Page 3 of Alpha's Magic

“Time to think about it later, then. You’re still grieving now,” I said, meaning to comfort him.

It had the opposite effect. He looked up at me with real pain in his dark eyes. “That’s just it, Asher. I should be grieving, but I don’t feel anything. Not really.” He put his forehead in his hand. “I was married to her for years. I should feel something.”

“She was a difficult person, Harrison. We all knew that. You were a good husband to her.”

He shook his head and said nothing else for a while. We sat with him and tried to get him to eat something. I knew what he was feeling was guilt for not loving his wife, but then again, she had been a really hard person to love, and never seemed to care all that much for Harrison either. He never should have married her, but regrets and recriminations didn’t help anyone. He’d made mistakes and now he had to suffer their consequences, but it didn’t have to ruin his life. We’d make sure he’d be all right.

We sat with him all afternoon until Prince Chandler arrived, and we withdrew then so they could have some privacy. We had just made it to the guest rooms we’d been assigned when we saw Lexington coming down the wide corridor toward us.

I’d known he was coming from Igella, and I was really glad to see him, even though it had only been a few weeks since we’d all had the adventure together with the pirates.

“Rory didn’t come?” Wyatt asked, and Lex shook his head.

“No, he just couldn’t. This place still terrifies him, even with the queen gone now, and I can understand why.”

Rozamond and her priests had tried their best to kill him, that was why. And they had entombed him alive, so I understood his feelings. The fact that Lex was here was a testament to how close he was to his brother, and nothing else. I suspected he wouldn’t stay long, and he soon proved me right.

“I have to leave right after the funeral. I’ll stay long enough for the funeral and then I’m out of here. I was actually hoping you and Wyatt would go back to Igella with me when I leave. Your omega Darcy too, of course, Wyatt. The roads are much improved in Igella since I’ve taken over, so the trip over in a carriage shouldn’t be bad at all.”

“What’s going on?”

“There’s been an attack a couple of days ago on one of the villages in the west, near the Lorian Sea. Everyone was slaughtered. It was a terrible thing.”

“An attack by what country?”

“Not a country…actually, the rumors say it was a monster.”

“A monster? What kind of monster? That’s crazy, Harrison. There’s no such thing.”

“I would have agreed with you not long ago, but I’m afraid the stories about Banshira are at least partially true. I remember Brandon telling us about him. He and Roxbury stayed in his cave for a while.”

“What?” Wyatt exclaimed. “I never heard about all this.”

“Yes, you did, but you were too busy fighting with Roxbury to pay any attention. According to the legends, his name is Banshira, and he’s a big, hairy creature who supposedly lives in a cave by the sea with an old wizard named Grimora. When Roxbury came to find Brandon, they told me about him. Roxbury said Grimora told him that in his opinion, he wasn’t really a demonic monster at all, but just a man who had a strange illness. Or he was possibly under some kind of spell. He was forced from his home because of it and Grimora found him in the woods all alone and half-starved over ten years ago. He was only a child at the time.”

“So he’s not really a monster,” Wyatt said.

“No, not unless the stories the survivors of the massacre told us are true. They claim it was definitely Banshira, who attacked with a horde of demons. Even slaughtered all the animals.”

“An entire horde of demons? Really?”

“That’s the story the survivors told anyway. I doubt they’re strictly true.”

“No,” I said. “I would think not.”

“But there are those who believe it, and now they’re clamoring for me to do something about it and save Igella. They’re convinced he’s going to go on some kind of rampage and killing spree throughout the kingdom.”

Wyatt laughed. “So, you thought it would be a good idea for me to take my pregnant omega there to be killed and eaten by a monster? I don’t think so.”

Lexington laughed and turned to me. “What about you then, Asher? Are you up for a little monster hunting?”

“Why not?” I said, grinning at him. “Sounds like a good time to me.”

He clapped me on the shoulder and nodded. “Good. It’ll be like old times. We’ll leave as soon as this funeral is over, and as soon as we can decently get away. That can’t be too soon for me.”

****

We did leave soon after the funeral, but it wasn’t quite as soon as Lex wanted. As always seemed to happen when a person is anxious to be on their way somewhere, one thing after another caused little delays. Finally, however, Queen Rozamond was prayed over sufficiently by her priests and safely entombed in the main cathedral near the palace—the same church whose aisles we had once searched with lanterns in the middle of the night, frantically trying to find the tomb where they’d put Rory’s body.

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