| |
In the many times Broderick had imagined this moment, he’d expected the memories and experiences of a jealous boy or power-hungry young man, ambitious for holdings and wealth. Perhaps even a deranged psychopath who was incapable of empathy or even sympathy, determined to fill his own desires at the expense of others. As devastating as his first feeding from Davina had been when she was Christabelle—living in poverty on the streets of East London, raped and exploited—Angus’s life was a contest to behold.
The poor lad had been abused from the day he was born, his young impressionable mind filled with the lies Fraser Campbell had fed him every single minute of his life.
Fraser was the one who’d convinced Angus he was an outcast and unwanted by the MacDougals, and he beat the ideas into the lad, taking out every ounce of his frustration on Angus. But Angus hadn’t just accepted Fraser’s word. Even after all the whippings and punishments, Angus had always held on to the dream that Broderick, Maxwell and Donnell would one day rescue him.
Rescue him?
His boyhood fantasies were not about being a knight or lording over a castle. They were about fighting side-by-side against Fraser as a MacDougal, with his brothers and his true father, Hamish. Broderick relived the day Angus finally believed what Fraser had taught him...the day Angus gave up his dream...
“Me! Me! Me!” various young voices clamored in Gaelic for attention.
Broderick saw through the eyes of a young Angus, seven years old. He crouched low and veered off the path to the rise to hide behind a cluster of trees and brush. Down in the glen, a group of young boys—at least a dozen—crowded around a tall, young man with flaming red hair, clutching tartan strips in his fists.
Broderick’s heart stilled. Blimey. That was him as a young lad.
The adolescent Broderick laughed as the boys jumped, reaching for the red tartan in his right hand. His left held a familiar blue-green tartan. Another older boy with black hair tied at his nape—Maxwell—stood to the side with his arms crossed, chuckling at the scene.
Gods it was good to see him again. Broderick wanted to rush to Maxwell and embrace him...but he hadn’t journeyed through time to witness the scene, although it certainly seemed like he had. These were Angus’s memories. Rick was only a spectator.
Broderick’s youthful laughter echoed across the field. “You can’t all be MacDougals. Half of you will need to be Campbells.”
Many of the lads groaned, but they all continued to bob up and down, trying to grab the red strips of cloth.
“Broderick,” Maxwell called. “I’ll take the Campbells over here.”
Broderick nearly choked on his...Angus’s gasp.
“You, you and you.” Young Broderick doled out the blue-green tartans. “Go over there with Maxwell.”
The three boys cursed and pouted, but shuffled to the dark-haired boy.
The rest tried to overwhelm Broderick, and he ran around the glen, dodging them and laughing. “Who shall be next?” He waved the Campbell tartan in their faces.
Angus dropped his bundle at his feet, slipped off his cloak and poised, ready to leap. As they trampled by his hiding place, he emerged from the brush and joined the crowd, mimicking the shouting. “MacDougal! MacDougal!”
“You, you and you.” Broderick handed out other Campbell tartans. “One more... You!” Broderick divvied out the last strip and the final boy wailed and stomped toward Maxwell.
All those around Angus jumped, cheering and clamoring for their tartans. Angus gripped his tattered MacDougal cloth and grinned.
The other lads helped each other tie the strips to their arms. Angus tried to wrap his around, but couldn’t manage a knot.
“Och, lad, come here.” Broderick fastened the piece in place with a quick tug. He smiled down at Angus, then cocked an eyebrow.
Angus’s heart pounded in his ears, and he swallowed.
Broderick ruffled his hair and turned to the rest of the boys. “Maxwell will take you to the far side of the glen there.” He pointed. “You lads come with me.”
Angus straggled behind, not wanting to attract any attention as they marched through the heather and grass to the line of trees bordering the shallow valley.
“Duck down low, lads,” Broderick whispered. “While Max and the others have their backs turned, let’s position ourselves.”
He gave further instructions, sending boys off in pairs to hide behind rocks and bushes. Since Angus had stayed behind, he was the last and only one left.
“You stay with me.” Broderick frowned. “Where’s your sword, lad?”
Angus opened his mouth to answer, but nothing came out.
Broderick chuckled. “You can’t go into battle without a weapon. Here.” He pulled one of the wooden swords from his belt and Angus grabbed it by the smooth flat blade. “Nay, laddie. Hold it thus.” Thrusting the handle of the play sword into his hand, Broderick curled Angus’s fingers around the wood. “Grip it tight.” He stepped back. “Now show me how you use your sword.”
Angus waggled the weapon.
“Och, what are you doing there? Waving to your grannie?”
Angus giggled.
