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Even from you. So Aleksei had been right. He was special to Vlad. He took stuff from Adam he wouldn’t ordinarily take from anyone else.
“Shut up and kiss me,” he ordered.
Eyes still glowing and snarling angrily, Vlad lowered his mouth and kissed him.
“You are my man,” he whispered against his lips. “Mine.”
Vlad wrenched his mouth away. “I don’t belong to anyone, Adam!’
“The fuck you don’t!” He shoved against Vlad’s shoulders. Vlad rolled off him and he slammed his body on top of Vlad’s, glaring down into his eyes. “You’d better understand this, Vlad! I’m not taking any more shit from you! If you want to fuck me you’re going to have to admit that any old ass in the dark won’t do—that it’s my ass you want. If you want me to be your bitch, you’re going to have to come right out and admit that you are my man.”
“I told you I don’t like bitches, Adam.”
“To hell with you, Vlad!” He rolled off him and slipped from the bed. He picked up Vlad’s clothes and tossed them on the bed to him. “Now kindly get out of my bed and my life. And this time stay out, Vlad.”
They stared at each other in silence for several long moments, then Vlad rose and began dressing. Although Adam felt as if all the wind had been knocked out of his lungs, he said nothing. He was not going to ask him to stay. If they were to have any meaningful relationship, Vlad would have to admit how he felt.
When Vlad was fully clothed, he turned to look at Adam, who now stood by the window. “I’m leaving.”
“Goodbye.”
“Is that all you have to say?”
“Yes.”
Vlad hesitated and then he was gone in a dark blur.
Oh, damn! Adam gulped back a sob of agony. He was not going to allow Vlad to ruin his life. To hell with him!
Not wanting to sleep on the same sheets he and Vlad had made love on, he changed the sheets and pillowcases, cleaned himself, showered, and got in bed. It took him a long time to fall asleep.
When he woke the next morning, the sun shone into the room and a tall vampire with cinnamon-skin stood between his bedroom windows, watching him. He knew immediately it was Vlad and not Aleksei. He ignored his first inclination—to give a shout of joy and rush into Vlad’s arms.
Vlad spoke first. “I came back.”
“Why?”
“You know why.”
He shook his head. “Tell me.”
Vlad sighed. “I had to.”
“Why?”
“You know why, damn you!”
“Tell me,” he insisted.
“Don’t make this harder than it need be, Adam.”
“I need to hear it.”
I am...
He could sense Vlad’s struggle and sense his turmoil. There was no point in making Vlad say what he already knew. “My man?”
Vlad’s head inclined ever so slightly.
It was enough. He smiled, lay back against his pillows, opened his arms. “Take off your clothes and come kiss me good morning.”
Seconds later, Vlad lay on top of him, holding him close and devouring his lips like a starving man. You are mine...my bitch!
“Yes, Vlad! I am your bitch,” he moaned against his lips, glorying in the feel of Vlad’s fully erect cock against his. “And your bitch is in heat. Take me! Fuck me!”
Vlad quickly lubed them both. Lying face to face, he eased his cock between Adam’s cheeks, and deep into his ass with a rather painful thrust.
Adam pushed against his shoulders and Vlad lifted his head to look down at him. “What is it?”
“Not so rough this morning,” he urged. “My ass hasn’t fully recovered from the pounding you gave it last night.”
“I thought you liked it rough.”
“I do...but you don’t want to burst me open, do you?”
“You know I don’t like hurting you.”
He smiled. “Yeah. I do know that, Vlad.” He stroked his cheeks. “So make love to me rather than fuck me. Slide that big, luscious cock in and out slowly. Let me savor our first fuck since you admitted to being my man. Do that and you’ll have a very happy bitch on your hands.”
“I need a fuck, Adam.”
“And I’ll give you one later. Right now, I need to be made love to, Vlad. I want you to hold me and kiss me and make me believe you’re not ashamed of wanting me.”
“I am not ashamed of how I feel! I don’t care who knows I want you.”
“Then make love to me, lover.”
Vlad settled his big body in Adam’s arms and proceeded to give him a slow, gentle fuck that rocked Adam’s world and sent tears flowing down his cheeks. Vlad kissed them away and continued fucking him.
Lying under his big body, chest to chest with Vlad’s hot, hard cock up his ass and his warm lips greedily pressing demanding kisses against his mouth, Adam was in heaven. He lost track of the number of times he came before Vlad shot a very satisfying load deep inside him...without hurting him once.
