34. Deacon
Chapter 34
Deacon
Revecca’s friendly demeanor last night is long gone. This afternoon she steps out of the throne room, rage ready, and snaps an order. “Come.”
Not quite ready to take her on when she’s mad, I dutifully fall into step behind her. My wolf is no stranger to her and Cade’s tempers. He doesn’t even rise at the aggression.
She leads me through the palace. As we walk, people bow their heads and wait. Some go the full traditional route of tipping their heads aside and exposing their neck entirely. The air around her is completely uncomfortable for a wolf, and going so far to submit so completely, nearly ready to die with their throats exposed, is telling of the fear she strikes in those around her, me excluded.
Ten minutes later, we’ve reached the far end of the castle, and Revecca stops, hand resting on the door handle. “It’s quite possible that this will be a bit of a shock to your system. Just know that what has happened to her is not entirely her fault.”
Her ominous warning doesn’t sit well with me, and my stomach churns.
Revecca leads me inside and crosses the room, coming to stand beside a woman sitting in a wheelchair.
“Deacon, this is your mother.” Revecca pauses. “Your and Ansel’s mother. Though, I don’t believe the blood work results came to you with any shock.”
I can’t come up with anything to say.
The woman has long graying brown hair and piercing green eyes that are lost in a thousand-yard stare. She’s little more than a hollow shell staring out the window. I should have feelings about this, but shock is taking over.
“Does she speak English?” I ask, turning toward Revecca.
“A couple years ago, when she last spoke, it was in English,” Revecca answers. She strokes the woman’s hair. “We were called by Robert, perhaps six years ago now, and told there was an Ardelean in distress. He did not feel comfortable caring for her.” Revecca’s distaste of Robert is evident in the venom dripping from those words. “So, we brought her home. Unfortunately, it’s been a slow decline in her health. She gets trapped a lot within her gift. With yours, you shouldn’t have any issue speaking with her.”
Still too shocked to really know what to say, I nod in response.
A couple years ago. Trapped in her gift. Fan - fucking - tastic.
“What is her gift?”
“She walks in the astral realm,” Revecca answers like I should know what that means.
Then she leaves me alone with this woman without another word, closing the door behind her.
I move to the wall with the window and slide down to sit facing her. Her vacant expression, staring off into the ether, is a damn near perfect reflection of how I feel inside when I’m not in the same room as Henri.
“I’m Deacon. I guess. ”
She doesn’t move. I don’t expect her to.
Is this my fate, slipping away into a meager existence within my own head?
I draw a breath and start talking because what else am I supposed to do? “From my understanding this might be the longest amount of time we’ve ever spent together.” My voice falls flat, but I keep talking. “Allora and Elliot Alloway, my sister’s biological parents, say that Ebenezer and Karina Alden announced my birth just a few days after I had been born, but there wasn’t a lot of certainty that Karina had ever been pregnant. Revecca confirmed that the Aldens, whoever they really were, were never her or Cade’s parents. That sibling set seemed to be wrapped up with the Ardelean royal family’s disappearance. I personally never witnessed Ebenezer and Karina having a gift. It didn’t seem plausible that I was their son being cursed like this. People, children, don’t materialize out of nowhere. It’s clear I had parents out there somewhere.”
I force myself to quit rambling over nothing, to stop drawing conclusions and passing off my deductive reasoning as facts. I hang my head and sit in silence for a long time, looking at her stocking feet on the floor. The blanket they’ve draped across her lap ends just below her knees, and her hands rest in her lap with her long hair draped over her shoulder.
“I guess.” I start again. “Maybe, sitting here with you is answer enough. If a hollow shell is my destiny, I’m well on the way to that. Ansel’s gift is easier, but his life has been more fucked up. Yet somehow, I’m the one at the end of my rope.”
She says nothing. I think her fingers move, threatening to twitch to life, but I’m probably seeing things.
“Revecca can take my wolf. And my gift.” The words come out easier this time.
