The Devastation: Unexpected Circumstances Book 7 (8 page)

“A boy?” she whispered, and her eyes opened to look into his face.  Tears continued to pour from her eyes, but I was quite sure they were no longer from pain.  I could finally breathe easily again as I watched my wife’s gaze take in our son.

My heir.

His tiny eyes screwed shut as he opened his mouth to cry out his protest of being removed from the warm, comfortable place he had spent the first part of his existence.  Alexandra immediately brushed her fingertip over his cheek and told him not to worry—that his daddy had made it in time, and no one would take him away.

I closed my own eyes at her words, afraid to learn what had befallen her since she had been taken from me on the road. I knew at some point I would have to hear her story though I was not sure if I could listen without losing whatever was left of my sanity.

“They cannot hurt you, little one,” I said, speaking to both my son and my wife.  “They are all gone now.”

“Gone?” Alexandra whispered.

“All of them,” I assured her.

“Whitney….she is…?”

“Dead,” I replied softly.  I heard Alexandra sigh in relief, and I saw her grip tighten on our son.

“Little Branford,” she whispered, and I could not stop my smile.

“Little Branford, yes.”

Edith found Alexandra a clean dress and a fresh blanket for the tiny prince.  She held our son while I helped Alexandra change into the new clothes.  Once Edith let Greysen know it was now “safe” to return, Parnell and Rylan came back into the room along with him, and Alexandra looked up at him and smiled.

“Thank you,” she whispered, her voice nearly reverent.

Greysen bowed slightly, and I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rise.  I looked between them both and wondered just what had transpired in the dark cell at the bottom level of Sterling Castle.

Alexandra must have noticed my tension, for she moved slightly closer to me and placed her hand on my arm.  I moved my gaze back to her and raised a brow, questioning.

“If it had not been for him…”  Her voice trailed off, and I felt my body tense again as I imagined everything that could have happened to her.

“Did Remy touch you?” I asked.  I did not want to know, but I needed to know.

“Remy?” Alexandra’s eyes tightened in confusion.  “Sir Remy?  I have not seen him.  Why did you ask that of me?”

“Never mind,” I said as I wrapped my arms around her shoulders and brought her against my chest.  “It does not matter now.”

She touched the side of my face.

“You are hurt.”  She traced her fingers just outside the cut near my temple.

“I am fine,” I told her.

“Remy?” she asked again, and I wondered how she could be so intuitive.

I shrugged and glanced off to the side.

“He will not have the opportunity to say such things again,” I said simply.  “I am only glad the words he spoke were false.”

Alexandra tilted her head up and looked to my side to where Greysen and Parnell stood near the door.

“If it were not for Greysen, I do not know what would have happened,” she said softly.  I nodded, imagining in my mind how Mother’s cousin must have placed himself between my wife and danger.

Then Alexandra began to speak again.

“When he hit me…”

For a moment, my mind went blank with fury.  I heard nothing else she said, for the vision that had been in my head had just changed drastically.  I turned to Greysen, my eyes narrowed and deadly.

“You laid a hand on my wife?” I growled through clenched teeth.  I gripped the hilt of my sword as I turned and started to step toward him.

Greysen lowered his head and began to speak quickly.

“I had to do something, sire.  They would have harmed her, and I could not give away my position
and
keep her safe!  I did not harm her, I swear.”

“Silence!” I yelled.  “I asked you a simple question.  Did you or did you not lay a hand on my wife?”

“Branford…”  I felt Alexandra’s warm hand against my cheek and immediately felt myself soften to her.  “He had to…to save me.”

Our eyes met, and I felt once again the overwhelming sensations flow through my body.  She was here with me again—really, truly here.  I had not lost her, and through placing Greysen in Hadebrand as my spy, I did manage to protect her, even if it was not how I had originally imagined.

Greysen took another step back, and I saw Parnell move to stand between us, but his back was to me.  I heard Alexandra’s plea again—that he only touched her in order to save her.  I swallowed hard and gave in to the pressure from my wife’s hand as she turned me to face her.

“He saved me.”  Her tone was definitive and final.

I nodded in response.  Now that my focus was back on her, my thoughts followed, and Greysen was forgotten for now.

“How are you feeling?”

“Tired,” she said quietly.

Without another word, I bent to pick up Alexandra in my arms, stopping only long enough to have Edith place our son into his mother’s arms before I carried them both to the bedroom—the same place Alexandra and I spent the first night of our marriage.

With one arm wrapped around her shoulders and the other curved under her arm, I held my wife and my son close.  The babe’s eyes were closed, and he seemed to sleep peacefully though every few minutes, his face would scrunch up as if in discomfort.  It lasted but a moment, and his tiny eyelids would smooth out, and his mouth would move in quick sucking motions.

Every time he moved, made a sound, or even took a breath, I felt my heart reach out for him.  He was so very tiny, and I knew he had come earlier than he was meant to.  I feared for him though I would not mention it to Alexandra.  It would only cause her to worry, and there would be nothing she could do.  A fleeting memory of a messenger who came to tell me Bridgett had birthed a daughter crossed my mind, followed only two days later with another one to say the babe had perished.  I had never seen the child though I did go to Bridgett and helped her as much as I could.  I had been just barely a man myself and knew nothing more than to offer her gold for her troubles.

Now that I looked upon my son—a child created from both Alexandra and me—I realized how truly hard and calloused I must have seemed to the Duke’s daughter.  I wondered if she had bestowed even a fraction of the love I wanted to give to this child on the daughter who did not live.  It saddened me, and I vowed to myself to find Bridgett and do right by her even if it was far too late to truly make amends.

