Hels's Gauntlet [Forbidden Legacy 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (13 page)

“Okay, someone needs to tell Jude whatever secret it is you three have been keeping.” Jude slung himself down in the chair next to Cassie’s, his gaze firm on her face.

“It’s not all that horrible.” She covered his hand with her own. “No one wanted to lie to you, but we didn’t feel it in your best interests.” She held up one finger when Jude would have spoken, and his mouth snapped shut and he waited. “Thank you. First, Helcyon is not your father.”

It wasn’t Jacob’s imagination. Jude’s shoulders sank, almost deflated. The kid was disappointed by the news.

“But, I am your uncle.” The Elf’s proclamation shifted the younger Wizard’s stance. His gaze shot up to meet Helcyon’s, and his eyebrows climbed up toward his crazy blue hairline. “You are the child of my brother Kyrian and—”

“Frak. Vanagan, the blowhard, is my brother?” Jude’s mouth wrinkled with disapproval.

“He’s not that bad.” Cassie squeezed Jude’s hand. “Arrogance is not a commodity he’s cornered.”

“Yeah, but he’s a real schmuck and acts like he knows more than me. On the other hand, in this household, that’s not all that unusual.” The last sentence carried a note of bitter recrimination. He glared at Jacob.

Jacob accepted the censure. He’d kept the secret. Jude was his man, his Wizard. He let Jude be himself and protected him from the Elders who wanted to teach him respect. But the cost was deciding what drips and drabs of information to feed him. It may very well be time to the stop that.

Don’t whip yourself over it. He’s young. We’re inclined to protect our young.
The Elf’s words should have made him feel better, but they didn’t. Jacob might be older than Jude, but Helcyon was many centuries older than that. He didn’t particularly care for being treated like a child.

“
We
had the best of intentions.” Cassie firmed the emphasis on the pronoun, uniting their triad in the complicity to keep the secret. “In all fairness, I’d just found out Gustav was my father. I think you got the better end of the stick.”

Jude tugged his hand away and scrubbed at his face with his palms. “Why did Jude need to know this now?”

Referring to himself in the third person let him distance himself and maintain his humor. Jacob let that go and exhaled a long breath. “In a nutshell? Kyrian, Helcyon’s brother, is raising an army of Wizards loyal to him to boost his power. Oaths of alliance and kinship will strengthen him further.”

“The laugh thing, earlier?” Jude leaned his elbows on the table, chin tucking down at his chest. Despite his youth and passionate affair with pop culture, the kid was not stupid. “We’re making Uncle Billy Bob, here, stronger, too?”

Cassie jerked in her seat and flicked a look between them. Helcyon mouth the word “later,” and a rush of emotion flooded through Jacob. It took a moment to sort out the nebulous feelings of query and comfort coming from two different directions. Disconcerting didn’t begin to describe it.

“If by ‘Uncle Billy Bob’ you’re referring to me, then, yes. Jacob’s oath of alliance and brotherhood linked all of you loyal to him to me, as well. I am stronger because of it.” The blunt, bold honesty filled Jacob with hope. Elijah taught him the histories during his training, and with Helcyon the exception, rather than the rule, the stories of the Fae were not pretty.

“Do we get a say in this?” Jude sidestepped the issue of his parentage, seemingly intent on this matter.

“Yes.” Helcyon and Jacob echoed the word.

Jacob abandoned the counter and walked over to the kitchen table. Planting his hands on the wood, he met Jude’s gaze head-on. “I swore to keep you safe from the Council when you came to me. I promised you a voice with us, and you still have it. If you want to walk out that door and have nothing to do with all of this, you can.”

Like Cassie earlier, Jacob held up a hand to stave off Jude’s words. He wasn’t finished. “None of you agreed to be loyal to Helcyon. None of you agreed to fuel his power. I’m still wrapping my mind around what it means for me to do this. While you are free to go, I’m not entirely sure that Kyrian will be as accepting of any decision you make.”

“Could he force him, Hels?” Cassie interrupted, worry etching into the tight lines around her mouth.

