6. Brakkus
Brakkus
When I walked into the kitchen early the next morning, neither Hannah nor Otto was there. I poured my coffee and stood by the window, looking out at the breaking day. The early morning sunlight glinted in the pool and a red-tailed hawk swooped from the pale blue sky.
I checked the clock on the stove. It was already past seven. Otto was usually up by now. Curious about what had happened, I carried my coffee back to the private wing of the house and slowly opened the nursery door. Otto was still sleeping peacefully in his crib.
Since Nadia had taught me soon after he was born to never wake a sleeping baby, I left him where he was.
I closed the door and went to my bedroom, assuming he must have woken up in the night.
I didn’t hear anything. I grabbed the baby monitor off the nightstand in my bedroom and found it was out of batteries.
I’d given the other monitor to Hannah. If something happened last night, I slept through it.
Gritting my teeth with irritation, I went back down the hall to the study and sat behind my desk. I wanted to get to the bottom of this before I interrogated her. I turned on my computer and pulled up the security feeds from the night before.
Nothing happened for a long time. But at about 3 a.m., Otto started screaming.
I couldn’t hear anything through the feed, but I could see his little face contorted in a violent wail on the nanny cam.
A moment later, Hannah came rushing into the nursery.
She gathered him from the crib and rocked him gently in her arms.
She checked him and then carried him into the bathroom.
A moment later, she left the bathroom and walked into the hall.
I followed her on the security cameras through the house and into the kitchen.
Otto was still screaming on Hannah’s hip when she filled a bowl with ice water and moistened a washcloth.
She pressed the cloth into his mouth and after a moment, Otto stopped screaming.
I sat back in my chair, watching her pressing the cold cloth to his gums, rocking him and pacing through the kitchen for the next hour. Scrubbing my hand down my face, I grumbled to myself.
Finally, Otto seemed to relax, and Hannah took Otto and the ice water back to the nursery. I watched her rock him back to sleep, place him in his crib, and go back to her room.
She’d done a good job taking care of him last night.
She’d mentioned something about his tusk coming in yesterday morning, and I’d barely registered what she’d been saying.
Apparently, it was more serious than I’d imagined.
I squinted at the live feed of the hallway.
Hannah had come out of her room in her bathrobe, red hair frizzy around her head, and headed to the nursery.
Was this woman really who she claimed to be, or was this an elaborate ruse? I watched her change Otto in the nursery and then carry him back down the hall to the kitchen.
I looked at the baby monitor on my desk.
Why had it died? I tried to remember the last time I’d changed the batteries.
I couldn’t remember, but I couldn’t help thinking there was a possibility that she’d sabotaged the device so I wouldn’t hear my son’s distress in the night.
I’d have to keep a closer eye on her to make sure.
I climbed up from my desk and made my way across the house to the kitchen.
When I arrived, Hannah had Otto in his high chair, feeding him scrambled eggs and shredded chicken.
It was a good protein-rich breakfast for a growing orc boy.
I frowned. I couldn’t get him to eat anything like that since Brielle left.
“How was your night?” I asked, refilling my coffee.
“Otto woke up at about 3 a.m. He was having really bad tooth pain. But I think I discovered the method that will help him through it from now on. But I’m thinking there must be teething toys made for toddlers with tusks. I’m going to check online this morning.”
“Hmm… Okay…”
“I’m glad he got some sleep after last night,” she said, helping him scoop another bite of scrambled eggs into his mouth with his little plastic spoon. “I’d also like to speak with his pediatrician about his development.”
My ears perked up. Why was she so interested in his health history? She’d been supplied a general file in the hiring packet. What was her angle?
“Why?” I grumbled suspiciously.
“The file mentioned his development had regressed since his mother’s passing…”
I let out a low growl, cutting her off. I hadn’t meant to let it slip out. But hearing her mention my late wife set me off.
“Sorry… I didn’t mean to…”
“It’s fine. What about his regression?” I tried to sound more pleasant because I was genuinely curious what she had to say.
