Chapter 20 #2
“Not at first,” Rian admitted with another wince that seemed filled with painful regret.
“I returned to Ahnnaòin under the assumption that I would never see him again, but I could not seem to… stay away. I returned every few months and spent as much time as I could bear the heat of the Summer Court. That went on for almost ten years.”
“Wow,” I mumbled thoughtfully. “I suppose you could not be together when you were from different courts.”
“No,” Rian agreed and scrubbed a hand over his face before he hung his head. “And I used that fact as a safety net for myself to let him get close to me,” he gritted out.
I hesitated, lowering the wine bottle I had been about to take a swig out of and looked at Rian’s lowered head in shock.
I had assumed the reason he was reluctant to tell me about his history with my brother was that he did not think I deserved to know it after I killed Aodhan.
But it had nothing to do with me. He hesitated because he was ashamed of how he had treated my brother.
“The truth is that I was inexcusably selfish with him,” Rian continued as he stared straight ahead with his fingers tightly interlaced.
“I knew all along that I needed to stop seeing him, especially after he started to feel more for me than I was comfortable with at the time. He even became willing to move to the Vale after he heard that fey from all over the Four Courts could exist there together. I told him it was impossible, since I could not abandon my brothers. But what I did not tell him was that… I would not have gone with him even if I was able to leave the Wild Hunt,” Rian confessed through his teeth.
“Not because I did not care for him, because I did, I was just…” Rian trailed off, uncertain how to put his insecurities into words.
“People rely so heavily on you, but you have only ever been able to rely on yourself. Trusting someone else with your heart was too terrifying a risk to take,” I guessed.
Rian glanced at me in surprise that I understood him, but his admission had made it clear to me that we shared similar fears and insecurities.
Carrick once told me that Rian seemed to feel like he had to shoulder everything all on his own, and I knew that burden.
I knew from my own experiences how it felt to be reduced to little more than a resource that other people sought to abuse.
And then to be betrayed and denied even the most basic loyalty in return.
It had not been until Sage showed me that he’d choose me over everything, even his brothers, before I started to trust him with the pieces of my heart.
Rian gave a nearly imperceptible nod and then reached for the wine and pipe that had been forgotten in my hand. We sat silently while he took a swig from the wine bottle and then a long pull from the pipe.
I was not sure where the impulse came from, but Sage must have been rubbing off on me because I reached for Rian’s hand to give it a quick squeeze. It surprised me as much as it shocked Rian, which made us both laugh.
“Aodhan had become quite familiar with my brothers over the years, but he was especially close with Keelan. The rider Ciaran eventually challenged,” Rian explained.
“The two of them got drunk enough one night that Keelan let it slip how riders were chosen. And I suppose Aodhan thought he had finally found a way for us to be together while I continued to serve the Hunt.”
“Oh,” I groaned knowingly, and he nodded.
“The next time the Wild Hunt joined me in Sumarra, he challenged and defeated a rider called Niall in battle.”
We were both silent while he worked up the nerve to say what I had already guessed would come next.
“I was angry with him for a long time. I knew at the time that I was being unfair, and that I should have been more honest with him about my feelings. The breakdown of our relationship caused a rift in the Hunt for some time. He felt used and deceived. I felt trapped. For many years, we were unkind to one another. We would parade lovers in front of one another and exchange the cruelest words. We even got into physical altercations.”
“Wow,” I muttered. “So when you say that you were together for twenty years, you must mean the last twenty in which I assume you reconciled?”
“Correct,” Rian sighed with his eyes on the bottle he was twirling with the tips of his fingers on the neck.
“Did you come to appreciate his presence?” I asked.
“I did. It just took me a long time.”
“He must have loved you a great deal if he was willing to join the Hunt just to be with you,” I hedged, and Rian tried to conceal his flinch as he nodded.
“Aodhan was not… always liked by everyone he met, but it was only because not everyone got the privilege of knowing the real him. He was reckless with his safety and unforgiving of anyone who threatened us, and I know that made my family… skeptical. He was guarded, but when he did love, it was hard and unapologetically. He was the kind of male who would start wars and raze cities for the people he wanted to protect. You… You would have been one of those people. I know it,” Rian insisted, his voice catching before he brought the bottle to his lips again.
I was quiet as I tried to reframe the male I had met so briefly and under such painful circumstances.
For the first time since that day, I deliberately recalled his handsome face and stunning whisky eyes.
I thought about how his auburn hair had been braided with gold rings and feathers and wondered if Rian had done it for him.
I remembered the way his ears betrayed him, the same way mine always gave away my thoughts and feelings.
I tried to imagine how he might have looked without the hateful scowl and wondered how his smile might have lit up his face.
“It is strange to imagine how different my life might have been if he had managed to find me,” I admitted and snagged the pipe back from Rian.
“The two of you together would have ruled Sumarra,” he assured me. “It was always his intention to return to the Rowan Wood and destroy your father’s kingdom.”
“He must have really loathed our people,” I guessed, remembering the aggression with which Aodhan had tried to take me hostage. His threats of violence.
