Chapter 25
Lochlan
“ALL FUTURE MOON CELEbrATIONS CANCELED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.” —THE VIDET
Lochlan had been unusually productive that morning.
He’d finished restoring another diary, wrapped up a project for New Chapter, and had nearly forgotten to stop for lunch.
He credited Nia for that. After her sweet kiss before she left, everything just seemed…
easier. The air felt lighter, the world brighter, and the tedious work of mending old bindings oddly satisfying.
Even the diaries and their daunting weight didn’t seem so heavy today. Not while her kiss still lingered on his lips.
The only thing throwing him off was the color green—not ideal, considering his house was practically a forest. She’d been wearing a pale green wrap dress when she’d kissed him, and now he couldn’t stop thinking about how the fabric had brushed against him, light and teasing.
Now, without work to keep his mind occupied, his thoughts looped back to her.
He stood at the counter, cookies baking in the oven behind him, as he stared blankly at the lettuce meant for his sandwich. He had no idea how long he’d been standing there, motionless, holding the leafy green in one hand.
“What the fuck, man,” a gravelly voice came from behind him. “Are you going to make the damned sandwich or what?”
Lochlan turned, blinking as if he’d been yanked out of a dream. He hadn’t heard that voice in eight years.
“Don’t leave, I’m sorry. We can make it work. It will be better.”
His brother, Thane, stepped out from the shadows of the hall. Broad and built like a fortress, with neatly cut dark hair and amber eyes that usually scanned a room as if assessing it for threats. Now, though, his gaze was guarded—and fixed on Lochlan.
Lochlan stepped forward. Both men opened their arms, and he caught the flicker of warmth in Thane’s expression, the softening around his eyes as they crinkled at the edges. The embrace was all back slaps and awkward angles, but Lochlan still lingered, wondering how Thane had appeared.
“How did you—?”
“The greenhouse.” Thane stepped back, brushing a bit of lint from his coat like he hadn’t just broken in.
“The greenhouse?” Lochlan repeated, frowning. “There’s no way you got past Jade—and the ducks.”
Thane’s lips twitched. “Don’t worry. She’s enjoying an expensive slab of steak, and your ducks are eating the finest strawberries I could find. Echo is with them.”
Lochlan blinked. “You still have him?”
Echo had been just a pup when Lochlan left. Thane always worked with dogs, treated them like extensions of himself: trusted, disciplined, efficient. Just like the tech he designed and built.
As for what those missions were, and why or how Thane deployed both his dogs and his tech?
Lochlan had never gotten the full picture.
He’d worked up the courage to ask, once, when he was younger.
At the time, he’d thought his brother might be off thwarting terrorist plots, quelling rebellions, even dramatically rescuing a damsel or two. But Thane had never shared details.
He nodded now. “Echo’s getting old, but he’s still sharp. I didn’t see a reason to send him away.”
Lochlan raised an eyebrow. “From high-security missions for the crown to distracting dogs and ducks. Are you finally slowing down, Thane?”
A flicker of amusement crossed Thane’s features. “Since when are you so feisty?”
“Since you broke into my house,” Lochlan shot back, crossing his arms. “Why are you here?”
Thane tilted his head, studying Lochlan like he was trying to place a puzzle piece that didn’t quite fit. “I’ve been busy.”
“Right. Preparing to take the throne, cleaning up our family’s messes, fighting off the crown’s enemies—or whatever it is you do—must be exhausting.” Lochlan leaned against the counter. “Did you pencil me in between a coup and a crisis? Or am I the crisis?”
Thane gave the barest shrug. “The timing worked.”
“And this is the first time in eight years ‘the timing worked?’”
Eight years since he had left everything behind, since the fire that consumed his father’s legacy—and his own.
Generations of carefully cultivated plants, the collection within the greenhouse as old as the castle itself, all gone in an instant when his sister, Drusilla, had burned it in a fit of rage.
The scars along his calves pulsed with phantom pain at the memory.
The skin had long since healed, but the ache beneath it lingered—flaring up when the weather turned cold, when he pushed himself too hard, or when the past refused to stay buried.
They were a permanent reminder of everything he’d lost.
“It’s time to come home,” Thane said quietly.
A humorless laugh escaped Lochlan. “Home?”
Thane’s expression didn’t change. “You’re third in line, Lochlan. We need to show… a strong family bond.”
“That will be a little hard when there is no family bond,” Lochlan said flatly. “Why now?”
Thane’s jaw tightened, his gaze shifting away for the briefest second.
Lochlan didn’t know what specific problem or threat had brought Thane, but he knew enough to guess.
There was always someone trying to dismantle the last vestiges of power the monarchy still clung to—oversight of international military operations, approval for government spending, and so on—the people ever-more hungry for democracy and eager to take power.
Good. Let them. As far as Lochlan could see, the royal family was no more fit to wield that power than anyone else. Possibly less.
His existence had been a gift to the Dover Coalition—in an era rife with dissatisfaction about the way the country was being ruled, he was living proof that the queen herself wasn’t perfect, that her judgement could be compromised.
Rumors of corruption and greed came on the heels of those related to her infidelity; perhaps she was no more faithful to her vow to protect her country than the one she took to her husband the king.
The moment the world learned about Lochlan, cracks in public opinion had started to form—and as people dug deeper and learned more, they seemed less convinced the queen was a fit ruler, or that a royal family should be ruling at all.