“Like this.” Broderick stepped behind Angus, his large arms coming about Angus’s skinny frame, and helped him hold the sword proper. “Block. Parry. Thrust. Swing.” Broderick demonstrated each move, guiding Angus through the maneuvers.
Angus smiled so hard his cheeks hurt.
“Well done.” Broderick patted his back. “Come, hide with me over here.”
Angus followed to the large boulder with some prickly bushes and imitated Broderick’s position—one knee on the ground, the other leg bent, and his forearm resting on his knee.
Broderick peered through the branches and leaves across the field and Angus stared at his brother’s profile. Solid jaw, hooked nose, green eyes.
Angus touched his own chin. Was his jaw as strong as Broderick’s? The resemblance was obvious as Angus had the same color hair, same green eyes.
They were kin. And Angus wanted to grow up to be as strong as Broderick one day.
He inhaled deep. Say it! “I’m-I’m...”
“What’s that?” Broderick continued to peer at the field.
Angus gulped against the tightness in his throat. “I’m...a MacDougal.” There. He’d said it.
“Aye, laddie.”
Angus frowned. Broderick hadn’t understood him. He thought he meant the game they were playing. Swallowing his fear, he tried again. “I’m...your brother. I’m a MacDougal, too.”
Broderick considered Angus with a smile. “Aye, lad. That ye are.” He chuckled and patted him on the back once more, then redirected his gaze to the glen.
“Nay, I—”
“Och, there they go. Come, lads. Victory or death!”
“Victory or death!” the boys echoed and charged onto the field.
Angus scrambled after Broderick and the rest of the group, waving their swords and running across the glen, shouting. His foot tangled in a clump of grass and he slammed to the ground with a grunt.
Broderick skidded to a halt and backtracked. “On yer feet.” Before Angus could get to his knees, Broderick grabbed him by the belt, hauled him off the ground and charged, holding Angus in the air. “Ready your sword!”
Laughing, Angus thrust this sword forward, his arm bouncing and bobbing with each step, the two of them chortling as they headed for the throng of bodies beating each other with wooden weapons.
Broderick set him on the ground. “Put your back against mine!”
They fought their enemies together. They had each other’s backs. Angus was a part of something. He was his mother’s little man, and now he fought side-by-side with his big brother.
Broderick roared and seized one of the smaller boys who wore a Campbell tartan, hoisting him over his head as if he’d conquered a prize. Angus guffawed as the “Campbell” boy cackled and kicked his legs.
Dread consumed Broderick’s adult heart, weighing his soul like a cement block that sank to the bottom of the ocean. He hadn’t thought of this incident in centuries. Even completely forgot about it until this point. Never once had he tried to see this moment from Angus’s perspective. The inexperienced youth he’d been had only seen this as a prank or a scheme encouraged by Fraser to get inside their ranks.
Young Angus was shoved to the ground, his face in the mud. He pushed up and gasped for air, but was thrust back into the muck with a heavy weight on his shoulders. As fast as he’d gone down, he was pulled up. Angus coughed and sputtered, wiping the mud from his eyes.
“What are you about, Graham?” Broderick held the angry boy by the collar.
“He’s a Campbell!” Graham snapped, pointing at Angus.
“Nay, he’s a MacDougal.” Broderick tugged on the tartan at Angus’s arm. “Can’t you see that? And your playing too rough with him anyway.”
“Nay, Broderick! That there is Fraser Campbell’s boy. That be Angus Campbell. I seen him at the marketplace with his kin last month. Da pointed them out to me.”
Angus shrank under the dozens of glaring eyes. Three boys rushed him at once and knocked him to the ground. In a blur of pain and outraged insults, Angus curled into a ball to protect himself against the fists and feet pummeling him into the mud.
“Enough! I said that’s enough!” Broderick and Maxwell pulled the boys off Angus.
“Come now, get off the lad!” Maxwell yanked the last one away.
The coppery taste of blood filled Angus’s mouth—a taste all too familiar at the hand of Fraser, his step-father.
Broderick helped him to his feet and knelt before him. Grabbing him by the shoulders, he glowered. “What are you doing here, Angus?”
He couldn’t speak. His throat closed, and Angus’s bottom lip quivered.
Broderick’s eyes were no longer filled with pride or approval...or glinting with laughter. They were hard, accusing and angry. The same eyes Fraser had every time he looked at Angus and called him a bastard.
“You got no business being here, Angus.” Broderick stood and, with a firm grip, led Angus away from the crowd. “Go home.”
“But...I’m a MacDougal,” he rasped.
Broderick tore the tartan from Angus’s arm. “Nay. You’re not.” He turned his back and joined the boys, scowling with his arms crossed.
