His rebellion. Nice word choice, there. Screw the truth and what had actually happened. Skew everything out of proportion. Sure. Let him be the bad guy in all of this.
Why not?
Nothing ever changes. And that right there was why he’d walked away and left behind the only real home he’d ever known. Why he’d had no choice. To them, to her, he was nothing but a mindless animal that needed to be controlled and collared. Something to be placed in a cage and fed table scraps.
Or viciously put down.
He’d been forced to leave before they’d taken the last vestige of his sanity, along with what had been left of his shattered pride.
He’d stupidly thought all this time that she’d already taken everything from him.
Now this. She’d hidden his children from him. Hated him and his heritage so much that she’d purposefully kept him out of their lives where he couldn’t even be there to participate in the raising of his own dragonets.
Max clenched his teeth as pain racked him. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was going to… that night… you know… Then afterward, you were long gone. I had no way of tracking you.”
Because a pregnant dragonswan couldn’t time travel and he’d left her Amazon village far behind, vowing to never, ever return to her or her world again. She was the only reason he’d ever stayed in ancient Greece.
And he’d only ventured there because of his brother’s Bane-Cry that had summoned him to war from his own home and time period.
After Hadyn’s brutal death, his intent had been to leave that time period and country far behind… but in Max’s darkest hour, she’d found him. There for a little while, he’d mistakenly thought that she’d been divinely sent to comfort his pain…
He couldn’t have been more wrong. Seraphina had never been anything but his own personal hell.
“You could have sent one of your sisters,” he spat that hated word out, “after me.”
“I did. You covered your trail admirably. No one was ever able to find any trace of you.”
It was just as well. As pissed as he’d been back then, he’d have most likely slaughtered them before they could speak. Only time and distance – and absolute shock – had allowed him to spare them on their arrival here tonight.
She swallowed hard before she spoke again. “You would be proud of your children, Maxis. They are an honor to us both.”
Those words were a dagger through his heart. “Their names?”
“Hadyn and Edena.”
He repeated the names silently in his head and let the warmth of fatherly love spread over him as he tried to imagine what they would look like. Be like.
If they would hate him as much as he hated his own father. But in Max’s defense, his absence had been lack of knowledge. Not the hatred and disgust for his young that his father had borne for him.
“Named for your mother?” he whispered.
She nodded. “And Hadyn in honor of your brother who died the day before we met.”
He couldn’t believe she’d remembered his brother’s name. He’d only mentioned Hadyn to her once, in an hour of extreme weakness on the first anniversary of Hadyn’s death. Never before and never since.
“Where are they now?”
“Nala has them in hiding. She’s in league with a demon who has demanded the Dragonbane be delivered to him. If I fail to bring you to them, they’ll kill the children.”
Max cursed under his breath. The only reason Nala knew of his dragonbane mark that betrayed his wretched heritage and curse was from the night Sera had handed him over to her queen for public discipline and ridicule.
He involuntarily flinched as he remembered the bitter details of something he did his best to never think about. “Why didn’t you tell her who I was when she was here?”
“I didn’t realize it was you until after she was gone. Not that it matters. I still wouldn’t have turned you over to her. Not after last time.”
Yeah, right. Her loyalty to those bitches was absolute. A lesson learned the hardest way imaginable. “Forgive me if I find that difficult to believe.”