Hi Readers
I hope your weekend was super relaxing and you're all recharged for the week. I have a wonderful gardening book I'm working on and it is so relaxing. I love it.
This week we'll be concentrating on Brucel and how he is dealing with his new life.
Once Larden had told him Saasha was willing to be there as he had his shackles removed, Brucel had become lovestruck all over again. However, it also pained him. He knew what the shackles represented, and he knew why he had left them in place. He had agonised over whether he wanted to keep them to be rid of them.
He didn’t want to be haunted by his past anymore. He wanted to find a place in this world. While it wasn’t his own, it gave him a chance at having a life that he had lost so many decades before. Yes, it was nothing more than looking from the outside in, but he had his family back.
It had been more than a year since he had come to live in this time. During that time, Larden had constantly made an effort to reach out and bond with his father. Brucel had been open to that, going to every dinner, and spending time with Larden’s family. While grandchildren seemed a little wary of him, knowing that he wasn’t their true grandfather, the great-grandchildren were none the wiser, and the adults kept it that way.
His great-granddaughter, Mishka, was particularly fond of him. Especially when Larden had taken Brucel to the secondary planet to meet her and Bahn’s twins. Instinctually, the girl knew who he was and didn’t need to be introduced to him. She had run up to him and flung her arms around him.
Larden in his time had had no surviving children toward the end, and therefore Brucel had had no other family but him in the end. So, having this young woman express her love for him without knowing him almost made the giant weep. Bahn, Larden’s eldest had been standoffish at first, knowing who the man was and where he had come from, having inherited a lot of his grandmother’s skills, took a little longer to warm up to him. Eventually, he offered invitations to Brucel to visit more to get to know the twins who were now toddling all over the house.
Sash had tried to mother them as much as possible, but she was busy with her work and would often have to hire a nanny to keep an eye on the boys. They had become so strong since the loss of their mother. Brucel loved every minute of spending time with them when he did accept invitations to visit.
The twins had been named after their two great-grandfathers, Tomax and Baks. Brucel had never been one for family names, despite him carrying the family name of Royal Guard, but he understood the importance of giving thanks to those who came before you. This was why, when his youngest son reached out to him for a meeting, he found himself in a state of uncertainty.
This was the boy that had saved Saasha’s life and he had heard people refer to the young king as his father’s final gift to his mother. Since finding out about the boy, he was filled with guilt. Had his Saasha been pregnant on that final day? He was filled with so much guilt over those thoughts that he had actually found himself reduced to tears, blaming himself once more for her death. He had ignored the first and second attempts from the king reaching out to him, but the third time he had agreed to go see him.
Not for one second did he regret his decision. Brucel had welcomed his father with open arms, despite knowing the true history of this man. Even the queen, Shannon was welcoming to the damaged Saith. She had been the one to embrace him first upon his visit. She was a small girl compared to his bulk, but she had made him feel like a child as she wrapped her arms around his stomach and lay her head where his heart was.
“Welcome home, Father.” She had said softly.
Something broke in Brucel that day. Emotions he had long buried had surged forward. He had a family again, a family who accepted him and loved him, despite everything he had done. His sins weren’t evident here, they had been wiped away. He had been given a second chance.
His grandchildren from Brucel were young. The daughter, who looked like her mother and carried herself with an air of royalty, was new to Brucel. He wasn’t used to this as his other grandchildren seemed more level-headed. It was then that his son explained that Shannon was also royalty and their daughter Marie, would inherit the throne after her parents. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that until he saw the girl training with the castle guard one day. She may have been born to be a princess, but the Saith genes were strong in her, and she knew how to use the talents of her blood.
His other grandson, a year at this stage, resembled his father right down to the grey tail. It would seem the features that stared back at him in a mirror every day, would continue to accompany the name he had. The only difference was that he had his grandmother’s beautiful blue eyes. The very trait that Brucel had fallen in love with when he met Saasha for the first time.
Again and again, Brucel fell in love with the rich family tree that his counterpart had sired within this timeline. However, something was always missing. There were nights that he spent awake, looking at the shackles around his wrists hating their existence. He wanted them gone but was too weak to do anything about them.
He had discussed it with Larden, the only person who he could be honest with. The man had seemed to ponder it and said, “You know, you’ve spent a considerable amount of time working through your past and getting to know all of us, but there are two people you’re yet to really get to know.”
A mixture of shame and fury flooded the Saith, and he couldn’t help but glare at his eldest. Larden raised his hands and pulled his face into a smirk before saying, “You know as well as I that Mother isn’t going to be as open to forgiving you as you may hope. You’ve mentioned the shackles before, and I tested the waters for you. She’s willing to be beside you if you go through with it. However, there are some conditions.”
“You said nothing!”
“True, because one of those conditions is that I need you to forgive my brother.”