Angus hitched his breath and gazed at Broderick through a watery haze. Before he could make a bigger fool of himself, he whirled and ran, but he couldn’t see the ground through the tears and mud and tripped. The echoing laughter pressed upon him and he cringed, fisting the grass.
Wiping his eyes, he dared a glance behind him. Everyone guffawed and pointed, Broderick still glaring and Maxwell at his side wearing an equally disapproving stare.
Angus threw his head back and wailed, drowning out their mockery. On his knees, he sobbed and, when he found the strength, he clenched his jaw and staggered to his feet. As fast as he could manage, he ran from the glen and toward the road, over the rise and back toward...home.
The word was foreign now. Where was his home? He’d been rejected by Broderick and Maxwell. Fraser had been right all along. The MacDougals didn’t care that Angus was their kin. They wanted nothing to do with him. And yet Fraser hated him as well.
And Angus had been beaten...again...when he’d arrived back at the Campbell holdings. The only place he had any kind of anchor was with Fraser. As cruel and condemning as he was, he was the only father Angus knew. And when he finally came of age and gained the courage to face his stepfather, they had come to blows.
Angus had not only defeated Fraser Campbell, he’d beaten him to death, repaying the brutal man for every strike. Taking his stepfather’s life was the moment Angus had snapped. And since he’d had no one else left to blame for the misery of his childhood, he sought revenge against Broderick and his brothers.
Especially Broderick, the one who’d broken his heart that day.
Broderick broke from Angus’s wrist to find himself on his knees, Angus crouched at his side with his strong arm about Broderick’s shoulders. “God’s blo—”
“I’ve got ye, brother.” Angus held tight to his forearm, wet with Broderick’s tears.
“I...” The intensity of Angus’s emotions was overwhelming. The sadness and despair. The anguish and anger.
The numbness from years of addiction he’d spent in the Blood Palaces in Victorian London, where Kahli had rescued him.
Angus was a passionate man, like any true MacDougal, and the pain his brother had lived was almost more than Rick could handle. “If only...I had known. I—”
“No.” Angus pulled back from their embrace. “Don’t go there. I know that road. Ye canna change the past, Rick, so don’t step upon the path o’ regrets and wishin’ things could’ve been different. The burden is too great to bear, and we need ye here.”
Rick bowed his head. “But if I had just—”
Angus seized Broderick’s shoulders. “I’ve forgiven ye for the crimes I thought ye committed when I was a child. I let that go a long time ago. You were right. Me whole life was a lie. It took me two centuries to come to terms with that and I almost killed meself for it. Glean from me blood the lessons I’ve learned. What Kahli taught me about the futility of guilt.”
“We can’t change the past, so we must change who we are today and create a new future.” Broderick quoted Kahli with a quivering voice.
“That’s right, brother.” Angus sighed. “What we do today and tomorrow matters, not what we did in the past. Me last hope is that you can forgive me. For I am the one who has wronged ye. Our brothers, their families.” Tears spilled down Angus’s cheeks. “My family, Gods curse me.”
“How could I not forgive ye, lad? Fraser gave ye no choice but to believe the worst of us. And what happened that day when...” Rick held up his wrist. “Feed from me. Know my heart.”
“I told ye, ye don’t have—”
“Let this be our vow. Bonded by blood, as brothers an’ kin.”
Angus squeezed his eyes shut. More tears trailed down his face. He locked his gaze with Broderick’s. “Aye. Bonded by blood. As brothers an’ kin.”
He bit Rick’s wrist and drank several swallows before lifting his head. Pausing, as if he were processing the information, he nodded and stood.
Broderick followed and embraced his brother.
A soft sniffle drew their attention. Kahli stood at the open door of the hospital room, wiping happy tears from her face.
Angus beckoned her over. “Come, mo chroí.”
“Thank ye for saving him. For all ye’ve done.” Rick frowned and tipped his head. “Ye two are heroes, aren’t ye?”
“They certainly are.” Korban stepped into the room. “If it wasn’t for Angus and Kahli, the Elementals would still be enslaved to vampires. These two are legends. My grandparents were rescued by Angus and Kahli. Admittedly, I hold a certain measure of pride over my own little remote connection to the Liberation of the Nurseries. I’m a descendent of the real Jack Frost. Eighteen generations have passed since Jack and Aideen led the rebellion against the Vamsyrians.”
Angus slapped Korban’s back. “That is indeed something to be proud of. Their legacy is what inspired Kahli and I to finish what they started.”
Benson leaned into the room, a somber expressing marring his dark skin. “Sorry to interrupt, but you’re all gonna want to see this.”