubt about it. But instead of the explosive fire in her eyes, there was nothing but cold steel in those depths. Plus he finally understood her occasional frustration with him—she was the one blocking the connection between them for once.
She definitely downplayed how annoying this could be! he thought to himself as he watched a tiny azure flame dance in his wife’s palm with no clear idea on what had caused its appearance. The only thing he knew was how troubling it was to see such a thing after she had worked so damn hard to learn to control her Fire magic on the journey to Crosshawk.
“Do you think the others suspect the truth?” she asked after he told her that Leto and Tobias would be kept occupied by the others while they waited for Lord Gregory to return.
Garin shrugged. “Tobias might, but Leto seems clueless about why this drama is going on.”
“Good.”
The answer was emotionless enough to make him swallow a drop of fear. This wasn’t like her. He took a tentative step closer. “Mattie, what else happened during your talk?”
The icy flame grew for a second before she closed her hand around it and snuffed it out. Her knuckles turned white from how hard she was clenching her fist, the slightest of shakes visible. A fool Garin might have been, but he still headed straight towards the enraged figure. His wife needed him, and nothing else mattered.
Her head swiftly turned, causing him to stop midstride. Those hazel eyes had a new color swirling in them—bright green. The appearance of something so out of place made him believe that it was another sign that she was close to losing control. If that rage suddenly exploded, he knew the whole damn countryside would be in for a world of hurt.
“Did Bridget know of your existence before the king decided to acknowledge you?”
Now that was an odd question for his wife to ask, more for it seeming to come completely out of nowhere. The quiet growl included with her inquiry meant she found this to be extremely important. Surprisingly, he had never bothered to consider such a thing before.
Mattie was more patient with him than he could have hoped. It took some time to review all the conversations he had with those people over the years. The political shock had been great when he transitioned into the role of Menapolin’s bastard prince, the two true heirs giving him grief until he made it clear that he had no interest in taking their right to the throne, nor their father, from them. The many reassurances from Bridget over their first tea together that she could handle seeing him cavort about the castle as long as it was only once or twice a year. The closed sessions with his father and king, going over every subject from the drearily mundane to the critically important. But nothing in his memory gave him a clear answer.
“I’m not sure,” he finally admitted. “Unless your father told her, I don’t think she did. The first time I ever met the woman was not long after King Easton had told me I was his son. Mostly because he had to explain why he was still planning to acknowledge me even after I had given him a black eye.”
Mattie let loose a quick snort. “You never told me what her initial response to that altercation between you and your father was.”
Garin frowned, knowing some other things that had occurred that night had upset the woman enough that she wouldn’t have cared if her husband had been pushed off the highest tower. “She never really mentioned it, and I never brought it up. Actually, she always made it a point to steer all of our conversations towards my foster family. Even the one we had after she thanked me profusely for saving Stephan’s life.”
“Did you spend much time with her?”
“Not unless you call half an hour a year much time,” he said with a shake of his head. “The longest conversation we ever had was the first one when she convinced me to agree with my father’s demand that I visit him each year. Her only request was for me to make it a point to see her first thing upon arriving and to let her know how long I planned on staying. Except for this last time because she didn’t offer me any, our talks lasted only long enough for me to have one cup of tea.”
“That request for you to stop by and see her doesn’t surprise me,” Mattie said with a snarl. “She probably went along with your visits just to keep an eye on you anyways.”
“Maybe,” he said with a furrowed brow. Mattie’s statement made sense yet not. “Though she spent as little time in my presence as possible. Even to the point of having every meal in her room as long as I was in Nova Forte. Which I always assumed was why she wanted an accounting for my time there, so she could inform her cook.”
Confusion filled Mattie’s expression. “Then why was she so adamant about you coming with me to First Keep? She made it sound like you both got along rather well, all things considered.”
Garin grimaced a bit, this conversation reminding him of an event that had occurred months ago. “I forgot to tell you something about her. Do you remember how she unceremoniously left the Von Bos Estate right after Selina’s birthday?”
“What of it?”
Scratching the back of his neck, Garin sheepishly said, “Her decision to leave came moments after she had hear
d about our engagement. By now, I’m sure she’s furious that we’re married.”
Getting smacked in the face would have garnered the same expression of surprise Mattie now wore. She then let loose a frustrated, wordless growl. The stomp of her foot released a tiny, snaking stream of ice. Luckily, it stayed only on the surface of the floor like frost softly kissing a window’s pane.
Garin rushed to her side. She let him grab her and fiercely returned his embrace. She growled again before she took a step backwards. Keeping his hands on her shoulders, he hoped she would see the concern and confusion in his eyes.
She did, for the rage turned into exasperation when she hissed, “I can piece together what she’s done, but not all of the whys!”
Though a part of him still didn’t want to believe it, he wanted to confirm the who Mattie meant, “Queen Bridget?”
“Yes!” she said as she pulled away from him. “Why would she have pushed so hard for you to go to First Keep with me if she didn’t even like you?”
Garin shook his head, not wanting to consider that his so-called stepmother had hoped her husband’s problem would permanently disappear. “Probably because she didn’t want either one of her sons in possible danger.”
“This is exactly what I’m talking about!” Mattie shouted. “Everything she has done seems so incidental, so coincidental—but the pattern is there! I don’t know if she’s evil or just plain selfish, but she is no friend to Menapolin!”
“And you can’t tell anyone because, except for the records at the Stronghold concerning the spell, there’s no proof. And that one incident is not enough considering she is our queen. Especially if she could come up with a plausible reason for ordering such a heinous act.”
She growled at his observation but didn’t lash out at him. “Unfortunately.”
He opened his mouth to ask Mattie if she was certain about this assumption of hers, but he swiftly closed it shut again. He had seen with his own eyes Bridget’s name jotted down as the one who had condemned a prince to become a stable boy. His own ears had heard the pixies’ tale of that woman stealing some of their people to be little more than slaves for her amusement and protection. His wife was on the right track, and he knew it.
Unraveled Homecoming Page 8