Vlad rolled them over. He ended up lying on Vlad’s chest, his ass still full of cock. Oh, damn, what a feeling.
He kissed Vlad’s shoulder. “Damn! That was the best fuck I’ve ever had, Vlad! Thank you so much!”
Vlad laughed. “I’ve had a lot of experience. I know how to make love.”
He lifted his head and looked down into Vlad’s blue eyes. “Have you made love to a lot of men?”
“I occasionally fuck them, but I don’t make love to men, Adam!”
He laughed. “Newsflash, Vlad, you just made love to me. And I’m a man.” He rotated his groin, rubbing his flaccid cock against Vlad’s taut stomach. “I’ve got a dick to prove it.”
“You’re my bitch,” he contradicted, his voice deep and satisfied. “But it’s a very nice dick all the same.”
“Yeah? Maybe you’d like to feel it.”
“I have.”
“No. I mean up that fine looking ass of yours.”
“I don’t let men fuck me,” he said, his voice cooling.
“Have you ever tried it?”
“No! And I’m not going to! I don’t let men fuck me.”
Adam laughed and kissed his mouth. “But I’m your bitch,” he reminded him. “And no matter how much you protest, one of these days, I’m going to get a piece of your ass.”
“Never!”
“We’ll see.” He kissed him again.
Vlad responded with warm hunger and they shared a second sweet fuck, before finally uncoupling, and falling asleep in each other’s arms.
* * *
Vlad woke him several hours later.
Rubbing sleep from his eyes, he looked at Vlad. “What’s wrong?”
Vlad told him of his search for Palea.
“And you think Aleksei betrayed your trust? Oh, Vlad! Of course he didn’t.”
“How can you say that?” He sprang from Adam’s arms and out of the bed. He paced the length of the bedroom. “He’s known where she was for...I don’t know how long, and he’s kept that knowledge from me.”
“Vlad, if it’s one thing I know, it’s that Aleksei loves you.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“He’s the one who came to me and got me to call out to you.”
Vlad froze and stared at him. “So if he hadn’t come to you, you wouldn’t have forgiven me?”
“I didn’t say that! When he told me how...when he came to visit me, it made me realize that you and I had misunderstood each other, but I’d already decided I wanted you back anyway. His visit just gave me the excuse I needed to call out to you. You took your own sweet time, but you finally came.”
“I’ll always come when you call.”
He smiled, filled with warmth. “Why?”
“You know why,” Vlad accused.
He sighed. It was clear getting an admission of affection, let alone love out of Vlad was going to be a long and arduous process. “Lucky for you, I do know why!”
Vlad flashed his teeth at him in an unrepentant grin. “You only think you know why,” he countered, his blue eyes flashing.
Adam tossed a pillow at him. “Stubborn bastard!”
Vlad caught the pillow and tossed it back with just enough force to knock him backwards on the bed. “Don’t start anything you can’t finish,” he advised, grinning down at him.
Adam reached for his hand and yanked him down onto the bed. They rolled over together and he kissed Vlad. His lover’s lips were warm and sweet and he couldn’t get enough of them. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to talk to Sei.”
“And then?”
“I’m going to kill Palea Dumont!”
“Vlad! You can’t! She’s your mother!”
Vlad pulled away from him. “I have to! It’s eaten away at me for hundreds of years. I can’t live in peace while she’s alive.” He looked at him. “All I need to know from you is will you stand by me?”
Adam swallowed slowly. “Vlad, Palea is also Katie’s mother and Katie is my best friend. She has always been there for me. Vlad—”
“I’m not asking you to help me in anyway. I just need to know that when it’s done...will I still have a place with you?”
“Vlad! She’s your mother! She—”
“She is nothing but a cancer to my soul!”
“But surely if she deserved to die, Aleksei would have killed her by now!”
“Sei doesn’t make all my decisions for me! I don’t care what he says! She has to die!”
“Vlad. She just became a grandmother.”
He sensed a reaction in Vlad and went on quickly. “You’re an uncle, Vlad! His name is Dimitri and he’s a handsome little half-blood. Already he can make his eyes glow. You’re an uncle, Vlad!”
“No! If he were Tat or Drei’s son, I would be an uncle. I don’t know the Dumonts and I don’t care to know them.”