You’d be lost without me. My wolf interjects.
I don’t need to speak Romanian to find something strong enough to make you disappear. Don’t push your luck. I warn him. He slowly sinks back in my consciousness.
Revecca wanted me to talk to her, so I guess this is as good of a conversation as any. “I’m useless. Not exactly the child you should be proud of. That’s Ansel because there’s an enigma. He’s a fucking genius with wolves who need help and well, want help. I don’t fall into that category, I don’t think. No one is better for me being in their life.”
Especially not Henri. That thought dampens the fire that had sparked in my rant but doesn’t put it out.
“Anyway, if Revecca takes my wolf and gift, then I don’t have to deal with seeing them—the ancestors, old dead people, spirits, ghosts, whatever it is. They won’t be able to talk to me, I won’t have to talk back, and it’ll finally be peaceful.” I push my head against the brick wall and thump it softly again and again, trying to push intrusive thoughts from my brain only to spark ones of bashing my head against it until that’s the end.
I look at her sitting in the chair. She looks more like me than Ansel. Except for the high cheekbones we all share.
“But if I give up my wolf, I lose the possibility of finding my mate.” The world is blurry, and I wipe the moisture out of my eyes. So much for anger. “I’ve been purposefully so stoned or drunk that I can’t feel my wolf when the person I like the most is around. If you can’t feel your wolf, you can’t feel your mate, and it’s not fair to her.”
Silence blankets the room, and I swear our heartbeats echo.
“It’s not fair to her that she ties herself to me if this is how I end up. Fuck, how old are you, even? I’m thirty. So, what... I’ve maybe twenty years left before I’m completely useless to the world? That’s hardly fair because really, it’s only fifteen when you think about how long it must have taken for you to deteriorate to this. Wolves heal fast, so what happened that you’re like this?”
I didn’t realize my words turned sharp again until the feeling of my nails digging into my palm startles me. My hands shake as I uncurl them from fists and try to steady myself.
“Fifteen years isn’t long enough to be happy.” I sniffle and wipe my nose on my sleeve. “I don’t want this for me. The only thing I can do is give up my wolf. I’m glad to just be human. It’s not so bad. I’ve known a lot of nice humans, most of them living. I could make a really good husband to someone. But not a mate. Not for her.”
If I could though... I look at the first biological parent I’ve ever located. My thought sours. I’d only bring Henri more heartbreak.
“Fuck!” I shout to break the silence.
The shell of my genetic match doesn’t even flinch.
“If I could control it. If I could just find a way to shut it off.” I shake my head, thinking of all the times I’ve tried. “There’s no controlling it. There’s no learning to deal with it. There’s no relief except to live as a human. Even then... I’ll lose her. There’s no winning in this end game. There’s no point.”
Pressing my head against the brick again, I look at her. I wait for answers that I know won’t come.
The door doesn’t open or click close, so when I hear a voice, I know it’s not someone alive in the room.
“Deacon.”
Of fucking course the ghosts here have all learned my name.
I turn my head to look at the ghost, ready to tell them to fuck off.
The sight takes my breath away. The woman in the wheelchair hasn’t moved but her spitting image, younger but definitely her, stands halfway across the room.
She walks forward, and I scramble to my feet .
“You are so beautiful. Just like your brother. How did they give you that name, Deacon?”
My hand goes to my chest, and my heart is pounding behind my ribs.
“I know you can see me, Deacon,” she prompts, tilting her head to the side. “I also know you can hear me.”
“I—” What do you even say to that?
“You were brought here to see me, and I’m here,” she says, expecting something from me. Something more than shock apparently.
Vague statements and a divine knowing must be a key trait among females in our bloodline.
I have millions of questions, but the beginning feels most logical. It’s where the pain started. “Why did you give me to them?”
