A Betrayal of Storms by Ben Alderson

Chapter 11

Father waited for me in my room, sitting on the edge of the bed with his head buried in his hands. He looked up as the door clicked shut behind me. Dark rings hung beneath his eyes, which seemed dull and empty. His posture was hunched, as though he carried the world on his shoulders.

"Robin," he murmured, deep voice hoarse. "I thought I'd lost you."

As Father studied me from his perch, I could see some of his worry bleed away from his face. His forehead softened, and his russet eyes widened. He stood, bed creaking in thanks for the lack of his weight, and crossed the space towards where I stood completely still. "Are you alright?"

"Are you?" I asked back, allowing him to take me in his arms. In rare moments like this when he held me close I felt like a child again, protected by him entirely, as though nothing in the world could ever harm me; Gryvern, Hunter or fey.

"Worried sick," he replied, pressing a breathy kiss to my forehead. Pulling away, he held me at arm's reach and searched me entirely. "When I got home, and found you missing, I did not imagine for a moment it was the fey who had you."

"They didn't..." I added quickly. "Take me. Not in the way you may think."

"I know that, son. But I am still uncomfortable knowing we must have a conversation on this side of the Wychwood border." He turned his back on me, not before I noticed the wetness in his aged eyes.

"Is Winston...?" I asked, sickness twisting like waves of a rough sea within me.

"He is fine. It was Winston who got me out of work earlier, when he turned up at the tavern barking I knew something was wrong. By the time we got home, it was too late."

Relief washed over me and a weight I did not realise I still held onto lifted from my shoulders. Winston, our golden furred hound, was unharmed. I longed for his familiar, comforting lick to cover my face just so I could hold him.

"I tried to fight." I felt the need to shed light that I had attempted to get away. "I was so close. If the Hunter was not out of the door I would have made it."

A strong hand gripped my shoulder and squeezed. "Do not explain yourself to me, my boy. I am just thankful you are still... you are okay."

I blinked away tears, swallowing a lump in my throat as a hot, striking anger lit through me. "I know who it was... who sold me off."

"I know who it was too." Father's lips were pulled tight in a line. I caught the tension in his expression before he turned his back on me as he carried on. "Silly pricks didn't know what to do with the payment but return to the pub and whisper what they had done to the other patrons." When he turned back around to face me his hands were balled into fists at his sides. That was when I noticed his bruised and bloodied knuckles, swollen skin that told the truth of a brawl he had not yet revealed. "They will need far more coin than what they got for you to pay for any healer skilled enough with a needle and thread. Even then I do not believe that there is enough coin in all of Durmain to replace bone in a nose... James can wear it like a badge of dishonour for the rest of his life and be thankful I left him with a life at all."

His words told enough of what he had done to James and his accomplice, and his bloodied fist conjured images of the damage he had done when he found them.

I spluttered a laugh through a nervous smile. "They deserved it."

"They deserved far more than what I did. But beating them into a plump of flesh would not bring you back. I panicked, believed you were lost as no one returns from the Hunters. I was preparing to find them myself when the fey arrived at our home and told me what occurred. I had never felt more ready to enter a place I've fought hard for years to keep from my mind."