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I rolled my eyes and perhaps made a slight and possibly sarcastic noise, because Grimora glanced over at me rather repressively. I ignored him, folding my arms across my chest. The damn fool had lost “larger groups” so rather than go in with his army, he sent two men. Genius.
“And then?” Grimora urged.
“We arrived and the baron was cordial to us at first and invited us to dine with him, but we still had deep suspicions. Afterward, we attempted to leave, and we were attacked and overpowered by his men. He threw us in his dungeon, and during the fight, I was injured.”
“They hit your head with a good deal of force and the broad side of a sword.”
“Among other places, yes.”
“The strikes to your head caused the worst damage. It disrupted the blood flow in your brain and caused it to leak blood. It’s your brain that sends messages to your muscles, and these messages don’t travel well now in your brain.”
I made a small sound, because it surprised me. Brandon turned pale and glanced at me and then back at Grimora.
“But that will improve with time, won’t it? The king’s healers said it would.”
“It’s possible. It could heal on its own to some extent. But you might never regain full function. You could get worse.”
Brandon looked stunned, and I had to admit I felt the same. And angry at that oaf Harrison for sending him into danger that way without a lot more men to back him up.
“Can you help him?” I asked, leaning forward.
“A little. But you might be able to do much more.”
“Me?”
“With the blood magic that you both have for each other.”
“You keep saying that phrase, and I keep telling you I don’t know what it means. You said one day you’d explain it to me.”
“Yes. I said I’d tell you when you came looking for answers about your mate. And you finally have. You finally brought your mate with you.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” I jerked a thumb at Brandon. “He’s not my mate.”
“Oh, but he is.”
Brandon gasped and we stared at each other uncomprehendingly. “That can’t be true, sir,” Brandon said. “Neither of us are omegas or even betas, so Roxbury can’t be my mate. It isn’t possible, because we’re both Alphas.”
“Oh, I know all that.” He lifted his shoulder again in a shrug. He kept doing that shrug thing like someone with a weird nervous tic. It reminded me of an old first mate of Gold Tooth’s. The man used to slowly blink one eye whenever he got nervous. When I first joined Gold Tooth’s crew, I thought he was winking at me, and I almost cut his balls off one night playing cards before Gold Tooth explained he couldn’t help it.
“What the hell are you talking about?” I shouted at Grimora, and he gazed back at me calmly. “Sometimes Nature plays cruel tricks on us. My unfortunate looks, for example. Or the afflictions of poor Banshira.”
“Banshira? The monster?”
He shook his head at me. “He is no monster. He’s a young man, who started life as a normal child from a poor Igellan village.”
“What? Do you mean that thing is human?”
Grimora frowned at me, and I quickly lowered my voice. “I’m sorry, but…what the hell?”
“He isn’t a thing. An unknown illness caused him to suddenly begin growing hair all over his body as a child. His glands were involved, and he also began to grow much taller. His ignorant and superstitious parents thought he had been cursed by a witch or by dark magic and that he was turning into a demon. For a while they called him werewolf and monster, and they forced him from their home. The other villagers called him a spawn of Satan and threw rocks at him. They banded together to kill him as he tried to hide himself from them in the woods. He had to run into the mountains to save his life, and I found him wandering the forest twelve years ago, all alone, half-starved and scared half to death. He was ten years old.”
I gasped and felt a jolt of surprise and pain in my chest. I’d always felt that I’d been abandoned by my parents, but not like that. Never like that. Brandon put a hand over his mouth, his eyes wide and shocked.
“Oh gods,” he said softly. “Twelve years ago—then he’s only twenty-two years old now.”
“Yes, as nearly as I can tell. He suffers from a good deal of pain that I think is not all in his body. Despite the tonics and tisanes I make for him, he grows progressively worse.”
“Is his name really Banshira?”