“It’s common for children to regress after such a major loss. Development typically recovers after a while. But I wanted to understand the nature of the regression. The file didn’t go into detail.”
“What do you need to know?” I said, the gravel coming back into my voice. I felt like she was intruding into personal information. But I had to remind myself she was a nurse, supposedly.
“I hadn’t heard Otto verbalize at all in the first twenty-four hours I was with him. But last night, he responded to me asking him if he was all better.”
“What did he say?” I asked, standing up straight. My son hadn’t spoken since his mother’s death. His first word had been Mama. But he hadn’t said anything else.
“He verbalized ‘betta,’ which is a common toddler pronunciation of better.” She turned to Otto and smiled.
“Isn’t that right, Otto? Were you all better?”
“Betta,” he said, lifting his sippy cup. He shoved the soft silicone spout into his mouth. He chugged his milk and then slammed the cup onto his tray. “Betta.”
I stood there wide-eyed and dumbstruck. “That’s new…” I finally managed.
“I thought so.” She beamed at Otto, wiping milk off his face. He’d finished his entire plate of food and seemed quite satisfied.
“That’s why I wanted to get in touch with the healer from the Breakstone enclave so we could discuss his health history in detail. It might help me construct a developmental support plan.”
“Okay. I’ll see what I can do,” I said, still recovering from the shock. In one day, Hannah Brooks had unlocked my son from the spell of his grief that had overcome him for the last six months.
She picked him up from the high chair just as Lola entered the kitchen in her freshly pressed uniform. She didn’t live on the property but had full access. She’d worked for me since I first bought the property seven years ago and was one of the few humans I still trusted.
“I’m going to get this guy bathed and changed.”
“Leave the mess. I’ll clean it up,” Lola said.
Hannah thanked Lola and carried Otto out of the kitchen. “She seems to be working out well,” Lola said, picking up Otto’s plate and sippy cup.
“Seems to be. But I’m still not convinced.”
“I know what a disappointment Brielle was. But just because there was one bad apple, doesn’t mean they all will be.”
“Humph.”
“She’s a sweet girl, Brakkus. I think you should give her a chance.”
“There’s something off about her. She’s got an angle,” I said, sipping my coffee and looking out the window. Lola turned on a faucet behind me.
“What makes you say that?”
“Just a feeling I get. In my gut. I haven’t felt anything like it since…”
I thought about when I met my late wife. My fated mate. The woman who meant everything to me, and whose death made me want to end it all too. Otto was one of the only reasons I was still here. Some days, I had to remind myself to keep breathing for the sake of my son.
“And she smells funny…” I finished.
“Funny?” Lola said, the sound of the dishwasher opening behind me. “How?”
“I don’t know… just funny.” Like she’s trying to drug me with her scent, I wanted to say. But I knew that would sound insane. Lola had seen me through the worst of it after Nadia’s death, but she didn’t need to hear anything like that this morning.
“Well, hopefully she’ll work out.” Lola started the dishwasher, and the sound of water spraying filled the silence. I turned around as she was opening the refrigerator.
“I’ll make waffles for your breakfast and start chicken enchiladas for lunch. Does that sound good?”
“Yeah. Everything you make is good, Lola. Thanks.”
She nodded at me as I left the room and returned to my office. I felt overwhelmed with emotions I couldn’t name. All I wanted to do was watch Hannah all day. I knew something was going on with that woman; I just couldn’t name it yet.
I hadn’t been diligent enough with the last one, and I’d been paying for it ever since. I opened my computer and pulled up my emails. There was an urgent message from Trey. I clicked it and what I found on the screen made my blood run cold.
Brakkus—call me before you react. Legal’s already on this. But I wanted you to hear it from me first.
This photo ran in Cryptid Confidential this morning. The link to the article is below.
Don’t post about it. Don’t call them. Don’t react. Legal is starting a takedown order.
—Trey
[link: The Brute’s forgotten boy. Inside Drakkar’s troubled home.]
I stared at the photo in the body of the email.
It was of Otto in his high chair in the kitchen.
He was staring into space with drool running down his chin.
