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“I’m slowly coming back.” Drinking Merlin’s tea wasn’t as beautiful as riding Nelson into the beyond to be with his father again. But Nox had had a few epiphanies while he was deep inside his mind, with no one but himself for company, and was looking forward to sharing them. “I missed you and I think you should go with me next time. And I need to ask Merlin if he knows of any old stone circles my dad might have taken me to when I was little.”
“You can ask him now. He brought back the locket and he’s downstairs in the study with Clancy,” Nelson informed Nox with a wide, forced smile.
“Unsupervised? What are they doing here?” Nox rolled out of the bed, tripping toward the closet. He hopped into a pair of pajama pants and was shoving his arm into the sleeve of his robe, his anxiety skyrocketing. “My study! We need to get down there before they start throwing things,” he said, gesturing for Nelson to follow as he ran for the door.
“Wait!” Nelson mumbled out a quick prayer, grabbing Nox’s arm before he could bolt from the room. “I asked them to come and they have something to tell you.”
His voice had cracked and Nox didn’t like the way Nelson was trembling as he intertwined their fingers.
“It can’t be that bad,” Nox joked hopefully, but Nelson nodded.
“It is. We’ll…” He raised their hands and pressed a hard kiss to Nox’s knuckles. “We’ll figure it out. Together, okay?”
“Okay,” Nox agreed hesitantly and let Nelson pull him close for a softly reverent kiss.
He tasted like tears as their lips clung and Nelson whispered his name. “Please don’t forget that we love you. I love you and I’m here no matter what.”
“Okay,” Nox repeated as he set Nelson away from him. “I’m officially concerned now.” He glanced at the hallway, then at Nelson. “Do I get a hint or am I supposed to go into this blind?”
Nelson blinked back at Nox, considering. “Do you really need a hint?”
“Ah,” Nox said, realizing his entire existence was about to be swallowed by a fate he’d tried hard to escape. He’d fought so hard to hang onto his career at Georgetown and with the FBI and build a life with Nelson but it was all about to slip through his fingers. “Is there any chance we could sneak past them? Take me someplace else?” He raised his brows, daring Nelson to run away with him.
“Sure.” He nodded over Nox’s shoulder. “Tell me where you want to go.” A tear rolled down his cheek and he swallowed loudly, scaring Nox.
He felt a reflexive wave of impotent rage because there was nowhere they could go to escape whatever was waiting for him in the study and time was running out. “I’m going to want to kill them, aren’t I?” he guessed, only half-joking.
A startled laugh burst from Nelson as he nodded. “I think you might, but I’m begging you to listen. And that no matter what happens, don’t forget that I love you and I’ll always be with you. I have to,” he added, his voice crumbling as he watched Nox with red, watery eyes.
“Wonderful!” Nox said sarcastically as he braced himself. “At least I know I won’t lose you.”
“No. Never,” Nelson vowed and Nox was grateful that only most of his world—not all of it—was about to implode as he strode from the room with Nelson in his wake.
“Should I ask Merlin if he’ll cook dinner or is this the last time I’ll have an appetite?” he asked as he jogged down the staircase of the house he was born in. Nox let Nelson get the study door, wondering if he would ever feel safe and sheltered there after this evening.
“Let’s wait on dinner,” Nelson advised and nodded at Merlin and Clancy.
They were both haggard from battle and so steeped in guilt, neither were able to meet Nox’s eyes as he faced them. “What the hell have you two done now?” he asked, but it was Merlin who shuffled forward first and dropped to his knees.
“Please forgive me, child!” he pleaded, then the three of them proceeded to rip the very ground out from under Nox’s feet.
An hour later, Nox had no family, no faith, and no future. “Explain this to me again, Nelson, because I can’t understand and I can’t look at them,” he said, flailing in Merlin’s and Clancy’s directions.
“Nox, I don’t think—” Nelson started to object, but a horrified laugh slipped from Nox as he became sick with disgust and fury.
“Tell me again!” he screamed at the ceiling. “I need you to explain this so I understand because I can’t!” His heart was shattered and all he could comprehend was boiling, blinding wrath.
“Alright…” Nelson nodded and pushed out a hard breath. “It was their job to protect your family—but mostly the heir—and they’ve been trying to prepare you to meet the Dagda. Clancy allowed the cult to happen because he thought it would awaken the god in you and Merlin thought that if he…designed you to channel the Dagda and be strong enough, that you might have a chance of beating this. They’ve been working together in their shitty, dysfunctional way and agreed that my return and our attraction to each other was a sign. They’ve been pushing us together with the investigation and drugging my tea because I’m your connection to the Dagda and it’s my duty to bind you to him and protect that bond,” he explained steadily.
Nox’s devastation had fixed on Clancy first. He was appalled at the betrayal and enraged at the trap he had been shoved into, but Nox’s pain and fury was incandescent as he saw Elsa’s body tied to the tree and the girls hanging from the wall and clinging to life in Julian’s basement.
“How could you?” Nox roared as he advanced on Clancy, his ire swelling until it almost choked him. Visions of Elsa, her eyes gouged out and her body broken and branded with His mark. He heard the missing girls’ hopeless cries and Nox clawed at his own face in horror. “How could you? Those girls!” his voice shook the walls as Clancy cried and cowered.
“It was never supposed to be like that!” Clancy yelled back, pleading as he clasped his hands together. “They were supposed to be druids and witches, Nox, I swear!”
“They were monsters! Look at what they did in my name!” Oh, the pain and anger… Nox had never felt such pure, unadulterated pain and he wanted to kill Clancy, to rip and tear him to pieces with bare, brutal hands until there was nothing but pulp.
“No!” Clancy shook his head wildly, reading Nox’s hatred. “They were supposed to worship you and pray to the moon so you would find them,” he explained in a weeping rush. “I never would have allowed that if I had any idea! They were supposed to be harmless!”
