Chapter 42
Chapter forty-two
Killian
“Iwould love nothing more, but after meeting your parents, we should sail the earth’s seas first, for there is a kraken warlock who can bind us, so we share a lifespan.”
“To earth we sail then,” James says, pulling me into the bed with him. The kiss he gives me feels like the end and the beginning wrapped up in one.
Two days later, we are docked at the port close to James, Matthew, and Barry’s family home, where, hopefully, both their parents still live. Barry is skipping along, telling me all about his favorite spots in this town; he seems blind to the tension radiating not only off me but off James too.
I have dressed in my most regal attire, the pockets in my coat heavy with gold.
Chrilla, Obsidian Oath’s healer, is following behind.
The plan is to convince his parents I will make their son happy, pay for the medicine his mother needs, and see if maybe a fae healer like Chrilla can make some difference too.
Maybe she has a cure or something that human doctors do not have.
James is quiet too, his bottom lip is red raw from biting it.
He told me how worried he is about his mother’s health and whether his parents will forgive him for taking his brothers to Silvermist. I spent the past two days trying to reassure him, but like when he tried to reassure me, it doesn’t seem to work.
“Here it is, our home,” Barry says, full of excitement still, but my heart drops when both James and Matthew falter. “Something is off,” James mutters, but before I can ask what it is, Barry rings the doorbell, and a woman far too young to be their mother opens the door.
“Please excuse my brother, we just came home from a trip, and we expected my parents to still be here.” James’ voice is soft, cracking like dry twigs.
The hand that was holding mine goes calmly before it limply falls to his side.
“Darling, we don’t know for sure,” I whisper; it’s a hollow remark in a desperate attempt to reassure him.
It was the first thing on my mind too when I realized his parents are no longer living in their childhood home.
The fear that we are too late and that his mother has passed away from grief and an illness.
“The Baringtons? Oh, they moved to smaller cottages at the outskirts of town, something about your father getting a new job.” At the woman’s gently spoken words, James’ knees buckle, and I can barely hold him upright.
“Excuse me, I am their son-in-law,” I say, using a title James’ parents might not feel I deserve, but it sure feels good introducing myself as James’ towards this random stranger. “Do you happen to know exactly where they live now?”
Ten minutes of her explaining later, we are on our way. Even Barry has quieted down by the time we get to the cottages at the edge of town, where their father now works as a lumberjack.
None of the Barington boys makes a move towards the cottage door, and while I don’t want to rush them.
We can’t just stay standing here looking at this door, so I knock.
All three brothers startle at the sound of metal pounding on wood.
Before they can say anything, a frail-looking woman opens the door.
She must be their mother; if her looks didn’t give it away, how she falls to the floor calling out: “Theodore, they’re back, they’re really here, they still found us,” does.
Everything around me happens in a flash, all three brothers run over to their mother hugging her as a man that is the spitting image of what I imagine James to be in forty years comes running up.
He smiles at his sons and then his eyes land on me. “And you are?” His tone is weary, and I get it—they found a letter saying their sons would go to another realm, with a stranger and now here I am, obviously not a human.
“My name is Captain Killian Tregear, and I am not the man who brought your sons to Silvermist. I rescued your youngest ones with James, but maybe we could go inside and talk?”
I am far from getting his father to accept me, but at least he asks me into his home and as far as I know, even for humans, that is no small feat. The brothers help their mother up, and then, we make our way into their small cabin.
“Mom, Dad, I am so sorry. I know now that you never found the gold we left you. I… if I had known I’d have made a better decision.
I hope you can forgive me one day. And please know that Killian is the one who saved us all.
He is not the man who took me—took us—to Silvermist.” James says, voice full of conviction to protect me.
“Mom, Dad, first why did you move here, why did you not stay in our old home?” Matthew asks. Unlike James, he and Barry were expecting to go home, and now the home they knew for most of their life was gone. Inhabited by some stranger.
“Well with you boys gone, we made a little less money, but we spent a lot less money too, and this house is smaller but cheaper. And on good weeks, we can afford your moms medicine now. But don’t you boys worry; we are so happy to have you all back.”
James slumps forward at his father’s words. “Actually, dad, I… I love Killian and I want to stay with him. But first, please let me tell you what happened and why I left to go to Silvermist.”
James’s parents look up, surprised, but they don’t say anything; they’re just letting James tell him what happened, and at times Matthew and Barry add in.
“First of all, James, I know I have been a bad father. I worried for your mother, the love of my life, too much. But we would never force you to marry someone you don’t love.
Or…keep you here when you can be with someone you do love, for that matter.
” We both have a vastly different reaction to his father’s words.
Where I am elated, the love of my life can live with me without his parents being upset, he seems shell shocked.
“No, no, no I overheard you tell mother. She didn’t want to at first. But you insisted you found me a good husband, a rich husband.” And with that James runs out.
“Darling, what is the matter,” I ask tenderly when I have caught up to him.
“The only comfort I had in all of this was that I had a good enough reason to leave my parents. That I was not this desperate, to follow some liar to another realm. In my mind, he didn’t manipulate me at first…” James sighs, burying his face in my chest.
“And now you are realizing he did,” I say once again knowing what James thinks and feels before he tells me.
“I did, I dreamed about this, you know, when I was going into withdrawal. I dreamed of his shadow being with my parents. I should have figured it out sooner, so much sooner. I abandoned my parents, put my brothers at risk, hurt you. All for some goat who was never worth it.”
Despite the hurt in James’s voice, I smile at hearing him call Peter a goat now.
“Your parents seem to forgive you, and I am so fucking glad you let him bring you to Silvermist. Our start might have been messy, but at least we had a beginning. And like I told you, we will seek out the sea witch, the kraken, and we will make sure we won’t have an ending for a very long time.
But to make sure that happens, we need to get back and talk to your parents. ”
James just nods and grabs my hand, and with that, we walk into his parents’ home. To close the chapter of his life and open a new one: The one he will spend with me by his side for as long as he will have me.
The End.