Brucel was on the verge of storming to his feet and yelling at his son when Larden coolly exclaimed, “We both know he had no say over what happened. He was a child; he didn’t know what was coming. Mother never blamed him, so why do you?”
“He was everything that represented what I lost.”
“Was he? Did the pain stop after you killed him?”
Brucel remained quiet; Larden already knew the answer.
“He was three when you and Mom adopted him. We share a birthday, Dad because no one knew when he was born. We were like twins. He is my brother and your son. You must remember the times you held him in your arms like you did the twins. You must have loved him.”
Brucel sat with a sigh, “Love.”
“Excuse me?”
“Loved, past tense, as if I forgot him. No, it’s not loved. It’s love, Larden.” The Saith put his head in his hands.
Larden remained quiet, he was curious to see where this would go.
“It was easier to blame him than to make peace with the fact that everything was a misunderstanding that could have been cleared up if someone had just asked about their missing prince. I lost EVERYTHING because of a misunderstanding.” Brucel put a hand through the kitchen table, much to Larden’s annoyance.
The older Saith tried to control his breathing, something he had been working on in therapy, but his chest hurt, and his throat was raw.
“I was so blinded that I was no better.” He admitted.
Danna entered the kitchen to see what the noise was about, but Larden waved her off, not wanting her to get involved with what was happening. He had been working on achieving this very situation and he knew that Brucel just needed one more push.
“Stupid, I was stupid. Blaming a child. Killing him as if he were nothing. I felt nothing for years! Nothing! Then it started creeping in. The nightmares, the whispers, the accusations. I saw my son turning into me and I was proud. Good! A strong king, a powerful king. A tyrant, a genocidal maniac, just like his father. My pride held steadfast for years! Then, little by little, those voices in the back of my head started to make sense. I had blown a mistake out of proportion. Billions dead and billions more dying and for what? Nothing, I have nothing to show for it, except for this!” Brucel turned his wrists up to show the shackles. “I want them gone but they are a punishment as well! Everyone should know what kind of monster I am. Everyone should see it.”
“But you want to be free?”
“I don’t deserve it, Larden.”
Larden looked at his father with pity and asked again, “But you want to be free?”
“Yes.” Whispered Brucel. “More than anything.”
“Speak to Jethron. You have no idea what your reappearance has done to him.”
Brucel looked up as his eldest son gripped his shoulder but said nothing.
“You were killed by his brother. What do you think that did to him? He was seven, Dad, seven. We were both were. Malekai was an abstract villain to me, he just existed, but to Jethron, he was his brother. He couldn’t hate his brother. How do you think he felt all these decades? Knowing that our family’s pain was because of his brother. I know he hid it well, but it has weighed on him for decades. Mother knew, Mother tried to hide it from him, but he knew, deep down. Your return has been like a knife to the heart of my brother. He still feels that you dying was his fault and seeing you alive again only for you to reject him is crushing him. If you want to be free from those shackles more than the physicalness, you two need to talk. If you love him as you claim, then you will do this.”
“I don’t know how to stop hating him.”
Lardan sighed and picked up his father’s wrists to look at the shackles, “Then learn to bury it and deal with it in time. I have seen how hard you have fought to try and be the man who started our family. I know there is good in you. I know because I am your son, but so is Jethron and he deserves more than just scorn for something that was never his fault.”
Brucel sighed through his nose and closed his eyes. He wasn’t lying when he had said he loved Jethron. He had loved his firstborn with his very being, but when Jethron had come into their lives the love had grown. He had wanted a large family, but Saasha had been hesitant with their occupation. He had been an only child, and when his parents had died, he had been left with no one. He didn’t want that for his son. He had wanted more children, a wish that had been granted when Jethron had landed in their laps.
The tell-tale sting in his eyes told him that the tears were close, something that he hadn’t experienced in such a long time. He didn’t want to collapse now. He wanted to be strong. He wanted to be the keystone to his family once more. He could be that again. He had been offered a position to be part of this world.
“God damned human.” He hissed as he used the heels of his hand to wipe at the tears that were gathering.
“Don’t blame, Saita. Things are just falling into place, that is all. I’ll give you a few days to think about it. We can plan from there.”
Let's see how he reacts when he forces himself to talk to the son he blames for ruining his life.
For those of you who have never heard of Fell Dragon you can find Book 1 here, Book 2 here, Book 3 here, and Book 4 here, Book 5 here, Book 6 here, and Book 7 here
If you have any questions, feel free to ask me. I love discussing my books!
As the series continues, it will combine with another book series I wrote. To avoid confusion about what is happening, introductory chapters will be introduced separately so that you don't have to be lost. However, these chapters will contain spoilers. You can find these chapters here:
Races Explained
Banishment
Royal Guard
Saasha’s Direct Family
Saith Characters Recap
Human Characters Recap
Alternate Timeline Brucel
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Haven't read the other parts yet? Follow these handy links:
Part 7>>You are Here>>Part 9
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