Chapter Three #2
“It wasn’t cheating. Nothing that happened to you was cheating, Papa.” Rexford’s face went pink as Marquis turned to stare up at him. He’d never used that word with anyone, papa. “Nothing that happens against your will is cheating.”
“I—thought I wanted it. Sometimes I did. It’s a haze.” Mads choked on his words.
“I’ve done worse, I fear.” Marquis took a deep breath. “I believe my betrayal was willing. Perhaps. Maybe at first or…”
“If there were others, I understand,” Mads said through a whimper of a breath.
“One other. After you left, Doris, from the council. She was there for me. She raised Rexford. She inserted herself into my life and I—we were married after a time.”
Mads stiffened and nodded jerkily. “I deserve that. I can understand. I suppose I cannot go back to you—”
“No! No. You can. Please.” Marquis bit his tongue. “When the doctor says.”
“But Doris.” Mads patted Caspian’s back.
“Doris was in league with Baron. I’m afraid we don’t know if she manipulated Father with magic or worse.” Rex didn’t call her mother, whether to spare Mads or because she’d lost the title; he wasn’t certain. “She died with Baron.”
“And Damien… We found his grave.” Marquis patted the back of Mads’s hand.
“Damien… Yeah. I think I remember… Baron accidentally…” Mads shuddered. “That part I remember—a moment of clarity. I wasn’t the same without Damien there keeping the spells up…”
“Anything you can tell us puts more pieces together, Mads.” Marquis couldn’t help holding Mads’s hand, squeezing it, taking deep breaths as his familiar scent came back.
“He kept using Damien in shifted form as a battery sort of to contain his potential paroxysm… It was how he was surviving all the wish…” Mads shook his head and shuddered.
“Potential paroxysm?” Rexford interrupted.
“Rapture. I think you called it. When wish is ingested, it accumulates in the body. It increases your magic capacity, yes, but it crystalizes in places it shouldn’t because there’s only a certain amount of wish a body can hold.
Beyond that, it culminates around the heart and in the viscera.
You crave more because it gets used up, but the physical mass remains, but the last power in it doesn’t have any potential for use, only energy…
Baron figured that out early when users with omegas were dying slower.
” Mads swallowed hard and held the baby out to Marquis.
He took Caspian and backed up to stand when Mads stood, eyes locked on Rexford.
“Damien was used up, so he tried ripping the fox from him to put in another omega to use them.”
“Did it work?” Marquis cradled Caspian as he stared around curiously.
“Not as intended, no. In place of my magic, there is only emptiness now. Emptiness and an animal.” Mads glanced from Marquis to Rex. “You look so much like your father, you know?”
Rexford shrugged and, surprisingly, opened his arms, welcoming his papa in for a long hug.
“You don’t smell like my baby anymore.” Mads took a deep breath. “But I know you’re my son.”
Rexford hugged back, years of pain clear on his face. Years of betrayal by the only other parent he’d known. “It’s weird. I was so mad for so long, but it’s gone now. I’m only sad we missed one another.”
“Yeah. But your little boy is adorable. I want to meet your mate, too. What’s he like?” Mads parted from him and stared up.
“Spicy little black cat familiar with a foul mouth and no filter.” Rexford said it as if it were something to be proud of. Black cat familiar? Certainly. Everything else? The little gutter snipe could turn a sailor’s ears blue.
Then again, once upon a time, Mads had been much the same. A mischievous little omega following the Romani around as if he belonged there. A pennywitch.
“I bet it drives Marquis mad.” Mads clapped Rex’s shoulder and finished with a little hug.
“So, what would you have me do, Mads?” Marquis took a seat in the chair Mads had been sitting in.
He hefted Caspian onto the arm of the chair to balance him and flinched in surprise when Mads strode over and sat across his lap.
As familiar to him then as he once had been.
“Should we work on getting your magic back?”
“It should work fine. Baron’s magic was too sticky for me. I could never handle it. Yours should do.” Mads took Caspian back into his lap and laced his fingers with Marquis, and magic flowed between them. It was as perfect as he could have imagined.
Familiar magic…
“Mads… You’re drawing magic. Like a familiar.” Marquis gestured for Rex to take Caspian, and he did with a quick sweep by.
Rexford glanced between them. “I’m going to go out in the hall and find a restroom to change Caspian in. You two talk.” He left in a hurry.
“I am a familiar. Sort of. All omegas are, kinda.” Mads frowned as both their hands laced and he studied their fingers as they bridged. “Every omega is one. There just needs to be the right spark. That’s what Baron was doing.”
Marquis swallowed. “And what is your form?”
“I dunno. I needed magic around me that I could use. We’ll find out. Maybe I’ll have Damien’s fox. Maybe I’ll have something else.” Mads wrapped his arms over Marquis’s head, leaning in close. “You asked me what I want.”
Marquis nodded as Mads leaned to his ear, his breath trembling. “To forget that Baron ever existed.”
“I wish I could make you.” Marquis wrapped his arms around Mads, his body so familiar. He’d been with Doris for so much longer than he ever had Mads, but the omega owned his soul.