“Aodhan… had nightmares. I cannot…” Rian stopped, raising his head toward the ceiling, and I saw the rims of silver in his eyes.
“I cannot make you understand the sort of torment he suffered. I tried everything you could think of to help him, but there was no herb or amount of talking that could help him work through what haunted him.”
Rian stopped and lowered his head, causing one of the tears gathering in his eyes to roll free from his lashes.
“I loved him, Ornella. Enough to do anything for him. When he realized you were one of the Ruadhán…”
I blinked in shock as he trailed off, and I realized what he was not able to say aloud.
“You would have allowed him to hurt me if it helped him feel better,” I acknowledged.
Rian’s jaw flexed as he clenched it, but then he turned his head, and the truth was there for me to see in his eyes.
He raised his chin as if to challenge me on whether this revelation would impact our budding relationship.
But as much as it should terrify me, his brutal honesty actually felt reassuring.
I had spent my life surrounded by people with ulterior motives and secret agendas.
The truth of his ruthlessness helped me understand and trust him more.
“Would you let him do it now? If I had killed Ciaran and Aodhan was still here,” I clarified curiously.
“No,” said Rian. “Nor would he have wanted that.”
“Because I am Sage’s mate?”
“Yes, and also because you are a rider, and you are no longer a stranger. But mostly because you are his sister, and it would have meant the world to him to know you,” Rian assured me with another hitch in his voice.
I was quiet as I contemplated the prospect of a brother who would care for me if we had not met as enemies.
“You really think… Had he known—”
“You would have probably wanted to kill one another for a time, you are very similar people, but then you two would have become friends. The first time you got drunk together, which he liked to do quite often, he would have been begging for your forgiveness. It is partly why I could not help but… Once I realized who you were, I could not have harmed you even if I still wanted to. He would never forgive me for it,” Rian admitted as he shook his head.
“You really think he would have forgiven me for… killing him?” I asked tentatively.
“Yes,” he assured me, drawing in a deep breath as he tilted his face up to the ceiling again, and I believed him. Impossible as it seemed, I believed he told the truth.
I quickly wiped away a stray tear as it suddenly rolled free from my eye.
“You said he followed in my footsteps. He loved the wrong person and mutilated someone,” I recalled.
“Yes,” Rian confirmed, looking a little reluctant again, so I guessed my brother’s story was probably going to be just as horrific as mine.
“You supposedly fell in love with a slave while he fell in love with his childhood friend. They were found together by the anam who was forced upon your brother at his birth. But Aodhan never had any interest in females, and she was extremely bitter about it. He suspected your father may have been putting pressure on her and her family to produce an heir. But regardless of her reasons for what she did, she immediately reported his relationship with Lorcan to your father.”
Rian stopped, his jaw flexing before he took a swig of the wine and passed it back in exchange for the pipe.
“What did they do to him?” I asked, even though I was sure that I would not really want to know after how Rian punished my cousins.
Rian was quiet for some time, exhaling smoke slowly from his nostrils as he stared straight ahead.
“They hurt him,” he said finally.
“And they killed Lorcan,” I guessed.
“Eventually. After they had their fun torturing him too. Your father kept your brother’s identity a secret and had him punished in private. But Lorcan was fair game to any male who wanted to participate,” Rian bit out.
I felt my nails biting into my leg as his words brought back flashes of Cathal being tortured. His gorgeous face had been unrecognizable by the time Laisren mounted his severed head on a pike and paraded it through the city.
I shuddered and bent my head over the wine as I tried to breathe through the hate and anguish of that day.
“What happened to Aodhan after?”
Rian released another long slow exhale of smoke into the air in front of him.
“Your father became obsessed with Aodhan producing an heir. I suspect he wanted to get rid of him but hesitated to do it before the bloodline was secure. But your brother continued to refuse his anam, so your cunt father took the collar off the female and put it on your brother when she came into season.”
“Why would he…” My question trailed off as the vile answer came to me. “So she could force him?” I hissed.
“Aodhan assumed she managed to get herself pregnant the second time she assaulted him and tried to mark him. Your father had him taken out of the city a couple weeks after that to be killed, but he managed to escape.”
I dropped my head into my hands as the sudden urge to cry welled up inside me once again.
“Is that why you said I look like his nightmares?”
“Méabh was your second cousin. From his immediate revulsion upon seeing you, I think you must look alike,” Rian admitted.
The name did in fact sound familiar, but that was not because I would have recognized whatever female babe had been selected for my brother.
Dryads did not receive an adult name until we were fully mature, so Aodhan and his anam would have been much too young before I fled.
But royal lineages were often named for some ancestor, and I recalled several great aunts called Méabh.
“Fuck,” I hissed into my hands, and my body tensed with a potent mixture of disgust and regret as I grasped the reason for my brother’s reaction to me that day.
Rian took my elbow and exerted gentle pressure until my head lifted, and I peered up at him.
“I did not agree to tell you any of this for you to feel badly about it, and I do not blame you for what happened. All I want is for you to know that you saw the absolute worst side of your brother that day. But it was not all of who he was,” he insisted in earnest, and I nodded.
“I believe you.”