46. Deargán
DEARGáN
“Out of my way.”
Doctors and nurses scattered as I shouldered through the doors of Ravenwood Hospital with Lorcan cradled against my chest, Liath close behind me. I ignored the people who flinched or stared at the sight of my exposed scars, my mask long gone.
Lorcan’s blood kept coming, soaking through his robes and my suit and running warm down my arms, every step leaving another dark drop across the polished hospital floor. I tightened my grip.
My son.
I looked down at his face. The line of his jaw, the shape of his mouth, the dark lashes resting against skin drained almost white. They were all mine. How had I never seen it? How many times had I looked directly at him without truly looking?
It struck me then that this was only the second time I had ever carried him. The first time, he’d been bleeding too.
A father should carry his son when he’s small enough to fall asleep against his shoulder, when scraped knees need bandaging, and when tiny arms wrap around his neck. Not like this. Never like this.
The doors to the emergency room burst open, and hands took him from me, pulling him onto a gurney. I let them, only because I had to.
Doctors surrounded him immediately and I lost sight of him as they wheeled him away, their voices overlapping.
“Pressure’s dropping.”
“Massive blood loss.”
“We’re losing him.”
They disappeared through another set of doors, the theater swallowing him, and silence rushed in behind them.
I stood where they’d left me, blood covering both of my hands. His blood.
My son’s blood.
“Deargán.” Liath’s voice cracked as she hit my chest. Her arms wrapped around me while sobs tore through her body. She’d stood there barefoot, still wearing that cursed lingerie they’d placed her in under my suit jacket.
For a moment I stood frozen. Then, slowly, I wrapped my arms around her.
She hadn’t come to me willingly since the fire. Not once. Now she clung to me as though she would drown without something to hold. The sweetness of finally having her in my arms was poisoned by the reason she was there.
She was grieving him.
Strangely… I no longer resented it.
I rested my cheek lightly against the top of her head while her tears soaked into my ruined shirt. Eventually her sobbing eased enough that she could breathe again.
I looked down at her, so many questions jammed behind my teeth. “How long have you known?”
She lifted her head, her throat bobbing. “A few weeks.”
A few weeks. She’d known for weeks that he was my boy. Kept it from me for weeks. “I see.”
“Lorcan found out Alistair wasn’t his father and…” Her eyes filled with tears again. “I wanted to tell you. But it wasn’t my secret.”
His bedroom. My knife at his throat. My hatred.
Christ. I’d tried to kill him.
He’d already known. He’d known exactly who I was that night. He’d lain there, unable to speak the truth while I cut his throat. When he’d looked at me, his murderer… he’d been looking at his own father.
Shame settled over me with suffocating weight. I squeezed my eyes closed, the image of his eyes that night stayed behind them, looking up at me from the floor as my knife cut open his throat.
I struggled to steady my breath. “Did he…” The words almost refused to come. “Did he ever want me to know?”
“He did. He just needed time to come to terms with it first.”
That night fifteen years ago at Lasair Manor, when I’d come back for Maggie. As I pulled her and, begrudgingly, the boy along behind me in the dark.
“Please,” Maggie said, “If not for me. Then for Lorc—”
She’d tried to tell me, but I hadn’t listened. I’d been so consumed with killing William Lasair that I’d never stopped to hear her.
If I had… everything would have changed.
“If not for me. Then for Lorcan.”
“Why would I do anything for Lorcan?”
“Because, Bron… he’s yours.”
I let myself imagine the life we’d lost. Maggie beside me beneath a warm Spanish sun.
A small white cottage overlooking the sea.
Lorcan racing barefoot across the sand. Me teaching him to fish, teaching him how to throw a punch, watching him grow taller every year, watching him become a man, and then watching him fall hopelessly in love.
Instead… I’d left him to be raised by the enemy. I hunted him. I hated him. I nearly killed him.
The operating theater doors opened, and the surgeon stepped into the corridor. Both Liath and I broke apart. Her hand grabbed mine as we stepped forward. I clung to her just as tightly.
“Is he?” Liath asked, her voice a mere whisper.
The surgeon’s mouth turned down. “I’m sorry.”
Those two words punched the air from my lungs.
No.
“The damage to his heart is catastrophic. Without an immediate transplant…” He trailed off. “The transplant list won’t reach him in time.”
The surgeon stepped aside. “I thought you’d both want a few minutes to say goodbye.”
Somehow, I found myself standing inside the operating room, cold and overlit, every surface pale and hard. Lorcan lay surrounded by machines, tubes, monitors, and the steady rhythm of artificial breaths.
Somehow, I couldn’t bring myself to get any closer. I didn’t deserve it.
Liath collapsed beside the bed and took his hand between both of hers. “Please.” Her voice broke. “I love you. Don’t make me spend the rest of my life grieving you.” Her shoulders shook as she crumpled over him. “It would destroy me.”
Alistair was dead. I’d won.
And I’d never felt more empty.
“Please,” Liath pressed her forehead against the back of his hand. “Stay.”
The surgeon, standing behind me, sighed. “If we had a compatible donor immediately, I’d be optimistic. He’s young.”
He needed a compatible donor. Immediately.
I looked down at my hands. His blood, my blood, had dried dark in the lines of my scarred palms.
I walked over and touched Liath’s shoulder gently. “Come with me.”
She looked up, confused, as I guided her into the corridor.
The door swung shut behind us, its small observation window framing Lorcan’s broken body lying on the table.
Before she could ask why, I leaned down and kissed her softly on the forehead. “Thank you. For teaching me how to love again.”
She frowned. She didn’t understand. She wasn’t meant to. But she would.
I turned away before I lost my nerve, stepping back into the operating theater and locking it behind me.
The surgeon and nurses were in the midst of dismantling the theater around Lorcan’s body.
I drew Alistair’s pistol, still tucked into my waistband, and pointed it at the surgeon. “Everyone, stop.”
Heads turned. The room froze, gasps slipped out, and instruments clattered into metal trays.
The surgeon slowly raised both hands. “What are you doing?”
I kept the gun level. “You’re going to give my son my heart.”
His face drained of color. “What?”
“You heard me.”
“But… it’s illegal. And I can’t morally—”
“You’ll be saving two lives.” I nodded toward Lorcan. “His.”
Then I turned toward the window, where Liath was pounding against the glass.
“And hers.”
The surgeon stared at me, the whites showing around his eyes. “You will die.”
“I know.” My chest ached around a dry, tight knot as my gaze landed on Lorcan’s face.
On my son’s face, his body too still and too pale.
The soft hum of the room seemed to fade around me. “I can’t give him back the years I wasted hating him. But I can give him the rest of his life.”
The surgeon searched my face for a long moment.
Then, slowly, he nodded.
Through the glass window in the door, Liath was still screaming. She pounded both fists against the doors as tears streamed down her face.
I walked to the glass and placed my hand against it. “Let me do this for you. For him.”
She sucked back a sob, brushing a hand over her face as she let out a shuddering breath.
Then she placed her hand to meet mine on the opposite side of the glass.
For the first time in decades… I felt like I’d made the right choice.