“I didn’t want to. But I was no better off than you are now.” She gestures for me to follow her. “The men who were... keeping me... wouldn’t let me have suppressants. They wanted another one of our bloodline. They told me they needed one more son to protect the spare heir of The Pricolici. If I made one more son, just one more son, they said they found a family who could keep you, in my place, that you’d be safe, and they’d let me go. They told me that these people wanted a baby more than anything. I could help, and then when I was done helping, I could go home.”
I follow her to a sitting area by the fireplace, with one more look back at the shell sitting in the wheelchair.
“Did they?” I don’t even know what to ask.
In the end, this is where she ended up. Help or not, this was her fate.
“It was a lie. There was something not right about the oldest boy. It was too late before...” She swallows and then changes her train of thought. “Not home, no,” she answers softly. “I cleaned myself up and retraced my tracks, trying to find your brother first. I wanted us to be a family. I always knew you were safe and would continue to be.”
“But?” Isn’t there always a but?
“You must know how hard it is.” She trails off, looking at me with a raised eyebrow and a cocked head. It’s somehow judgmental and understanding at the same time. “It’s hard to stop doing anything that stops the gift. I didn’t have skills or a pack. Your father and your brother’s father weren’t my mates. They were chosen for their distinctive traits. I had no mate, no pack, no home, and my gift...”
My empathy wiggles free from the tight grip I’ve kept on my emotions. How many times have I thought about how much easier life would be without a pack or a family? I could just let go and be free. She was alone, and it didn’t make it easier for her. Maybe life with my idiots is better than without them.
“You should spend time with your brother. Perhaps he can help you, the bond between you could strengthen you.” She offers this without knowing anything beyond this conversation.
It’s not like Ms. Gertie when she mothers me. She, at least, doesn’t come across as sounding entitled.
I dismiss her since it’s something I’ve already tried. “Ansel has his plate full already.”
“Where did he end up? I always hoped it was with kind people. How did he come to have that name?” She rests back, lounging effortlessly and unburdened, asking questions. Her nonchalance hurts the inner child in me who wondered if there was a parent out there who would have loved me. “I wasn’t allowed to name either of you. I would have liked to. Maybe.”
It doesn’t feel like my story to tell. But in the same breath, I’m never going to tell Ansel she’s here, so he won’t be telling her his story either. There’s no need for him to relive the nightmares of his past more than he already does.
“They found him in Montana. Victim of severe neglect, child abuse, and sex trafficking.” I cut off that he’s the most intelligent person I know and that he’s so much stronger than any of us.
I want to hurt her in the way Ansel and I have been hurting by showing her what she missed out on, but it doesn’t feel like this is supposed to be her fight. Yet, that anger is there.
She shakes her head and clenches her fists. “He was born when I was in a dark place. I hadn’t seen the light of day since my heat. They took him from me. I assumed he was dead.”
And when she weeps, I want to be the bigger person. I want to have Ansel’s strength and ability to forgive. But I have no compassion. My anger, disappointment, and frustration with myself and the world are bigger than her and her sorrows.
“How many of us did you curse with the irreparable damage of growing up without loving homes? How many—” I fight back the snarl.
I want to blame her for our gifts because while Revecca’s grandmother had control of assigning them, I know they run in bloodlines. They’d all be related somehow. All of us would be cursed with seeing the dead or astral plane, but I leave it out of this conversation.
“There may have been one more of you,” she answers, shaking her head. “I don’t know. There was a time when reality, my gift, and... and the drugs blended.”
I’ve never been so messed up that I didn’t know what was real. Keeping a level head for Lena was always the most important part of my life.
What a blessing my mother had that so effortlessly ... I stop the judgmental thoughts. She didn’t ask for this any more than I did.
“Ansel must see when death is coming. Since you can see the astral plane.” She makes it sound like I have a choice.
“That’s the gist of it.”
How is it fair she just has all this information? But the answer is evident: ancestors.
I look back over at the hollow shell. “Is that what I can look forward to?”