“Vlad, I know them. Especially Katie. Don’t do this, Vlad. Please.”
“Don’t ask that of me, Adam! I have to do it. She must die! I am going to kill her. Will you want me when I have?”
Adam felt torn, but what could he do? He no longer felt as if he could live without Vlad. “I’ll always want you, Vlad!”
“No matter what I do?”
“No matter what you do.”
Vlad softened his expression. “For you, I will make her death as quick and painless as she’ll permit. And I will allow her children to live.”
He blanched. “You mean you were going to kill them too?! Even Katie?”
“No. I promised Sei I wouldn’t hurt her. And now I promise you that I won’t kill the others. If they get in my way, I will hurt them, but I will not kill them.”
He sucked in a breath, struck for the first time at just how dark and tormented Vlad was. Still, he couldn’t leave him. But how could he sit back and do nothing as Vlad plotted to kill a woman who had always been kind and welcoming to him? If he did, neither he nor Katie would forgive him. If he warned Katie Vlad wouldn’t forgive him. What the hell was he supposed to do? Either he’d have to betray the man he loved or his dearest and best friend.
* * *
Aleksei stood in the doorway of a huge room with an enormous chandelier. A big, man with long dark hair and an old-fashioned pair of bifocals perched across his nose, rose from a padded leather recliner in the middle of the room to face him.
“Aleksei Madison...spawn of Lucifer himself.”
Aleksei was impressed that, unlike his hunters, Santiago immediately knew he was not Vlad. But he had not come to be impressed. He had come to issue a warning and to battle if necessary. He thought of his siblings, waiting outside, and hoped this situation could be resolved without a battle that would require him to call on dark forces he had denounced nearly fifty years earlier.
“If you know my history, then you know I have no reason to fear you or your vampire hunters,” he said coolly.
“Why have you come, Madison?”
“To tell you to call your dogs off my brother.”
Santiago’s dark eyes glowed with anger. “You dare to come here and call my children dogs and to issue orders to me?”
“For my brother, I would dare anything. I warn you Santiago, call off your hunters or I will kill them all.”
Santiago leveled a finger at him. “Harm one of my children and I will grant you a slow and exceedingly painful death, Madison.”
“The lives of your children mean nothing compared to the life of my brother! Call them off or the next time I will kill them all.”
“The next time you kill them all?” Santiago removed his glasses, his chest swelling. “You have encountered my children?”
“Yes. And the next time you want to dispatch a Madison, you had better not send children to do it.”
Santiago placed the glasses on the table and moved away from the chair, his lips curling back to reveal his incisors. “Madison! What have you done with my children? Where are they? If you or that vicious brother of yours have harmed them, I will kill you where you stand!”
“You are welcome to try, Santiago!”
Santiago moved so quickly that he was standing in front of Aleksei almost before he could react. His hands flashed out with blinding speed. Aleksei clenched his fists and threw up his forearms to block the flurry of blows aimed at him. Santiago’s speed and power was greater than any Aleksei had encountered in years. It took all his own considerable strength to keep Santiago’s blows from finding their target.
Realizing that if Santiago managed to hit him in the face or the abdomen, the force would be enough to slam him on his ass, he considered carrying the fight outside where there would be more maneuvering room. Before he could grab Santiago and dive through the window with him, the door flew open and several vampire hunters, armed with swords and crossbows rushed into the room.
Before they could take aim at him, Serge and Drei, quickly followed by Tatiana and Mikhel appeared in the room and closed in on them, quickly knocking the weapons from their hands and easily restraining them.
“No!” Santiago turned away from him to face the others. “Stand down, my children!” He leveled a hand at the other full-bloods in the room. “Harm my children and you will die!”
“You arrogant, holier-than-thou bastard!” Aleksei gripped Santiago’s shoulder and swung him around to face him. “Do not threaten my siblings! Your gripe is with me and Vlad! You harm any of my siblings and I will exact a vengeance from you and yours that will make this place run red with blood.” He grabbed Santiago by the neck and lifted him off the floor. “Do not force me to call on dark powers best left buried, Santiago.”
Santiago easily broken free from him and landed on his feet. “You’ve laid hands on me, Madison. That is an offense I do not forgive.”
“To defend my siblings, I will break your neck!” he snarled, baring his incisors.
“Leave the room, my children,” Santiago told his hunters.
“But Wilfredo—” One of them protested.
