Leinth moved her finger and wrapped her arms loosely around his neck, peering at him with a serious, penetrating gaze. \u201cNow what\u2019s going on with them that\u2019s gotten you all tied in a knot?\u201d<\/p>\n
He managed to smile. \u201cHow do you know something\u2019s going on?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou didn\u2019t sleep well,\u201d she said quietly. \u201cWhen you don\u2019t sleep well, I don\u2019t sleep well\u2014but you were asleep and I didn\u2019t want to wake you to ask. So I let you be and decided I\u2019d ask in the morning. So what is it?\u201d<\/p>\n
Seamus shook his head, trying not to sigh. \u201cJust paranoid foolishness, that\u2019s all,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re on their way back, the group that took Thesan away. I\u2019ve got no idea what they did with her.\u201d<\/p>\n
His lover shivered. \u201cDo you really want to know?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d he admitted. \u201cNo, I don\u2019t really want to know. But I\u2019m afraid they\u2019ll bring her back\u2014or she\u2019ll find her way back somehow.\u201d<\/p>\n
For all that Thesan was his daughter, he was terrified she\u2019d find them again. Raised by her mother, Leinth\u2019s sister and Seamus\u2019s estranged wife, Thesan had been warped into a monster that sent shivers down her father\u2019s spine. She blamed the world and more for depriving her of her father, who had been betrayed and given to the Wild Hunt before she was ever born, an innocent casualty of her mother\u2019s cruelty and her grandfather\u2019s plotting. If he\u2019d encountered her under different circumstances, Seamus would have been inclined to try to help her, to repair the damage that had been done. When she\u2019d sundered his cousin\u2019s soul and tried to hold it for ransom, though, then refused to help them fix what she\u2019d done, she\u2019d lost that privilege and he\u2019d lost hope.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s no saving her. Not now. Not the way she was when she left.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cTalk to me,\u201d Leinth whispered.<\/p>\n \u201cMy daughter is a monster,\u201d he whispered. \u201cAnd if your sister isn\u2019t already dead, I\u2019m going to kill her myself.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Leinth moved her finger and wrapped her arms loosely around his neck, peering at him with a serious, penetrating gaze. \u201cNow what\u2019s going on with them that\u2019s gotten you all tied in a knot?\u201d He managed to smile. \u201cHow do … Continue reading