“Embrace who you are and lean into your gift. Quit running from it.” She has the audacity to scold me with a sharp and snappy tone. “I only wanted happiness for you. I thought for sure Ebenezer and Karina would coach you to find your mate and accept them. Here you are hiding from love and what can make you stable. All you had to do was do better than me.”
“So, you’re saying all I have to do is sober up and magically, my gift will be manageable?” Tall fucking tale if I’ve ever heard one before. It’s not even something she did for herself.
She shakes her head. “It’s never going to be that easy.”
“Ditch the wolf, save the world.” Get up the courage to finally end all this suffering.
Or, let me do my job? My wolf rises to argue with me. Apparently he’s forgotten the chances he’s had to prove he can.
“If you’re so dead set on being miserable for the rest of your life, then do it. Let Revecca release your wolf.” The woman challenges me like reverse psychology or some bullshit has ever worked on me.
I’m miserable now. Misery is subjective.
“I don’t think you have any room to talk.” I stand and start across the room.
I hope her spirit is tied to her body so she can’t follow me.
It’s time to end this.
Out in the hall Revecca isn’t there, but Patrick is. He smiles. “Her Royal Highness had some additional matters to attend to, but she sent me. Figured it would be beneficial to have someone who speaks Romanian with you.”
“That’s fantastic.” I try to leave off the sarcasm, but I’m rattled.
Patrick snorts. “I can’t imagine that was an easy visit.”
I deflect. “Any place one can get black-out drunk?”
“Well.” Patrick starts walking, and I follow because he’s right. Probably will help to have someone who speaks Romanian, even if I’ve got to find a way to bribe him to get what I want. Halfway down the hall, he finishes his statement. “Finn called.”
“Of course he fucking did. Has he always been this meddlesome?” I growl.
“Yes. Only worse.” Patrick laughs. “But only for those of us he cares about. If Finn doesn’t give two fucks about you, then it’s a completely different relationship.”
“How do I get him to not give two fucks?” I ask, knowing there isn’t an answer for that, but it feels good to at least have someone who understands that my sister’s mate is overbearing.
“If you figure that out, let me know.” Patrick smiles and opens a door to the hallway on our left, leading me into it.
A wall of windows lets in the midday light, and it’s surprisingly serene if castles are your thing.
“I had our doctor cut you a script. I wasn’t sure what dosage, so I went mid-range.” Patrick pulls a bottle of pills out of his pants pocket.
“Thank you.” I look at the amber bottle, shocked by what I find.
HRH Deacon Alden, Morphine .
“Collect the script before you fly out, and you can take what’s left with you.” Patrick continues down the hall.
I shrug, pocketing the pills without checking how many there are. “You’re assuming I’m not here to stay.”
Patrick snorts. “Right. And I’m only here as a goodwill ambassador.”
“Never know. Romania is a beautiful country, perhaps I enjoy being here.” I look at the courtyard. There are worse places to die.
“Then you won’t be needing those at all. Revecca won’t allow an Ardelean to keep their wolf as far under as you normally do. She can’t stand to know they’re hurting.” Patrick holds his hand out to take the pill bottle back. “Revecca wants you mostly sober to work with her and your wolf. However, she can’t meet with you right now, this afternoon, or tomorrow. This way you have some time to avoid the ancestors, if you want to.”
I put my hand in my pocket, thumbing the lid. But I can’t bring myself to hand them back over. It’s pointless to even bluff that I’m staying. I want to go home, and I want to be buried at Ansel’s in the desert. Someplace this nice doesn’t need me tainting their soil.
But that little part of me that’s attached to Henri wants to see what Revecca has to say and if she really can make this better. The single donor of genetic material I’ve met isn’t exactly the greatest encouragement that life is going to get better.
“Let’s go see the sights.” I bring the pill bottle out of my pocket, thumb off the lid, swallow a pill dry, and then put it back in my pocket. “I’ll talk to Revecca when her calendar allows. Today, I want to see why she’s obsessed with this country.”