“Perhaps. It isn’t unheard of, and the call to blood is a powerful one. You’ve experienced
it
with the Danae and with Gustav.” Rancor filled Jacob’s tone at the pair of names. Gustav’s banishment to the blighted areas of Underhill eliminated his threat, but not the damage he managed before. The Danae remained a threat.

Not for long, Jacob. Peace, brother. We will not allow her to use or take Cassandra from us.

“Damn straight,” Jacob muttered and ignored the skeptical look Jude favored him with.

“You can’t go, Jude.” Cassie wrapped her hands around the young Wizard’s arm. “I know you don’t have to stay loyal and you can sever any oaths, but you can’t go while there is a threat to you.” Her voice pitched high, and her knuckles whitened. “You promise me that, if nothing else, you will stay here until it’s all over.”

Jude twisted to look at her, his expression kind but firm. “Cassie, I like you a lot. But I’m almost twenty-five years older than you are. Stop talking to me like someone who doesn’t understand the stakes. In fact”—his tone sharpened as he turned to look at Jacob—“all of you stop acting like I’m a child. I get it. I’m young. But by those standards, she’s an infant, and you both knock boots with her all the time.”

He shook off Cassie with a gentle tug and rose from the table. “I don’t care that we’re bound to tall, dark, and elfly here. I care that you feel it’s all right to ‘lie’ to me for my own good. I care that you’re only telling me the truth now because you’re worried my sperm donor is going to make a bid for my loyalty.”

The accusation stabbed at Jacob’s gut. The kid—Wizard—was not wrong. Jacob straightened. “You’re right, you’re not a child. But you are one of my men, and I reserve the right to protect you whenever the hell I feel like it.”

“Yeah?” Jude’s chair legs scraped noisily against the tile.

“Yes. You are young. You were born into an era of freedoms most of us never experienced. You are flexible in your beliefs. You are malleable in your viewpoint.”

“Fuck that.” The harsh, un-Jude-like words silenced him. The younger Wizard swung his gaze to Helcyon and Cassie before fastening sternly on him. “Fuck you, Jacob. I followed you not because I thought you could protect me, but because I thought you could teach me. You are supposed to be my
domovoi,
with all that entails. I’ve learned a hell of a lot from you, but you wanna know the lesson that sticks?”

Jacob stared steadily at the angry Wizard, his eyes narrowed. Some part of him sensed Helcyon’s movement. Jude was a hell of a lot closer to Cassie than either of them. “What lesson would that be?”

“To call bullshit and let loose the dogs of truth. You like the fact that we’re loyal and you can order us around. It’s easier for you to think I’m too young because you met me when I was a teenager, when I just came into my power and screwed up. I get it. I was a kid, and I didn’t know what I was doing. Thank you for saving my ass. Thank you for being my teacher. But I am not going to thank you for continuing to act like I haven’t grown up even though you
trusted
me to train Cassie and that you still
trust
me to look after her.”

The air warmed, crackling with tension and suppressed power. Static stung along the edge of his perception.

“But the funniest damn thing is, despite all that, right now you’re both freaking out that I might do something to hurt her.” Jude laid a hand on Cassie’s shoulder, the gentle touch devoid of any of the fury directed toward them.

“Everyone, take a step back,” Paul advised quietly into the humming silence. “Cassie, I think this would be a good time for you to take one of your walks and chat with Dalton.”

Warning bells of alarm sounded in Jacob’s soul. Paul’s flat voice emptied of all the emotion and personality that had begun to resurface in the last few months. He forced himself to glance from Jude to the older Wizard.

The hard set of Paul’s jaw and the cool rejection in his gaze reaffirmed his position. “Very well. Miller and DuPois will be here by nightfall. I’ll stay until they arrive, but once they are here. I’m out.”

All the air sucked out of the room.

“Paul.” Cassie rose from the table, concern zinging through her in a riot of knotted tension that echoed the bruising force inside Jacob’s chest. Paul wouldn’t be persuaded.

“Don’t.” Paul shook his head. “Don’t make excuses. Don’t ask. The only way to make a clear-headed decision is to sever myself. I swore to Jacob, not to the Elf. No offense.”

“None taken,” Helcyon murmured, but like Jacob, his stiffened stance shifted, ready to intercept the two Wizards now closer to Cassie than they were. Jacob forced the tension from his shoulders. They weren’t rejecting him. Hell, they weren’t rejecting Cassie. They were rejecting the lack of choice.