“Go. Now. All of you! I won’t have any of you hurt! I will deal with Madison myself. Harris and Siemia, go search for Jason and the others. I will join you in the search as soon as I finish here.”
The hunters melted out of the room with a stealth that would have rivaled that of a vampire latent.
Santiago turned to look at the other vampires. “Your brother owes me a debt! Get out now while I’m prepared to let you go! Stay and share his fate!”
“If we didn’t intend to share his fate we wouldn’t be here,” Serge ground out. “I don’t give a fuck how old you are or how bad you think you are. If you hurt him, you will die!”
“Arrogant child! Did your mother not teach you to respect your elders? Not to worry. I will!”
Aleksei saw Wilfredo’s right hand flash up from his side. He felt the buildup of power in the room. “No!” He roared and grabbed Wilfredo from behind, forcing his arms and hands up towards the ceiling just as a bolt sizzled from his hand and shattered several of the bulbs in the chandelier.
He felt Santiago compress his body, calling the energy back. He shuddered and gasped in agony as an electrical discard passed from Santiago’s body and slammed into his chest.
“Sei! Are you all right?” Tatiana demanded, flashing forward, her eyes glowing, her incisors bared.
Get out of here. All of you! he ordered. And when he felt immediate resistance from them all, Please. He’s very powerful and I can’t defend against him if I have to worry about your safety.
“The rest of you go, I will stay and avenge him if necessary,” Mikhel said, a coldness and resolve in his voice Aleksei had never heard.
“No. I am second oldest here. I will stay,” Tatiana said.
No, Tat. If I do not prevail, you will be needed to help control Vlad. Go.
“I won’t leave you two alone,” Serge said. “If my brothers are to die, I will die avenging your lives.”
No! Tat, leave Mikhel. Take the others and wait outside. Please.
She looked at the struggling Santiago, tears of rage in her eyes. “I give you fair warning, Santiago. He is our big brother! He has shielded and protected us since we were innocent babies cruelly left to fend for ourselves and to find our way in a vampire world that wanted nothing to do with us. Hurt him and even the fires of hell will not be hot enough to shield you from my wrath! Even if you kill me a hundred times, a hundred times, I will rise and hunt down and slaughter every one of your accursed children. You I will save for last.”
“And a hundred times I will be at her side killing your precious children!” Andrei snarled. “If you harm Aleksei or Mikhel, eternity will not be long enough to protect you from our wrath!”
Tatiana turned and flashed across the room. “Drei! Come. Bring Serge!”
He saw Serge cast a desperate look in Mikhel’s direction. “No! I won’t leave you, Mik!”
“Go, Serge! I know you would die with me if necessary, but I do not wish you to die. I will gladly die with Aleksei, but I could not do it if I knew I was taking you with me. Go. You must live, Serge.”
“Not without you, Mik! I came here prepared to die with you and Alex. I will not leave you to die alone. We are brothers. We live together or we die together!”
“No! Go, Serge.”
“All my life you have been there for me! I will not leave you alone! If you die, I die with you!”
“No, Serge! If we perish, Erica and Dimitri will need you. And we must not deprive mother of us both at once. And Derri would be devastated. Go, Serge, go. Live.” “Mikhel!” Serge cried out, his voice filled with anguish.
“Go, little brother and know that even in death I will always love and cherish you. Now go, Serge!” Mikhel ordered. “Now!’
Aleksei’s heart felt as if it wanted to break for Mikhel and Serge as Drei forcefully pulled Serge from the room.
Once the other three left the room and Mikhel had retreated to a relatively safe corner of the room, Aleksei released Santiago and stumbled away from him, gulping air in through lungs that felt seared.
Santiago spun around and set his gaze on Mikhel.
Aleksei’s heart raced. He had been a fool to allow Mikhel to stay in the room! Ignoring the ache in his chest, he flashed across the room and stood in front of Mikhel. “He has done nothing to deserve your wrath, Santiago and I will not have him harmed. His only crime is his loyalty to me. Stand away from him. Now! I warn you!”
“So. You have a special affection for this one? Well, I have a special affection for Jason Makefield! Tell me where he and the others are or I will go through you and slaughter your favorite brother before your eyes!”
“I will allow you to harm him when hell freezes over!”
“Then prepare yourself for the freezing over of hell, Madison!”
“You go to hell, Santiago!”