I kissed the top of Alexandra’s head, and she tilted her face to mine.

“He is so small,” she said.

“He is.”

“He seems so fragile in my arms.”

“No,” I said, disagreeing immediately, “he is strong.  You can tell by how loud he cries.”

Alexandra held in a laugh so as not to wake him.

“I love him already,” she said softly.  “I did before he was even born but especially now that I have seen him.”

“I understand.”

“Do you?” she asked as she looked quizzically into my face.  I responded with my eyes, and after a moment, she nodded.  “Yes, you do.”

“I love you,” I told her.  “How could I not love the child you bore me?”

“I love you, too,” she responded.  She looked back to the babe who now slept peacefully in her arms.  “I have two Branfords to love now.”

I tightened my grip on her again, both at the sound of her words and at the prospect of how differently it could have been if I had not been here in time or if our people had not left their farms to fight for their queen.

“I thought I might never see you again,” I said quietly.  Alexandra turned her head up to look at me, and I could see tears forming in her eyes.

“She said…she said she would have me killed as soon as the baby was born.”  Alexandra tightened her arms around little Branford, but she pushed her shoulder against my body, and I gripped her closer in response.  “When I started feeling pains…I knew he was coming, and I was so afraid…”

Her tears flowed freely, and I held her as close as I dared.  A moment later, the babe awoke and protested at the movement.  Alexandra immediately began to coo at him, and I shifted a little and helped her lower one side of her gown and allow the babe to nurse.  He calmed immediately, and as he did, I felt my wife relax in my grip as well.

“Never again,” I told her.  “Hadebrand is no more.  You are safe now.”

“What of those who live there?” Alexandra asked.

“What of them?”

Alexandra hesitated before she responded.

“Edgar was…unkind to the people of Wynton after their lands fell into his hands.  What will now happen to the people of Hadebrand?”

“There are no more people of Hadebrand,” I replied.  When Alexandra looked up at me with a shocked expression, I shook my head and clarified.  “They are not all dead—they are now people of Silverhelm.  I would not be cruel to those who were simply unfortunate enough to have their family’s farm in a certain location.”

She nodded and lay her head back down on my shoulder to watch our son as he squirmed slightly in her arms.

“He is beautiful,” she whispered as his eyes closed, and he continued to suck even though he appeared to have fallen back asleep.  “He looks just like you.”

“Hmm.” I hummed as I looked him over.  There were similarities that were obvious—his eyes and the shape of his lips, but his nose was the same as hers, and he did not have enough hair to determine what color it might be.  “I see his mother in him as well.”

Alexandra’s eyelids fluttered closed as she lifted our son from her breast and placed him against the other.  As the babe continued his meal, Alexandra’s eyelids grew heavier.

“Sleep, my wife,” I whispered as I pressed my lips against the skin below her ear.  “I have you, and you are safe.”

She did not even remain awake long enough to respond.

*****

We spent several days in Sterling Castle and were joined by Sunniva and Ida on the third day.  During that time, I returned to the ruins that were once Hadebrand to look over my new lands.  Where there had once been a fine castle with its many surrounding buildings, there was now nothing but rubble, scorched earth, and six halberds thrust into the ground, each topped with the ghoulish head of Edgar and his family members.

There were still two questions that bothered me greatly.  The first mystery had to do with the whereabouts of Sir Leland and the men who had participated in the killing of my parents.  Of the four of them who taught me so much as a young child, one was not yet accounted for.  Kolby was killed by Parnell.  Dalton had been killed in the forests of Silverhelm by Dunstan, and Salik’s body was located near Gage—both apparently killed by stones from the castle walls as they fell.  Yagmur was still nowhere to be found.   The other question looming in my mind was the reason behind the almost complete destruction of the east tower of my ancestral home.  No one seemed to know anything of it.

“Who is this?” I asked as I gestured toward a man and woman who sat on the ground with their heads bowed.

“They approached the castle earlier this morning,” the guard said.  “They could not account for themselves.”

“Could not account for themselves?” I scoffed.  “Who are you, old man?”

“We came from the south,” the man said as he lifted his face to glance at me.  He quickly lowered his eyes.  “Are…are you King Branford?”

“I am.”

“We heard of the fall of King Edgar,” he told me, “and came to pay our respects and offer our lands to you.”

“I do not want your lands,” I said.  I saw the woman flinch, and a small noise escaped her mouth.  When I looked at her, I could see her hands were trembling, and for a moment, she reminded me of Alexandra when she first came to Silverhelm.  I wondered why she was afraid, considered my words, and tried to think of how they might have been interpreted.

I dropped to one knee in front of the woman and looked closely at her.  Her hair was long and brown and tied in a knot at the back of her neck.  She was close to Sunniva in age, and her eyes were a lighter color of brown than Alexandra’s.

“Your lands are your own,” I told her.  “As your king, I only expect a portion of your yield.  It will be a fair portion and used to serve the rest of Silverhelm.”

She glanced at me but quickly lowered her eyes again.

“Yes, my king,” she whispered.

She did not believe me.

“Good woman,” I said as I reach out to touch her hand.  “I speak to you with truth.”

“Of course, sire,” she replied.  I could see the blush on her face, and again I thought of my wife.

“Our farm…It no longer yields enough,” her husband said gruffly.

“Why is this?” I asked.

“That’s what he has been going on about,” the guard said.  “He claims he can’t pay tribute to his new king.”

“Explain,” I said, keeping my voice soft.

“King Edgar…he…he destroyed our crops.”

“Why would he do this?”

“He said we were traitors.”

“And were you?”