His clothes were messy and disheveled. My finger lingered over the link, rage and humiliation warring in my chest. Trey warned me not to react.
And I knew if I read the article, I’d rip my computer out of the wall and throw it through the sliding glass door into the pool.
The rage was boiling up so hot, I almost justified the mess and expense, just so I could have an outlet. Then I thought of Lola having to clean it up and the workmen who’d have to come to fix it. And I’d also have to make Trey go buy me a new computer. Not worth it.
I stood from my desk and started down the hall, stripping out of my clothes before I’d even made it to the gym. Before Nadia moved in and made this place a home, the gym was one of the only rooms that had been fully furnished.
The gym had the same high ceilings and open beams as the rest of the house. With a polished concrete floor covered in rubber mats and a long bank of windows that looked out on the hills and the dry grass that was turning gold.
I caught myself stalking through the space in the mirrors opposite the windows. I glanced at the power rack against the far wall. My green muscles were bulging as I stripped out of my pants and squared up on the heavy bag in the middle of the floor.
My naked fist slammed into the bag, sending it creaking back from the impact. A human bag would have flown into the power rack from one punch from an orc. But this was heavily reinforced and bolted into the floor with a base that was fixed into the rebar in the subfloor.
I hit the bag like it was everyone involved in putting my kid’s face in that tabloid.
The editors, the graphic designers. The photographer—Brielle.
The woman I’d trusted to care for my poor grieving boy.
The woman who’d touched my arm during dinner and laughed at my jokes.
Playing the healer for the pathetic widower.
And I’d fallen for it. I’d trusted her. I’d let her near my son.
I hit it again and then spun a roundhouse into it, shin to leather, and felt the whole anchored post take it and give nothing back.
Then I went in with the combo I’d ended men with.
Overhand right. Hook off the same shoulder.
Uppercut up the middle that would’ve lifted a jaw clean off.
A liver shot that folded a man who wasn’t there.
And because the bag didn’t fall and didn’t swing and wouldn’t go down, I closed on it—got it in the clinch, the way you trap a head, and drove knees into it, elbows down across it, the slab taking every shudder up through my feet.
It still didn’t go down. Nothing I had put into it moved it an inch.
I stepped off and threw a low kick into the base of it anyway, then another, the dull heavy thud of shin on canvas.
I was sweating, and my knuckles and shins were scraped and starting to bleed. Breathing heavily, I rested my hands on my knees, and sweat dripped down my face. Banging myself up was better than tearing my office apart. But no matter how hard I hit the bag, the rage wouldn’t quit.
That despicable woman had taken photos of my son and sold them to the tabloids. I gritted my teeth and stood as my phone rang from my pants. Growling, I went to yank it from the back pocket, expecting to see Trey’s caller ID.
It wasn’t Trey. It was the Monster-In-Law herself—Orsala Vossic.
I hadn’t answered her daily calls in weeks. I couldn’t listen to her I-told-you-sos and not-so-subtle blame for Nadia’s death. I usually blew her off and let the call go to voice mail.
But not today. Today I wanted someone to take my frustrations out on, and she was the perfect candidate.
“What?” I growled in answer.
“Brakkus, what’s going on?” Her voice was like cut glass. “Why haven’t you been answering your phone?”
“I’m busy raising my son, Orsala.” I wiped the sweat from my upper lip. “What do you want?”
“Clearly you haven’t been busy enough. Theron and I have been made aware of the photographs in Cryptid Confidential. How did this happen? Why aren’t you caring for our grandson? Why did he look like that?”
“It’s being handled,” I growled.
“Brakkus, Theron and I are deeply concerned about Otto. And those photographs prove we were not overreacting. We need to know he’s well taken care of.”
“Fine. Come see for yourself.”
I knew that they wouldn’t lower themselves to come to Texas to visit the vulgar, sweaty circus performer on his home turf.
“We’ll see.”
“You do that,” I said, hanging up.
My eyes lifted to the bank of mirrors on the wall. I was sweaty and bleeding and in nothing but my underwear. I couldn’t help but see the exact Brute the Vossics had warned their daughter not to mate with.