Summoning up the dark energy he had forsaken after he first saw Mikhel, Aleksei thrust out both of his hands. He felt a coil of darkness fill him and flash out from the palms of his hands. Wilfredo was slammed back against the opposite wall as if by an invisible giant.
When Santiago struggled to his feet, Aleksei thrust out his hands and blasted him again, slamming him back against the wall. The effort of using the force so long dormant, sent Aleksei to his knees.
Wilfredo staggered to one knee and thrust out his right hand. Unable to summon the strength to move, Aleksei prepared to absorb the blast. In his weakened state, it would hurt like hell, but he doubted it would do any lasting damage to him. To his horror, without warning, Mikhel flashed in front of him and was hit squarely in the chest by two rapid blasts from Santiago’s hand. He silently crumpled and was sent hurling towards the wall behind them.
“No!” Roaring with fear and rage, Aleksei sprang to his feet and caught Mikhel before the blasts could send him spinning into the wall. Holding Mikhel’s limp body in his arms, he raised his gaze to Wilfredo’s, aware that his eyes were blood red.
“Santiago! You soulless bastard! I will kill you and everyone you hold dear for this! Do you hear me, you ruthless, sanctimonious bastard! I will kill them all slowly and painfully! Every one of them! And you I will torture for all eternity! Do you hear me? Do you know what you have done?! A million years of vengeance will not be long enough to compensate for his life! I will kill you a thousand time and still you will not have paid for his precious life!”
A sudden fierce and unrelenting heat filled the room. The air around them began to shimmer like heat rising from an arid desert floor. A tall, strikingly handsome man with long blond hair and clear blue eyes dressed in all white appeared in the room.
Relief filled Aleksei. “Luc! Luc, you must help him!” He clutched Mikhel’s lifeless body in his arms. “Help him, Luc! Please! He’s my brother. He’s so young and innocent and did not deserve this fate. Bring him back and I will return with you and remain at your side forever!”
“Do not despair. He is not dead, Aleksei, my son,” the newcomer said, his deep voice soft.
Only then did Aleksei hear Mikhel’s heartbeat. It was faint, but unmistakable. Knowing he could let his guard down with Luc there, he slumped against the wall, holding Mikhel in his arms, fighting the urge to weep for the cherished life he thought lost to him.
Santiago, his breathing ragged, rose to his feet and faced Luc. “This is not your concern.”
“Although he has forsaken me, Aleksei is to me as Makefield is to you. He is my child...my son. I will not allow you to use his brothers against him. He has a particular regard for this brother. Thank your maker that you did not kill him.”
“I had no intention of killing him or Aleksei. Unlike Vladimir Madison and his kind, I do not kill indiscriminately.”
“Do not concern yourself any further with the Madison brothers. Aleksei is my son and Vladimir his blood brother. Stand down, Santiago or face my wrath.”
Aleksei admired that Santiago didn’t cower, although he was sure he must have felt unmitigated fear in Luc’s presence. Everyone did, even the basest and oldest vampires. “Your son has harmed my children. I have no wish to face you. But I am seven hundred years old. Young, by your standards, I know. Nevertheless, I have lived a long time, but without my favorite children, life means nothing to me. If necessary, I will gladly die today to avenge my children.”
“There is no need. Aleksei, my son, is no longer like me. He did not kill your children, as I would have. They live, but only so long as you do not go after my son or those dear to him. I say again, Santiago, stand down.”
Santiago bowed his head. “As you wish, my lord.” He glanced at Aleksei, his eyes glowing. “I did not intend to harm your brother. I only wanted to know the whereabouts of my children.”
Aleksei shook his head, his heart filled with bitter rage. “You had no right to hurt him! He did nothing!”
“It was not him I intended to hurt, Madison. He stepped in the way.”
“You hurt him! No one hurts my brothers without paying dearly for the mistake. I will kill you, Santiago.”
“You will not!” Luc interrupted. “If the two of you continue battling, you will force me to interfere. Is that what you want, my son? To have me on this plane involved in this world’s affairs? You know I will not stand by and let anyone hurt you. Should he somehow manage to kill you—”
“You could bring me back,” he pointed out.
“Yes. I could and I would, but I will not have you slain! I do not wish you dead!” Luc snarled, snorting smoke from his flared nostrils. “My grief at losing the spark of your life even for a moment would bring an age of chaos to this world not seen since the dawn of time! You are my anchor, my son. You are the reason I do not destroy all in this accursed world of yours. Why can you not understand that?”
