Page 44 of Destined for Shadows
Bartol was tempted to snap the man’s neck and be done with him. It would have been a service to humankind. “I’m your worst nightmare at the moment. Now, you will tell me the truth—all of it.”
“My wife’s gotten a few letters from Griff over the years that she thinks she’s kept hidden from me, but that’s it,” Martin replied reluctantly. He knew he was being forced to give away private information against his will. Bartol liked that he was aware of it.
“When was the last time Griff wrote her?”
“A month ago.” Martin paused, his gaze darting around as if he was searching for a way to escape. “Said he might be coming into town soon and that he’d stop by if he could, but I wasn’t holding my breath. He knows better than to come here.”
“Nothing else? No phone calls or visits?” Bartol pressed, needing to be sure the man hadn’t found a way around the compulsion. Some humans were clever enough to only obey the precise wording of the commands given to them.
“Nope. That’s it.”
Bartol dropped his hand away, the effects of touching another person beginning to bother him despite his anger. It wasn’t as if the man could flee at the moment anyway. “If Griff was in town, do you have any idea where he might be staying?”
“He only had two friends before he left that I knew about,” Martin spat. “One died last year, and the other one will be in prison for the rest of his life. Griff never knew how to make real friends like my other son.”
“Where is your other son now?”
“Jacob lives in Washington State. Ain’t seen him since Christmas, but he’d never have anything to do with his brother anyhow.” Martin grunted. “He ain’t nothin’ like Griff.”
Bartol mulled that information over for a moment, then gazed deeply into the older man’s eyes. “You are going to go into your house and get a pen and paper. Write down the names and addresses of anyone your son has ever associated with and bring it back to me. Do it quickly.”
He stepped away, and Martin hurried into the house without a backward glance, disappearing into the kitchen. Bartol headed toward the living room to check on the wife. Ruth was sitting on a worn couch while Tormod kneeled in front of her, healing her bruises. His brows were knitted in concentration. It took a few minutes for him to finish and rise to his feet.
“Aside from the bruising, I had to heal a sprained wrist and a knot at the back of her head where she’d been knocked into a wall—according to her. From what I’ve gathered, this is a regular occurrence.” Tormod clenched his fists. “Why would a man do that to a woman?”
Bartol shook his head. “Because some of them are insecure and think harming a woman makes them more powerful. It gives them control they otherwise wouldn’t have in their lives.”
Thinking on it further, he wondered if that was why Kerbasi had been such a terrible guardian in Purgatory. He’d hated being stuck in a lower caste of angels with little hope of rising in the ranks, and he’d taken it out on his prisoners.
“There are other ways to make yourself powerful without hurting people,” Tormod argued.
Bartol lifted a brow. “Such as pulling annoying pranks on them?”
“I…I suppose,” he said, frowning. A moment later, realization dawned in the nerou’s gaze, and it appeared he finally understood how his pranks might affect others. Perhaps today’s exercise had done him even greater good than Bartol and Lucas had hoped.
Tormod took Ruth’s hand and helped her to her feet. He might have been a troublemaker at the training compound while around others of his kind, but he took infinite care with the older woman. She gazed at him with warmth in her eyes. “Thank you.”
“It was nothing. I will come back to check on you soon and make sure you’re doing alright,” he promised, squeezing her hands gently before letting her go. “If you’d like to get some rest now, it’s okay.”
“I think I will,” she said, and started out of the room.
As Bartol watched her go, he remembered he had another purpose for coming here.
“Just a moment,” he called out, stopping her. He waited until she turned to face him. “Could you please find the most recent photo you have of your son, Griff?”
“Of course,” she agreed.
After she disappeared down the hallway, Tormod moved over to Bartol, his jaw hard and expression resolute. “We need to kill her husband.”
“If I let you do that, we’d both be in trouble with the archangels,” Bartol explained, though he hated to leave things as they were with the couple. “It isn’t our place to murder any human no matter how much they deserve it. Ruth chooses to stay with her husband whether we like it or not, and it is up to her to leave him.”
“I don’t care what the archangels say.” Tormod threw up his arms. “If they cared about humans so much, they wouldn’t have let the other supernatural races do whatever they wanted for thousands of years.”
That would be resolved soon enough after the nerou took over as enforcers.
“Because we are more powerful and hold angelic blood in us, we are held to higher standards,” he said, hating that he had to defend the angels’ ridiculous reasoning, but knowing he had no choice if he wished to be a good mentor. “The others were born mortal.”
With the exception of the fae, but they had certain limitations placed on them as well. Tormod knew that very well from growing up in Purgatory since some of the fae were imprisoned there after committing particularly grievous crimes.