“Then please give us a try again. I want you. No other mage knows my soul. I gave myself to you entirely.” Mads hugged tight and sighed, his breath evening out. “I’ll do whatever it takes, my stuffy mage. For our Penumbra.”
“I made the Penumbra. I overshadowed the Eclipse, and I’m the council lead for this part of the new world.” Marquis huffed. It’d been their dream to start a new clan, a subsidiary. He’d made it happen. “And Rexford made his own coven. The Red Sky.”
“As ambitious as his father.”
“Which one?” Marquis half grinned.
“I’ve always been the more ambitious of us.” Mads shook his head, his hair sweeping off his brow. “And what do you want, my mage?”
Marquis thought about it. His chest constricted.
He’d come in looking for answers, an apology, pain, anything.
He’d believed that Mads had left him. He’d believed all the foulness and walked away.
He let Doris lead him around and push him higher.
“I wish to step down as council head and take over the Penumbra once more. The Eclipses are all gone, now.”
“We need to keep people away from wish. Those that use it are gone—” Mads silenced when Marquis squeezed.
“Nite came up with the simplest solution to fix it. Those that are tainted can be rehabilitated.” Marquis smiled.
Mads stared at him, eyes wide. “They can reverse it?”
“Yes.” Marquis brushed his fingertips through Mads’s hair.
“How?” Mads straightened up.
“Fairy gold. We cast a spell over it to change it to wish with intent to change it to an antidepressant after. His original idea was for acetaminophen or aspirin. The antidepressant it turns into aids impulse control, and it curbs the addiction. At the time of administration, we exchange something of value, so by morning, it works.” Marquis smiled as wonder lit Mads’s face.
“That’s amazing. And the humans… Are they being helped?” Guilt flashed over Mads’s face.
“Wish is no longer being sold to mortals. We’re calling this new stuff fairy dust. Those that are addicted are weaned onto this; those that aren’t, well, it doesn’t do anything long term, and eventually they get bored with it.
Dealers are backing off, only selling to existing clients, supposedly.
We’re working hard.” Marquis shrugged and corralled Mads to sit more on the arm of the chair rather than his lap.
Old feelings stirred within him, and it was hard to stay proper.
But he wasn’t certain what was the morally acceptable thing to do, nor the socially acceptable thing to do when one met their mate again after so long apart.
“Things seem better than they had been.” Mads took a deep breath. “What do we do from here? I’ve been begging to see you and Rex. My mind is still kinda woozy.”
“I think we keep you here until the doctors clear you. Then you tell me what you want.” Marquis patted his back gently.
“I want to go home.” The way he said it, how small his voice went.
But their home hadn’t existed in fifty years. It’d been torn down, a highway running through it.
“That house doesn’t exist anymore, Mads.” Marquis sighed, waiting for tears and regret.
“Home is wherever you are. For you, it’s been eighty years. To me, it’s only been a few months…” Mads sighed miserably. “I’m still in love with you. You’ve fallen out of love forever ago.”
“I would be lying if I said I’d fallen out of love.
But I would also be lying to say the candle burns bright.
I’ve had a lot of hurt and pain. A lot of hate for what happened.
It will take time for the bitterness to pass.
” Marquis glanced away from Mads. “I didn’t think I’d ever want you back.
But the flame still burns. Give it time.
And Rexford seems amenable to making your acquaintance. ”
“After so many hours of labor and all those back pains… Yeah, he should want to make my acquaintance.” Mads huffed. “But he’s had more than enough time without me…”
“Who knows what the future holds?” Marquis swallowed hard.
Nothing about anything that happened seemed remotely healthy.
He was emotionally vulnerable and mentally unstable.
Marquis was broken, lonely, and bereft. He carried the ultimate betrayal of two partners, one of which he’d only at that moment realized he should have tried harder to reclaim.
“Greater things than the past.” Mads sighed.
A little beeping went off in the room, and the door opened a moment later. Mads stared at the door as a mage stepped in with a kind smile, an old physician that Marquis knew well. “Dr. Vans. Lovely to see you.”
He nodded politely. “It’s time for medication. Would you like to wait until after he’s done with that and his daily assessment?”
Mads fidgeted anxiously. “Those take quite a while.”
A cry came from down the hall as Rexford whispered soothing words to an irritated babe.
“They should head out. Let me say goodbye, first.” Mads cleared his throat, and stood, stepping into the hall to see them.
Marquis glanced at Dr. Vans. “I still love the poor boy.”
“Mates are hard to tear apart. Let’s give it some time. Once he’s stable, I would have no problem reuniting you two.” The doctor watched the door, lips twisted.
“And your unprofessional opinion?” Marquis lowered his voice.
“We have much research we can gain from him. If what he says is true. Also, how do you feel about waking up in the middle of the night to screaming?” Dr. Vans cut his gaze to Marquis.
“I’ll be back tomorrow with some of his things I kept to see what he recalls.” And at that, Marquis turned and left. And if he gave Mads a little too long of a hug, Rexford said nothing. But it was clear on his son’s face—it was a connection he’d always longed for.