Aleksei gazed up at the being who had been like a father to him for so long. He knew Luc was hated and feared by everyone in the human world, but he had been kind and nurturing to him. And even when he had found Palea, Luc had allowed him to leave and reclaim his humanity. “I understand. Thank you, Luc.”
He felt Luc soften towards him, as he always had. “Take your brother and go, my Aleksei. Take the time he needs to recover. I will ensure your safe passage out.”
He rose and started towards the door. Halfway there, he paused and looked back.
Luc gazed at him with longing in the blue eyes that had turned dark with sorrow. “I haven’t forsaken you, Luc, it’s just that—”
“That you want to live among your own kind. I tell myself I understand, but in truth, I do not. There is nothing in the universe I would not give or teach you would you but stay by my side, my son.”
“Luc, I can’t. There’s my family and a woman—”
Luc stared at him, looking into his eyes and into his soul. Finally, he nodded. “So you have finally found her, my son. When you bring your firstborn to me, Aleksei, I will be what you call a grandfather...will I not?”
Aleksei could just imagine Dani’s reaction to being told he was taking any child they might have to visit Luc. She’d skin him alive and probably slap Luc too. He smiled at the thought, then frowned, trying not to sound bitter when he spoke. “I cannot seem to father children, Luc.”
“That is not so. Have I not always given you everything you wanted, my son?”
Luc had given him everything within his dark power. “You have, but Luc—”
“You not only can father children, Aleksei, you already have.”
“What? I have? How?” He felt a wave of joy. So that’s what Dani had been trying to keep from him. She was pregnant! After all the long, bitter years, he was going to be a father! “Luc, I promise I’ll bring my child to meet you.”
“And you must not fear for him. Although he is fine and fierce and headstrong, I will not lay any claim to him. But I must see him, my son.”
“Him?”
“Your firstborn is a boy.”
“Dani won’t like it, but as soon as he is old enough, I will bring him to see you. I promise, Luc.”
“But your woman Dani is not the mother of your son.”
Aleksei froze. If Dani wasn’t the mother of his child, who did that leave? Clare Wilton? He shuddered at the thought. No way Dani would forgive him an indiscretion of that magnitude. He stared at Luc, a desperate question in his gaze.
“No,” he said simply. “She is not the mother of my grandson. Now go.”
“Tasha?” he asked, his heart thumping with remembered pleasure and real affection for the woman he had fallen in love with before she left for Africa and he met Dani. He could easily live with Tasha being the mother of his son. He could probably even get Dani to understand.
Luc shook his head. “Your woman Tasha is not the mother.”
He ran through a mental list of all the women he had bedded in the last forty years or so. Chantel...Marika...Karen...Angela...Charity...Joanie...the list went on. It could be any number of women living in almost every part of the world. Shit. He needed help. “Luc, who—”
“I will tell you no more. You cannot have everything all your own way, Aleksei. If you will not rejoin me, do not expect all the benefits of my knowledge. Now go.”
“I will, Luc, but I just need a little help in narrowing the possibilities. If you could just see your way clear to—”
“No, Aleksei!”
“At least give me a time frame in which to work. Is he an infant? How about his name or his mother’s name? Where does he—”
“No more questions, Aleksei! This meeting grows tiresome for me. It makes me ache for the time when you were at my side as my son. Go, Aleksei, before I find this parting from you too much to bear and keep you with me for another hundred years. And do not seek revenge for this, my son.”
“Luc, he hurt one of my little brothers. I—”
“Watching you leave me again does not improve my mood, Aleksei. Do not anger me or this world will know great grief. I have said my last word on the subject, Aleksei. Go.”
With his gut bursting with resentment and fury at Santiago for hurting Mikhel, he went. He wanted to console himself by thinking he would get a chance for another go at Santiago when he didn’t have to worry about Mikhel and the others, but he knew better than to cross Luc. And now there was the added worry of a son he had not known existed. When things settled down, he would visit Luc and hopefully coerce more information from him about the mother of his son. His son. Who in God’s name was the mother? And how old was he? Luc had spoken of him as fierce and headstrong so he surely wasn’t an infant. Perhaps he was a preteen in desperate need of a male figure in his life. What was his name? How was he? Where was he?
He closed his eyes briefly and reached out. My son. Fear not. Wherever you are, I will find you.
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