Page 83 of Cruel Revenge
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CHAPTER THIRTY
HASAN
Hasan spent the drive quiet, listening to Subira and Zuri speak on the many ways the witches could be protecting the location and how they wished to deal with it. He wasn’t fascinated by it, but it didn’t annoy him, either. He liked listening to the ladies. Subira talking was a comfort, a balm on his soul. His eldest daughter was as well, in her own way. She had been his daughter for so long. He had done many great and terrible things so she could breathe free air. He found all his children comforting on most days. Most. He hadn’t lied to Heath. His exhaustion with his children was any father’s exhaustion. The deeper feelings of knowing he had gotten to watch his little girl grow up to have these sorts of discussions with her mother… Those feelings kept him sane.
He even found Davor’s clicking keyboard a wonderfully repetitive sound, his son in his element, deep in a world Hasan understood, but wasn’t connected with. Technology was a necessity to him, but to Davor, it was like he had finally found himself in the right time. Davor had been born centuries earlier than he should have been. He was glad his son finally had thingsthat challenged him mentally. He found the sounds of that comforting.
Hasan needed to revel in the good things, or he’d be lost to the painful parts of life. It was the way everyone had to live. Everyone woke up every day, facing terrible prices to be paid in the game of life, but they paid because the sunlight was warm on the skin, or the people around them were treasures, or they loved the role they played.
The hardest thing about life was making it through cold and terrible nights. Now, he was watching the sun rise on a winter morning.
“You are a poet sometimes,” Subira whispered to him, just a fleeting comment. She turned back to Zuri and continued that conversation.
I love you, too.
She threw him a smile at that thought and continued to listen to Zuri’s idea about how to break through potential defenses.
The drive continued, and he tried not to think about it, but a thought continued to linger with him. It had all night.
I have a granddaughter.
He wanted to meet her. Officially. Properly. And hopefully, not mess it up like he did with every grandson.
My first granddaughter.
Subira’s hand squeezed his knee, the silent touch telling him she was very much tracking his every ebb and flow, his thoughts as personally as she could. She knew he loved his girls. From his mate to his daughters and now a granddaughter. He loved his sons and grandsons, without a doubt, but he was weak to the impressive might of the women in his life. He tried to fight it on multiple occasions when he felt he was right, but it never worked. Oftentimes, it went disastrously wrong.
Women brought life. He knew better than to argue with that, and yet, he still tried time and time again, a glutton for punishment. A fool challenging the mightiest of powers.
He’d met a god once and been unimpressed.
He was left stunned by the women around him more times than one could ever count.
That old bitch has my granddaughter.
He rubbed his neck, trying to work out the anger from that thought as Davor stopped typing and looked over at him, the quick scent of his son’s fear reaching him before Zuri’s. Subira squeezed his knee harder.
“Sorry. I was lost in a thought about the witch having Carey,” Hasan explained.
“You never talk to me about your time with her,” Subira said, her words like a wall of dark clouds, deeper than normal, and threatening a storm on the horizon.
“And I never will,” he said simply, the one line he refused to ever allow Subira to cross. The thoughts he guarded. The things he refused to think about.
“And I’ve always respected that and never pried, verbally or magically,” she said. “But now might be the time.”
“Not in front of the children, it’s not,” he countered.
“They are adults. We both know that. They know that.”
“They are still our children.” And he wouldn’t let his children know his pain beyond the bits he had already shared. He wasn’t giving those to anyone. He was past them, but that didn’t mean he wanted them in the world for others to whisper. He didn’t want to see their faces when they learned.
He didn’t want to see Subira’s face when she learned.
He knew none of it was his fault. None of it was his choice. He had confidence in that. He knew none of them would try to claim otherwise.
It changed nothing when it came to the idea of telling anyone.
