there was a God, he assumed he would be listening, which is why he began to pray for the safety of the children he could no longer protect. When he finished his prayer he started another, this one for the child who had taken his life.
“Amir,” David called out as everyone was leaving his office. “Thank you.”
Flushed with humility, Amir had to resist the urge to genuflect in front of David. Instead he bowed his head and clasped his hand over his heart, unable to find the proper words to convey what lay there. He didn’t reply.
“You have proven your loyalty today,” David continued. “And once you succeed in your next assignment, you will be legendary.”
I can’t believe he’s entrusting me with such an important task, I can’t believe he thinks I’m so special. When Amir finally found the words, they raced out of his mouth in a strangled whisper. “There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for you, sir.”
Placing his massive hand on Amir’s bony shoulder, David looked at the boy, making sure his eyes shone with a father’s pride. “And that’s why I have complete faith in you.”
This time Amir couldn’t resist. He clutched David’s hand and bent low on one knee, his eyes cast downward, not worthy of looking into his master’s face. From across the room, near the door, David caught Jean-Paul’s stare, and the two men had to look away from each other to stop themselves from laughing at the spectacle. When Amir finally stood up and found the courage to once again look David in the face, the headmaster’s countenance had resumed its serious nature. “You have a busy day ahead of you,” David remarked. “Go make me proud.”
“I will.” After a few moments, Amir was able to pry himself away from David’s presence and leave the room. When Jean-Paul closed the door, they could no longer retain their composure and burst out laughing, David’s deep baritone intertwining with Jean-Paul’s higher-pitched voice, the new sound echoing off the walls loudly.
“You do know thees eez a suicide mission?” Jean-Paul asked, catching his breath.
Pulling out a crisp white handkerchief from his jacket pocket to wipe away the tears his laughter created, David replied, “That’s why I’m not sending you, my love.”
When he heard those last words, Nakano’s hand froze on the doorknob. He wasn’t eavesdropping, he wasn’t being an immature git, he was just looking for his boyfriend. He never expected to overhear his headmaster call him love. He also never expected the two of them to embrace.
What the bloody hell is going on?! What are they doing? When he felt his hand start to shake he let go of the doorknob so he wouldn’t jiggle it, so he wouldn’t make any sound and interrupt the two of them from doing what seemed to come so naturally. He didn’t want to bear witness to the scene; he wanted to pounce on them or flee. Instead, he watched. He felt his stomach lurch when he saw David hold Jean-Paul’s chin between his thumb and forefinger and stare into his eyes. He felt something cold and painful squeeze his heart when he saw David tenderly kiss Jean-Paul’s left cheek, then turn his face to kiss the other. No, not again! Am I that ugly? Am I that stupid that I can’t even keep a boyfriend?! What is wrong with me?! Put one foot behind you, Nakano, so you can get the hell out of here before they see you, before they make you look like an even bigger fool! One foot, that’s it, then the other, yes, go, leave! He stumbled out of the anteroom, but just as he turned to run, he bumped into Brania.
“Watch where you’re going, you fool!” she exclaimed.
Nakano stared at her. He wanted to scream back, tell her how disgusting her father was, but he felt that if he opened his mouth he would cry.
Watching him run off toward campus, into the burgeoning darkness, Brania couldn’t get over how much younger Nakano looked. It could be the longer hair; it softened his appearance, made him look more vulnerable, more like the child he really was. It wasn’t so much his physicality, though, as his demeanor. Nakano ran toward a fight, not from it, something must have happened to change him. Studying Jean-Paul, his arms wrapped around her father, she had her answer. “You’re sleeping with the old nurse and the hot Frenchman,” Brania denounced. “My word, Father, how varied are your tastes?”
“It seems that you’ve lived among these humans far too long,” David remarked. “Their primitive instincts have permeated your brain.”
“I’m the one being primitive?!” Brania shouted. “You’re so primal, you can’t even limit yourself to one gender.”
Outraged, Jean-Paul took a step toward Brania, but David grabbed him by the elbow, preventing him from getting any closer. “You should not speak to your papa that way.”
It was bad enough she had to deal with her father’s scorn. She refused to be preached at by his latest concubine. Sideswiping a chair with a brush of her hand, sending it flying across the room, she screamed, “I will speak to my papa any way I choose to!”
“But you will not raise your voice to your brother!”
Her knees buckled, just slightly, but enough to warn her that she needed to hold on to something or else she might fall. Brania clutched at the back of one of the leather chairs, pressing her nails so hard she broke through the fabric. “My what?”
This was not the way David had planned to hold the family reunion. He wanted to wait until the location of The Well was discovered to proclaim that he and both his children would lead His people to victory, Brania seated on his left, and Jean-Paul, a smidge closer, seated on his right. Ah, well, what was that colloquialism? No time like the present. “Brania,” David said, “I’d like you to meet your baby brother, Jean-Paul Germaine.”
This is ridiculous, this cannot be happening. It’s a joke, yes, my father’s attempt at a cruel, a very cruel joke. “That’s impossible.”
“I assure you it is possible and it is fact,” David declared. “I remember every second of Chantal’s labor, thirty-six long, but ultimately extremely rewarding, hours.”
Smiling, Jean-Paul touched his father’s shoulder affectionately. “She still blames me for zee pain.”
Joining in the laughter, David kissed Jean-Paul’s hand. “Oh, she has no one to blame but herself, my son.”
Son?! How in the world can he have a son? Her entire life she was the only one, no one else. That wasn’t going to change now; she wouldn’t let it. “I’m your only child! That’s what you always told me!”
Growing weary, David was beginning to regret his disclosure. “I said you were my only daughter, I never said you were my only child. Maybe if you would stop listening with human ears, you would hear the truth.”
It was as if Brania stepped through time, as if she tumbled through a tunnel and landed two centuries earlier. She felt like Nakano looked, young, vulnerable, like the child she had been and, unfortunately, still was. The tears were so unexpected, so unfamiliar, that they stung, they blinded her so she couldn’t see her father’s face; she could only focus on the memory of him. “I have dedicated my life to you! I . . . have . . . compromised myself and done things that were abhorrent only to carry out your whims and earn your love.” She wanted to continue; she had so much more she wanted to say. But she couldn’t breathe properly, she was gasping, her chest heaving. Her father’s harsh summation made it unnecessary for her to speak another word.
“As it should be.”
Brania felt her body fold in half; she reached out to grab another chair, but there wasn’t one and she stumbled forward, causing David to take a step backward or else feel her touch. Hunched over, she looked up into the face of her father, then her newly discovered brother. She was surrounded by more family than ever before and yet she felt more alone than she had ever felt in her entire life.
Lochlan felt the same way. He wished he didn’t, he wished he could feel some pain, but that stopped quite a while ago, and without the pain as a distraction, all he could do was think. He thought about how he had spent his life, the wife whom he lost years ago, the children they never had, and he acknowledged, ruefully, that there was no one on earth that he wanted to spend his final moments with. This was not the way he assumed he would die, but he had to admit it was better than dying in a hospital after a long illness, the medical staff expecting family to gather round and, when none showed, feeling sorry for him, not because he was about to die but because he was about to die alone.
Which is what he thought would happen until he saw Ronan.
After he left the doctor’s office, Ronan scoured the campus for a trace, a clue as to the doctor’s