But there was nothing Lochlan could do about that now, even if he’d wanted to.
“You and Drusilla will do just fine without me.”
Thane’s expression didn’t waver, his stoic mask firmly in place. But there—a brief hesitation, a fracture in his composure just wide enough to reveal the faintest hint of vulnerability.
“We need you.”
The words hit Lochlan harder than he wanted to admit.
We need you. It was all he’d ever wanted from his family, wasn’t it?
To feel needed, wanted, to be seen as more than an outlier, more than the spare heir they had no use for.
He’d spent years convincing himself he didn’t care and that their approval meant nothing to him.
But it did.
No matter how cold his mother’s gaze was, or how cruel Drusilla had been, some foolish part of Lochlan had always wanted to belong and be accepted—even loved—by the people who should have been his family, whose love he should never have had to hope for or earn.
And now, after years of silence, Thane had come.
And Lochlan knew his brother meant it: he really believed they needed Lochlan.
That was the worst part. This wasn’t a formality or a rehearsed diplomatic plea. Thane had chosen to come here, to say it himself, to ask for Lochlan’s help.
“No.” His tone was flat, final. “I owe you nothing.”
Thane didn’t argue. Instead, he reached into his bag and pulled out a bundle of brown cloth. He unfolded it carefully to reveal a small pot.
Lochlan’s breath caught. Sage-green leaves, speckled with tiny stars, peeked out from the soil. The plant looked fragile, impossibly delicate, but the magic radiating from it was unmistakable. Lochlan couldn’t look away.
Thane glanced at him. “Do you recognize it?”
Of course he did.
It was from the greenhouse. The one built around an ancient sequoia tree, its magic older than the royal family or even the kingdom itself. A vanilla orchid had once thrived there, its purple petals and star-speckled leaves born of a wayward spell, producing vanilla with a rare chocolate undertone.
Drusilla had started with the orchids, ripping them from the tree before setting the greenhouse itself ablaze. Lochlan had tried to save what he could, but the fire consumed everything. He’d nearly burned with it—and would have, if Thane hadn’t pulled him out.
“No,” Lochlan said, his voice disbelieving. “It burned. All of it did.”
“The tree survived,” Thane said evenly. “And this isn’t the only plant that made it.”
“More things for our sister to burn,” Lochlan said, bitterness in every word.
“I’ve kept them hidden from her,” Thane replied, “and constructed a secret entry for the herbalists. We walled off the original entrance.”
Memories of his father flickered through Lochlan’s mind—himself as a boy, chasing after a man whose broad hands worked with steady grace.
His father had been soft-spoken, with a quiet brilliance that drew people in without ever demanding their attention.
When he wasn’t overseeing the castle’s herbalists, he’d take Lochlan everywhere.
To the countryside, where wild herbs tangled at their feet.
Across distant towns to study flora in temple gardens and roadside ditches alike.
They’d wandered through museums, old estates, forgotten groves. Always learning.
Always together.
After his father’s early death, the other herbalists had tried to fill the void, but it had never been the same.
“Things will be different now,” Thane said.
Lochlan let out a humorless laugh. “You may be a brilliant spy and our esteemed soon-to-be king, but you can’t see what’s right in front of you. Is our mother still cold and cruel? Is Drusilla still psychotic and spoiled?”
“Our mother has asked about you,” Thane said, softer. “She’s worried. About this… marriage. It isn’t right. You should be with us. Not with that witch.”
“I’m a witch!” Lochlan’s voice thundered as his fist slammed against the counter.
He pushed away the small, unwelcome desire to believe his mother’s concern was real.
It wasn’t care—not for him, anyway—and it certainly wasn’t love that had her asking questions.
Lochlan knew better. He wasn’t the same young man who’d once desperately wanted to belong to the family he’d only ever watched from a distance.
He knew now how much of that life was only artifice: fake, constructed, and hollow.
Thane studied him for a long moment, as though trying to reconcile the brother he remembered with the man standing before him. Finally, he nodded once and placed a black card on the counter. “I’ll be in the area for a bit longer. If you need me, or…”
He trailed off, but Lochlan could still hear the words: If you change your mind.
Thane turned and headed for the back door to the greenhouse.
Lochlan followed, finding Jade playing with Echo, a black shepherd. She was trying to tug a rope toy from his jaws. The larger dog held firm, his graying muzzle set in quiet determination, though his wagging tail betrayed his enjoyment.
Jade gave a playful growl, yanking the rope hard enough to make Echo stumble slightly.
Echo retaliated with a deliberate tug, pulling Jade a few steps closer before suddenly letting go.
Jade tumbled backward in surprise, landing in a pile of leaves.
Echo let out a huff that might have been the canine equivalent of a chuckle.
“Echo.” The dog immediately snapped to attention at Thane’s call, bounding to his side. Thane paused at the greenhouse door, his hand resting on the frame. “Take care, Lochlan,” he said finally, almost hesitant.
Lochlan opened his mouth to say something, but the words wouldn’t come. He wasn’t angry with his brother—not really. He just wished things could be different.
In the end, he managed a small nod.
Thane didn’t press. He let the moment hang, the silence between them filled with everything they had and hadn’t said, before he turned and disappeared through the back door.
The hunger Lochlan had felt earlier was gone. He grabbed the book he’d finished repairing, bagged up the fresh cookies he’d baked, and left to find the one thing he knew could make him feel better.