Father.”
With a scowl as fierce as his son’s, Hearn looked down at Keeley. “Yes?” he asked, sounding mostly annoyed.
Keeley cleared her throat and began, “Many years ago, you saved a young soldier you found in the lower mountains. That young soldier was my father and I just wanted to say thank you.”
Then Keeley did what her father had always told her to do if she was ever lucky enough to meet the centaur who’d saved his life . . . she wrapped her arms around his lower waist—the last bit of him that was humanlike when he was in his natural form—and hugged him.
* * *
Caid watched his father’s confused expression turn downright panicked; his hands flailed a bit as he tried to figure out where to put them. Caid could almost guess the stallion’s questions: Should he hug her back? Should he push her away? Should he wipe her from the face of the earth?
So many questions right there on his father’s face.
Caid’s father usually knew exactly what to do in any given situation. That’s how he’d lived as long as he had. By being smart and determined. But Keeley had a way of confusing even the most confident of males.
“Uh . . . uh . . . you’re welcome . . . ?”
Oh, good. He’d settled on not wiping her from the face of the earth. Caid was sure that had been hard for his father to go with.
Smiling, Keeley stepped back. “My father also wanted me to send his best. He’s never forgotten what you did for him.”
What happened that day, so many seasons ago, was not something their father discussed much. The other protector clans had thought it was stupid for Hearn to bring a human to their camp and have him nursed back to health. A soldier of the Old King, no less. Not some lost child. The clan leaders at the time had all felt the soldier should have been put down where he lay among the rocks he’d fallen into with six human-made arrows still in his neck, chest, and hip. But Hearn hadn’t agreed for some reason. He’d gone against everything he’d been taught and brought the soldier to safety.
The move had secured Hearn’s place in Gaira’s heart, though. He’d already had a son from the future leader of the centaur clans but there had been other stallions sniffing around Gaira, and she had seemed uncertain about claiming Hearn as a long-life mate. That would mean in times of incredible danger, Hearn would lead the centaur and mountain tribe armies into war. She’d worried that the scowling, mostly cranky, snarling male would hunger for war and the death of humans, and Gaira was not one to go to war because she was bored or had an axe to grind.
All these years, Caid had assumed his father’s decision to help the human soldier had been a calculated one. Hearn knew that Gaira had a soft spot for all living things, including humans and, in his own way, he had loved Gaira for a very long time. Caid didn’t actually approve of such a calculating move, but he understood it. And he was grateful that Laila was his sister, if nothing else.
But now, watching his father as he had to deal with one of the soldier’s grateful offspring, Caid realized his original belief might have been wrong. Very wrong.
“How is your father?” Hearn asked Keeley.
“Fine, I hope. I had to leave him and the family at my uncle Archie’s.”
“Crazy Archie?” He smirked. “You sure that was wise?”
“We were out of choices, but I made him promise to behave himself.”
“Especially with your mother.”
“Yes! Still clinging, he is.”
“Your father’s love of the Blacksmith Maiden is legendary. He’ll give her up to no one, but especially not his brother.”
“The Blacksmith Maiden?”
“That’s what your father called her. He kept telling me he needed to get back to his Blacksmith Maiden. Even when he was suffering the worst fever from his wounds, he talked about her. He already had plans for his farm and the raising of his . . . three children, I think.”
Keeley laughed. “Three?”
“She’s had ten thousand,” Caid said.
“She has not had ten thousand,” Keeley quickly corrected. “There are twelve of us.”
“With another nine thousand on the way.”
Keeley dismissed Caid with a flick of her hand that almost hit him in the nose.
“Now,” Keeley began, “I wanted to give you this.” She pulled a beautiful battle dagger from the sheath attached to the belt around her