“It’s okay, Cassie.” He exhaled the words, projecting confidence into them.

“The hell it’s okay.” She rounded on him, her golden gaze fierce and protective. “Nothing’s changed. You’re still you. Helcyon’s still him. I’m still me. Yesterday, they were happy to be here. Today they aren’t.”

“It’s not the same, sweet Cassandra. A great many things have changed.” Helcyon’s placating tone had even less effect on their woman’s ire.

“Bullshit. If you’ll pardon me for borrowing your assessment, Jude.” She rapped her knuckles against the table for emphasis. “Nothing has changed. Only your awareness has. This link didn’t happen overnight. It’s been going on for months. We’ve been together for months. We’re having a baby, and you two are a part of that family.” She whirled to jab a finger at Jude first and Paul second.

“Cassie, I get it. You’re happy, and you want everyone else to be. But just because you think it will be okay doesn’t mean it will be. After all, you’re the one who thought bringing the Fae out and setting them loose on our world was a bright idea.”

Cassie recoiled, reacting as though the rebuke in Paul’s mild tone slapped her. “It’s not the same thing.”

“Sweetheart.” Jacob pulled the table out of his way and closed the distance to insert himself between Cassie and the others. “It is the same thing. I told you that letting the Fae out would unleash more than just the beauty, but also the danger. In many ways, what is happening here is the same thing.”

“Let them go, Cassandra. They have a right to their own free will. They have a right to choose for themselves.” Helcyon’s words didn’t ease her upset.

Cassie fidgeted next to him, and Jacob pulled her into his arms, forcing her to look only at him. “You have to stop.”

The insistent tugging inside him came from her. She pulled, with every agitated breath, magic from his soul. The air around her practically sparkled with energy. He didn’t have to ask Helcyon. At some level, he could sense her pull on him, too.

“They have to stay.” She wouldn’t be persuaded or comforted. Instead, she leaned away from Jacob, twisting to look at them. “Please. You have to stay. I know you don’t like this, and I won’t pretend to understand all the ramifications. The world is changing so fast, and you’re not used to it. But I know…I know in my soul you have to stay.”

Compulsion slid along the words, the barest echo of it, and Jacob fought the urge to pull his arms away. Helcyon circled the table, still until this moment, and he dropped his hands onto her shoulders.

Paul and Jude stared at her with identical dazed expressions.

“No, Cassandra.” Helcyon demanded obedience. “You will not force them.”

“I’m not trying to.” Her voice climbed, but at least she looked away from Paul and Jude. Both Wizards sagged, and Jude retreated.

“We know that,” Jacob soothed her, rubbing her arms gently. “We do. But you are pulling magic because you’re scared. You’re leaning pretty hard on them. It’s going to be fine.”

“But they’re leaving.”

“They can come back whenever they want.” He looked at Cassie, but his words were meant for the Wizards. “There is no dishonor in seeking the choice that is right for you. My—our—door will ever be open to you.”

“You can’t just let them walk away. At least wait a night or two. Sleep on it.” Cassie’s nails dug into his shirt, and her right pupil expanded. Jacob frowned. The magic she summoned whirled recklessly around them, a vortex with Cassie at its center.

“Hels.”

“Cassandra, you must calm down. Now.” Helcyon stepped in closer, boxing her between their bodies. “Gentlemen, go. Thank you for your service and your honesty.”

Paul and Jude hesitated, but when Jacob jerked his head to the door, they retreated. He would make the time to talk to them, privately and personally. The world bounced, electricity building up and skating over his nerves. The gold in her eyes vanished under the weight of her pupils.

“They can’t go. I won’t—” Whatever else she’d been about to say cut off when Helcyon’s hand clamped over her mouth and his head ducked down, lips close to her ear. Even Jacob had to strain to catch his words.

“Sleep, Cassandra.”

Take it from her.
Helcyon’s mental command didn’t even pretend to be a request. Jacob squeezed off the flow of energy she pulled from his center, fighting to stem the tide flooding out of him. Blackness danced across his vision. He should be on the floor screaming from the pain, but experienced only mild dizziness.