Page 18 of King of the Dawn

Yuliya and I turned to see Eoghan at the top of the stairs, a pocket watch in his hand. His tweedy suit was a deep green. His pale skin and slicked back hair made him look like a vampire, surrounded by his crumbling, old house.

“Welcome to my home,” he said, extending his arms to gesture at our strange, wood and plaster surroundings.

This place looked like one of Henry VIII’s hunting lodges, complete with the occasional full medieval armor tucked near a corner, beside a deep green fern.

“I don’t think the Vasilievs have actually been in here before.” He stepped down the creaky, old stairs that groaned under his weight. “I don’t consider Rose’s invasion and cyber-attack a real visit.”

He was talking about the time my daughter entered this house to demand the return of Ajax LeBlanc, my old colleague, and her MMA coach.

“That whole thing was a misunderstanding,” I said to try and placate the man, though it was anything but a misunderstanding. We had very, very intentionally attacked the mansion.

I had been in a million battlefields where the blood and pain of the departed seeped into the ground, and haunted the living. This house was just like it. It was cold, and vibrated with a sorrow that was in the air around us.

“All’s well that ends well.” Eoghan’s thick Irish accent made me shudder. He looked so much like his insane father that it was hard to remember they weren’t the same person. “Rose and Alastair are happily married, after all. You and Aoibheann too. A match far superior to the one she had with my late father.”

He came to stand before me, his creepy, little beady eyes unblinking as he examined me.

“How is my dear stepmother,” he asked, with a tilt of his head. “I hear the rest of the reception went well.”

“It did,” I said, my fists clenched with the tension that existed in this fucking space. This strange, haunted, dying house. “Your… wedding present… is currently in the basement.”

Eoghan smirked. “Aye, well… that’s good to hear.”

I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.

“I hope you enjoy every second of their… uses.” Eoghan had a delightful way of tap dancing around an unsavory subject. “It seems they may have thought that I was like my father, and… would have had the same relationship with my own wife.”

I bristled at the mention of the girl, Kira. The one my wife had helped escape. Did he know?

“I’m glad.” Eoghan looked at me with a nod, and his words sounded sincere.

“What did my wife tell you, before you left the hall?”

He balked in surprise. “She didn’t tell you? You didn’t know?”

“What didn’t I know?” I felt the tension in my arms as I wanted to lean into him, to shake the information from his lips.

He let out a small smirk, and looked askance. He wasn’t being smug.

“She’s very good at keeping secrets, that stepmother of mine. A trait she seems to share with my wife.” He brought a hand to his chin, rubbing across day-old stubble. “I have a child.”

Yuliya and I looked at one another, our eyebrows rising with this news.

“Or, at least, she believes that I do. She says Kira was pregnant when she helped her disappear.” Ah, so he did know that my wife was complicit in Kira’s disappearance. But he didn’t seem mad about it.

He looked… tortured.

His jaw clenched, the flex of the muscle pulsing. “I have not confirmed if a child resulted.”

The sheer misery in Eoghan Green’s eyes was enough to shatter a man. I almost felt bad for him. Almost.

“You think she might have gotten rid of it?” Yuliya asked, tilting her head.

“I don’t know. Considering what I know now… what I think she knew when she left…”

Then he coughed, pulling out a gold pocket watch and opening it in his hand to look at the time.

“Anyway, I know you didn’t come for a social visit,” he said, snapping the watch closed and placing it back in his pocket. “What can I help you with? I assume this is about Aoibheann, and the hunt for her antagonizers.”

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