Xev nodded. “So long as my curse doesn’t prohibit it.”
For the first time, Nick saw guilt in Jaden’s eyes. “Let me see your arm.”
With an emotionless stare, Xev loosened his sleeve and rolled it back to expose the ancient words that bound him to eternal slavery, and limited his powers.
Jaden examined it for several seconds. “Now your side.”
Xev hesitated as his gaze went to Kody.
“I won’t look.” She turned around to give him privacy.
Still, there was shame in his hazel eyes as he dropped his gaze to the floor and lifted his shirt for Jaden to see where the rest of the curse had been brutally seared into his flesh on the day they’d ripped his wings from his back and condemned him to this existence. His muscles were absolutely taut from the rigidness of his stance.
Nick wanted to comfort him, but how could anything do that? He’d lost his wife, his son. His wings. His freedom. All he’d done was try to help and they’d coldly taken everything from him for the effort.
Yet in that moment, Nick understood why Jaden didn’t trust him.
He saw Xev as a young teenager. Probably no more than sixteen or seventeen—his age.
While Jaden had slept, Xev had crept into his room and swapped amulets on him. Not the green one he currently wore, but another that had drained his powers and left him at the mercy of Xev’s mother and her demon horde.
The moment he’d discovered his son’s treachery, Jaden had declared his hatred and enmity. “I welcomed you into my home! Why would you do this to me?”
Xev had returned his glower without flinching or shirking. “For all the years you didn’t welcome me, Father. For every lash and insult I’ve been given in your name, and for all the years I was forced to serve them as an animal because you refused to acknowledge me as your son. I do this for her, and I go free. You owe me this!”
“I owe you nothing save my hatred.”
“Then we are even, after all.”
Worse? It’d been a trick. Azura had still refused to release Xev even after he’d handed Jaden over to her. Instead, she’d laughed in his face and slapped him for being stupid and gullible enough to believe her lies.
So as a final act of defiance, he’d freed his father two days later. Rather than return the favor, Jaden had left him behind, locked in his cell as punishment, even while Xev had begged his father for mercy and forgiveness. Even while he’d begged his father for death.
“You can’t leave me here … you can’t conceive what she’ll do to me for it!”
“Like I care? Rot here with your mother and her demons. I never want to lay eyes on you again, you treacherous bastard! You are no son of mine!”
And so Xev had been left to face his mother’s unreasoning wrath.
Nick flinched as he felt the nightmare Xev had barely survived.
Jaden had no idea what he’d condemned his child to. Any more than Caleb understood the nightmare that had been Xev’s existence. It was why Xev still lashed out and trusted no one. Why he had a hard time accepting kindness of any sort. While Lil had saved Caleb, it was nothing compared to what Myone had done for Xev.
Xev swallowed hard as Jaden finally stepped away from him.
“You’ll be fine to return.”
Lowering his shirt, he cut a suspicious grimace toward Jaden. “Can I trust your word, this time?”
“He’s not lying to you, Xev, and you know I won’t leave you behind. Not for anything. They come for you, they deal with me.”
His gaze softened as he reached out and pulled Nick to his chest so that he could hold him. He clutched his fist in Nick’s hair so hard, his hand trembled. It was weird and awkward, but Nick tolerated it by reminding himself that Xev didn’t see him as a boy-toy.
He saw him as his child. His great-grandson. His last link to Myone and to the son he’d been forced to give up in order to keep that child safe from being treated the way he had. Rather than watch his child be raised in the same environment he’d known, he’d returned to the shadows to live alone and watch from a distance as the woman he loved more than his life took another husband who believed Xev’s child to be his.
So long as she’d lived and their son had been protected and safe, Xev had been leashed and content.
But the moment she was gone and their son enslaved …
He’d been an insane, suicidal monster ever since. Not caring who he harmed or what happened to the world or himself.
Until now.
Everything had changed the moment he’d learned what Menyara had done and that Nick’s mom was his granddaughter. Since then, Xev had become a worse Velcro Nick-don’t-skin-your-knees monster than his mother was most days. He was lucky Xev hadn’t bubble-wrapped the bathroom to make sure Nick didn’t injure himself whenever he went in to brush his teeth.
Xev had even modulated the water pressure and temperature to barely more than a lukewarm drip, because you just never knew …