A Midwinter Fantasy - Leanna Renee Hieber [56]
“He’s a monster!” her brother shouted, and Mace growled as he felt her tense. Falon winced but glared at him. “You have no place here.”
“He does!” Sally wailed. “I’ve been praying for him to come back!”
“Why?” Falon shouted. “For the sake of your other monster?” More family members nodded in agreement, muttering.
Sally winced, her breath catching. She was about to start crying again, and Mace felt that if she did, he was going to hurl a few more tables around.
“What monster?” he snarled.
Sally looked up, her eyes filled with tears and her face as beautiful as it had been nineteen years before. “Please, Mace. You have to rescue our son.”
Chapter Six
Her child was named Travish, a boy born nine months after her one night with Mace, one whom she’d doted on while the rest of the town rejected him as a bastard. That she’d declared him to be the son of a battle sylph—a story from which she hadn’t wavered for even a moment—only made it worse for them. Sally had no husband, and her son grew up bitter and unwanted by anyone but his mother.
Staring around at them, Mace loathed her family, especially after the decades of blame and loneliness they had put Sally through, but he honestly couldn’t blame them for not believing her. “How can he be my son?” he whispered to her, not wanting the others to hear.
She stared up at him, her eyes filled with tears. “He’s yours, I swear he’s yours. I’ve never gone to anyone else. Please believe me.”
How could he, even when she was looking up at him with those pleading eyes? Sylphs couldn’t get human women pregnant. Even Solie’s children had needed to be fathered by human men, much as Heyou pretended otherwise. Despite what he knew, though, he nodded for her, glad she couldn’t feel what he felt. Her answering smile was beautiful.
“Now what?” her brother snapped, his face still flushed. The happy festival decorations seemed to make a mockery of the tension in the room. “Having that thing as the father just makes Travish even more of a beast.”
“He’s not a beast!” Sally screamed, stepping forward to confront Falon. Mace didn’t know if this was a common thing or if she was drawing strength from his presence, but he felt that same courage that had brought her to the stable so long ago as he crossed his arms and stood behind her, watching warily. He didn’t know how he felt about all of this—he certainly didn’t want a human son—but he’d support Sally. He’d support any woman, but Sally especially. Claimed son or not, he felt he owed her something and he felt that same spark for her that he had before. Where her family hadn’t crushed it out of her, she was alive and vibrant, courageous and strong. That part of her sang to the battler inside of him, crying out with the voice of a queen.
“He’s a bully and a thief and a backstabber! And now he’s working with those brigands!” Falon shouted in response. “He’s probably telling them all about how to ruin this town!”
“What else was he supposed to do? No one would hire him! He had to work!”
“And robbing and killing people is work?” Falon demanded.
At that, Mace understood the tension he’d felt in the town when he arrived. Even as they pretended with the Winter Festival that nothing was wrong, these people were terrified. “Are these the same bandits who took Jayden?” he asked.
Falon hesitated, eyeing him. Sally did as well, her face pale. “Who’s Jayden?”
Mace stroked her hair. “A runaway boy I was sent to find.” He lifted his chin toward Falon. “He says that the bandits took him.”
Falon glanced away, but his emotions were answer enough. They also told Mace that the man didn’t want to be recruited into going to rescue anyone—which was fine, since there was no chance that Mace would ask. He could destroy the bandits on his own, once he got close enough to track them. Eferem was a large kingdom, though, and he needed a place to start.
“Which way are these bandits?” he asked.
“No one’s sure,” Falon said, clearly still worried he’d have to provide some direct guidance. He was also ashamed of his fear and