Far From Home Two: The Monster's Heir-- a M/M/M fantasy romance

28-- Sins of the Father

*****All right, peeps. If suicide stuff isn't a trigger for you and you don't want a spoiler, continue on, don't read the next part of this, and start reading.

TRIGGER WARNING: attempted suicide written out with pretty decent detail. Please skip over the "Llyric" section if you need to. The others should be ok to read, except maybe Sage's. He describes finding Llyric. But it's pretty brief. Up to you * shrugs *

I didn't purposely do two cliffhangers in a row. It just kind of happened that way. Sorry!!*****

EMBER—

I had never known such rage as I did when I read the letter from the queen. Sage had let the letter drop to his waist after staring at it for a frustrating amount of time, and I had pried it from his fingers when my patience wore thin.

And immediately regretted it. I wished I could go back, never read it, live my life with my mates at my side, and never know that the blood in Llyric's veins was dirtied and muddied with horror and disgustingly vile lusts.

"He's... he's innocent, Ember," Sage said softly, his eyes wide as I looked up at him. Could he see my horror? My absolute rage?

"Oh gods, I fucked him," I growled, nausea rising up my throat as I took a dozen steps back and nearly lost everything I had eaten that day against the stones of my courtyard. "I... I kissed him, and—"

"—Fuck you," Sage hissed with vehemence. "How dare you? He is not his father's son! That monster kept him chained in a dungeon for nearly two decades, Ember! Llyric would... gods, he'd never hurt a soul, much less a child!"

"It doesn't matter!" I bellowed. "His blood is dirty, Sage! This kind of evil, it has to be purged completely. It can't be allowed to fester and live!"

Sage's face lost any grace of emotion except shock and horror as he stared into my eyes. I clutched the letter in my fist, trying to keep it from shaking.

My Llyric, I wanted to moan. To mourn. My sweet, innocent, loving, needing mate. How is this possible?

"You will hurt that sweet boy over my dead body, Akaran," Sage bit out, his voice firm but dead of emotion. He stared at me as if I was a complete stranger who had just slapped his face.

Or worse: a lover who had betrayed him.

"Sage, it's..." I began, but I couldn't finish. I took a few more steps back, horrified when I realized both Brin and Al'iya, along with Tristan and Bek, stood watching us. Bek was terrified, clinging to his mother with wide eyes and trembling lips, but Tristan looked... knowing.

He'd known. Or guessed, at least, who Llyric was.

What he was.

Al'iya glared at me as if I was in the wrong, but she didn't know. She couldn't understand until I told her.

Oh gods, I couldn't tell her. I couldn't tell any of them. They would think his filth had rubbed off on me. I would be dirty and defiled in their eyes.

"Would he..." Sage began, seeming to loosen just a bit. He looked around, then back at me with a lost look in his eyes. "Would he hurt himself?"

It wasn't until then I realized Llyric wasn't there.

I was almost ashamed at how my first thought was relief, that he had maybe seen the messenger coming and, knowing the news they would inevitably bring, had decided to run away.

"How dare you?" Al'iya squawked, stepping toward me as I shook my head at Sage, at a loss as to what to do.

Did I even want to go after Llyric, or did I want him and Sage to disappear and never come back?