“Good. That’s the most important thing to understand about him.”
He frowned. “What does that mean?”
“Your grandfather will never sacrifice anything for your sake. Your mother is his only living child. All the rest, and there were many, are long dead.”
“He says he loved them all.”
“I’m sure he did in his way. At least until he didn’t anymore. Then, he destroyed them.”
“Except for Mom.”
“Not for a lack of trying,” I told him. “Your mom is not like the others. She survived, and she beat him.”
“Is she stronger? Is that why she beat him?”
“Your mother is very strong, but that’s not why she won. She beat him because she’s not like him. He didn’t raise her. As young as you are, you’ve spent more time with him than she ever did.”
He squinted at me. “That’s what this is about? You don’t like me visiting him.”
“Yes and no. No, I don’t like it, but I don’t have to. He’s your grandfather. His blood runs through your veins. I can’t change that. Learn from him, listen to his stories, but don’t ever buy into his bullshit.”
“Dad!”
“Have I ever forbidden you to see him?”
“No, but…”
Roland was a wound that wouldn’t heal. Trying to keep Conlan away from him would only backfire. The last thing we needed was for our son to discover his magical grandfather when he was 25, because then Roland would be a forbidden secret we had hidden from him. No, we let him visit, and when he came back spouting dangerous nonsense, we dealt with it right then and there. As I was about to do now.
“Yes, Conlan, he was great. An immortal god king who wanted to rule everyone, everywhere and give them all a better life as long as it was on his terms and his alone. Look where that got him. Next time you see him, when he tells you how special you are and how much he loves you, and I know he means every word, really think about where he is now and how he got there. That’s all I ask.”
“I will. But you were like him.”
“How?”
“You were the Beast Lord. You were in charge of everyone like us. You were a king.”
“No, I was a pack leader.”
Conlan’s eyes flashed gold again. “How is that different? People did what you told them to do.”
“I also had to do things I didn’t want to do. I was responsible for other people’s lives and safety. When they died, it was on me. I never wanted the power or the burden of it. Look at Jason.”
A couple dozen yards away Jason dropped a board, struggled to pick it up, and finally ended up dragging it toward the gates.
“How good a fighter is he?”
Conlan opened his mouth, looked at Jason, and closed it again.
“Tonight, his family will come here. They are all ordinary humans like him. They don’t have our speed, our strength, or our regeneration. People, regular people, are fragile. The most important thing tonight won’t be hurting the bad guys. It will be keeping the bad guys from hurting the people under our protection. If we aren’t careful, Jason may die tonight.”
My son took a step back. “I’ll protect Jason! I’ll protect all of them.”
“There are times when no matter how powerful you are, you aren’t enough. You can’t be everywhere at once. You have to assume that people will die because of your orders and actions and accept responsibility for it. This is what being a leader means. Your grandfather was too weak to carry that burden. This is how he started on the path that made him an abomination, a man who murdered his children, betrayed his sister, turned your uncle into a butcher, and destroyed the people he was supposed to lead and serve. He had also wanted to protect everyone, and when he couldn’t, it broke him.”
Conlan stared at me.
I gave him the alpha stare until he lowered his gaze.
“Do you think your mother doesn’t know that you manipulated her?”
“She knows,” he said quietly. Guilt in his voice. Good.
“She loves you very much, Conlan. Don’t abuse that.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Next time when you need help, you will state your request clearly and honestly. In a very short time, some very bad people will be coming here to harm Jason and his family. And us. I will tell you where to stand and what to do, and you will stand where I told you and do it until I tell you to stop. Do you understand?”
He answered with his eyes still glued to ground, “I understand.”
“Good, son. Get to work.”
Kate
THE RED HORN Nation had their HQ in Lincoln Forest. The first few magic waves had reduced the population at a catastrophic rate, and the survivors quickly figured out that the old rule of safety in numbers still applied. Like many cities, Wilmington had fractured into dense clumps, with neighborhoods bundling together and fortifying, and Lincoln Forest sat right in the middle of everything, near Midtown.
It was a lower-middle-class neighborhood, with brick ranch houses set back on large lots. The surrounding neighborhoods of Forest Hills cushioned it from every side, so Lincoln Forest didn’t bother with a communal defensive wall, leaving fortifications to individual homeowners.
I surveyed the large ranch house. It sat a good distance from the street at the end of a longish driveway. Magic hated high tech buildings, but it loved trees, and the two oaks flanking the driveway looked like they had been growing there for half a millennium, their massive crowns spreading all the way over the street. Three cars waited by the garage, a black Ford truck and a couple of sedans with bloated hoods, modified to run during the magic waves. Modifications like that were expensive. The stolen kid trade must’ve been profitable.
No defenses, except for the usual bars on the windows and a solid door. No wards that I could feel. Nothing out of the ordinary except for a cow’s horn, dipped in bright red paint and stuck onto a metal stick by the driveway, announcing the house’s ownership.
“Why Red Horn? Why not Red Blade or something like that?”
“I don’t know,” Thomas said.
I dismounted. There was no need to tie Cuddles. She wouldn’t go anywhere.
“I know that you think you are tough,” Thomas said. “But these people, they are violent. Very violent.”
“Do you have a picture of Darin with you?”
He reached into his wallet and pulled out a large folded missing poster. On it a lean, dark-haired teenager smiled into the camera. He looked a bit like Thomas and a lot like an older version of Jason.
“Hold on to that.”
“They are going to kill you. They’ve killed people before who came looking for their kids.”
“Let’s try not to get killed then. I’m going to knock on their door. You can come with, or you can wait here.”
Thomas dismounted and tied his horse to the mailbox post. His face told me that he really didn’t want me to go in there. He looked around, went to the nearest oak, where someone had sawed a branch off and left it in pieces, picked up a good size chunk, and looked at me.
“All set?”
He nodded.
I walked up the driveway. On the door, someone had written RHN in blood. So good of them to identify themselves. I’d hate to get the wrong house.