Page 62 of Sins of the Fathers
“Ithinkyou have broken a very old agreement. You havecompromisedthe honor of our people. And you intended to do much worse by freeing the fae of the mounds,” Anyon snapped, with a thunderous expression. “You are renounced. Your powers are cut off. And you will return with me to meet your judgment.”
Anyon clapped his hands, and both Daelin and the hellhound vanished.
Denny moved up beside Gibson. “Honored Elder. Welcome.” He repeated the greeting in Welsh and made a formal bow.
Anyon turned, acknowledging them for the first time with a slight incline of his head. “Dennis King. Keeper of the Book. It has been a very long time since your family has called upon me. You have done me and our kind a great service by bringing the traitor to my attention. You have our gratitude.”
“The agreement holds?” Denny asked, standing tall—respectful but not subservient to the immensely powerful being in their midst.
A slight smile twitched at the corners of Anyon’s mouth. “The Accords are unbroken. Our agreement holds.” He looked from Denny to Dawson. “I see the fire in the King blood has not diminished. Watch over these mountains with the blessing of my people.”
The white light flared brightly enough that Dawson threw an arm up to shield his eyes. When his vision cleared, Anyon and the light were gone.
“Grady,” Dawson breathed, heading for the cabin at a run, ignoring the voices that urged him to be careful.
He came to a dead stop at the foot of the cabin’s stairs. Grady stood hidden in the shadows, blood soaked, wrists chained, holding a machete in one hand.
He was the most beautiful thing Dawson had ever seen.
“Daw—are you real?” Grady asked in a shaking voice.
“I’m here, Gray. Real. Denny and Gibson and Tucker are here too. We came to rescue you.” He took in Grady’s appearance with a deep sense of pride at the sheer stubbornness it had taken his boyfriend to kill his captor. “Looks like you did a good job by yourself.”
Grady shook his head, still not moving from the shadows. “Just desperate. Wanted to go down swinging.”
Dawson recognized shock in Grady’s blown pupils and spacey tone. “Gray—how about you drop the machete? Then let’s get those chains gone.”
Grady looked down at his hands as if they were someone else’s. “Yeah. Good idea.”
Dawson gently took the machete from Grady’s hands. He didn’t recognize the weapon, so he figured that Grady had stolen it from his captors. Asking now wouldn’t get an answer, given how out-of-it Grady seemed to be.
This high up the mountain, they didn’t have to worry about the police arriving unexpectedly. Gibson and Tucker would still have jurisdiction, so even if the cops came, they wouldn’t be arrested, but right now all Dawson wanted was uninterrupted time to take care of Grady.
“Let’s go inside,” Dawson prompted
Grady recoiled from the cabin like it was a house of horrors. Maybe to him, even in his brief captivity, it was.
“Just long enough to wash off the blood,” Dawson coaxed. “Denny’ll have words if you get blood on his upholstery.”
Grady let himself be led inside. Now that the danger had passed, he seemed to have lost his fighting spirit.
Inside the cabin, Dawson guided Grady to sit in a kitchen chair. The light gave him a better look at Grady’s injuries, raw wounds around his wrists and neck that looked like burns and cuts.
“Oh my God. What did they do?”
Grady just shook his head. “Later.”
Dawson bit back his questions, knowing there would be a better time. “Let’s get those cuffs off you.”
“Picked them once—they took my tools.” Grady’s monotone told Dawson all he needed to know about his lover’s state of mind.
“You’re safe,” Dawson reassured. “Gibson and Denny were badass. Tucker held up his end. I shot things. And the hellhound was cool.”
He wet a clean dishrag and daubed gently at Grady’s injuries. “Are you hurt anywhere else?”
Grady shook his head. “She took some of my energy, but they wanted me in good shape for the ritual.”
Dawson winced at how matter-of-fact Grady sounded about his almost-murder.
