CHAPTER NINE -THE ORIGIN OF SCARS

"We have to go see your father, Nathaniel, and find out if this is true," Emrys said somberly.

"Find out if what is true exactly? That my mother was possessed by the Devil? Need I remind you that my father is in a mental institution. I'm sure if we asked a bunch of people in there at least one of them would claim to be the Devil himself so what makes you think what my father says will be true?" Nate threw up his hands.

Emrys gripped his shoulders. "We are witches. Your father married a powerful one of us. That changes everything."

"Does it make him not crazy?" Nate shook his head. "You're asking me to believe the impossible. I just can't ..."

"You control storms. I can shapeshift. There are people who want to kill us not because of these powers, but because of how we got them," Emrys said.

"By making a pact with the Devil?" Nate couldn't hide the disbelief in his tone.

"Don't call it the Devil. Don't even think of it like that. It will trip you up, because it's nothing like that," Emrys urged.

"What should I think of it as then?" Nate asked. "I keep getting the image of horns, a forked tong and a long tail. Oh, and hooves with red scaly skin."

"I imagine it could look like whatever it wants including that," Emrys responded dryly. "But it isn't like anything you have ever encountered, read about or even thought about."

"How do you know?" Nate asked, a sudden stab of curiosity making him ask. Emrys paused. Nate could see him considering whether or not to respond. "Hey! Tell me yes or no! And no lying!"

"I can't tell you yes or no," Emrys responded with a chilly smile. "Because I don't know if I did or didn't. I saw something. Once. When I ..." His lips writhed back from his teeth. "When I got these scars you're so fond of."

Nate felt like he had been slapped across the face by that statement. He swallowed and looked away. He couldn't explain his fascination with the scars. Emrys made him feel two feet tall whenever he pointed that out. "Oh, I'm ... I'm sorry." He scrubbed a hand through his hair. "Forget it. Let's just stop talking about it."

"Why? Do you think what we have to do is going to go away?" Emrys' voice held a waspish sting.

Nate's head jerked up. "No! I just think that talking with you sometimes is like walking through a mine field!" Emrys pulled back. His eyes were shadowed and his mouth opened then shut. "You can say whatever you want to me, but if I innocently ask a question you get all weird! And mean! How am I supposed to know what to ask you or what not to? I don't know you, Emrys!"

"I didn't say you couldn't ask me things. There are just consequences about asking questions to which you don't already know the answers," Emrys retorted.

"But it's okay for you to do it? Or worse, you know that it's going to hurt me when you ask those things, but you do it anyways. But I need to watch myself or otherwise I might hit your soft underbelly!" Nate was shaking with anger at that moment. Emrys infuriated him. He was playful and coy one moment. Brittle and chilly the next. It wasn't fair that he got to flip on a dime while Nate somehow had to endure the probing, ruthless questions about his mother's murder and his father's insanity.

Emrys blinked furiously. "I don't have a soft underbelly! I'm quite well armored, I'll have you know."

"You so aren't! I mean you might think you are, but when I know more about you, I'll bet that your weaknesses will shine out like beacons in the night!" Nate yelled.

"Do you want to hurt me?" Emrys asked, his voice quiet and somehow more deadly than if he had shouted that question.

Nate was so shocked that he stepped back. "What? No. No! I wouldn't -- I don't! For fuck's sake, I -- you're impossible. Why would you even ask me something like that? Why would you even think it? God, you can just leave if you think I'd hurt you on purpose!"

Nate sat back down on his desk chair and held his head in his hands. A painful silence fell between then. Emrys was in shadow so his expression was unreadable. He was completely still like a statue.

"I thought I saw the Devil -- for lack of a better word -- when my parents performed a blood-letting ceremony on me," Emrys said softly.

Nate's head rose. "Your parents scarred you?"

Emrys let out a soft laugh that had no mirth in it. He drew a hand down his chest. "Where you can see and ..." He tapped his temple. "Where you cannot."

"Why did they do something like that?" Nate's skin crawled at the thought of parents doing the intimate work of slicing their own child's flesh. He knew that his father had set fire to the house with him inside, but it seemed more remote compared to what Emrys' parents had done.

"They wanted power. And in blood, in pain, in doing the unthinkable and taboo, there is a lot of power," Emrys breathed out. "Do you want the gory details?"

Nate stared at him, trying to read what Emrys wanted him to say, but then he realized that the other man with his sparkling topaz eyes, expressive mouth and body covered in fine ridges was harder to read than anyone he'd ever met. "Do you want to tell me them?"

Emrys shrugged as if he didn't care, but he had to care. Though maybe the telling was necessary for him in some way. "It was Christmas Eve. It might surprise you to know that we witches celebrated Christmas. Not for the religious aspect, but for the community. It was a normal thing to do. A reason to have a party. And I loved it." Emrys began to pace again. "Lots of presents that only obscene amounts of wealth can bring. But I wasn't jaded. I still loved ripping open brightly wrapped packages. I loved receiving things from people. Even if I could buy myself whatever I wanted. It was the surprise."

"You were all big-eyed and eager for Santa?" Nate asked with a cautious grin. He tried to imagine Emrys as a kid running down a carved, curled staircase in footie pajamas with his dark hair sticking up in all directions from sleep. It was a cute image, but it wavered and disappeared as he looked at the handsome, scarred man in front of him.

Emrys chuckled. "I was sixteen. A bit old for Santa. But eager to see if my father had bought me the silver Aston Martin I had been eyeing for months."

"A car of your own ... a really expensive car ..." Nate sighed. His grandmother's Buick was on its last legs and unless Daniel gave him a ride, he hoofed it or rode his bike.

Emrys ignored his wistful jealousy. "That night, as we did every Christmas Eve, my parents threw a party. A real bacchanal. There was so much wine and rich food that every table was filled. I was drunk just on the smell of dinner. And Father kept plying me with champagne. It always made me feel like rockets are going off in my blood when I drank it. I think I had three bottles myself by the end of the night."

"He got you drunk on purpose, didn't he?" Nate asked, his voice small and uncertain. He found himself gripping the sides of the seat of his chair. It was like that moment when he had seen the car coming right for them and nothing seemingly able to stop it. Emrys was about to get hit by something his father did and there was no stopping it. Not Emrys' magic. Nothing.

"He did. You're quite right. He'd never shared booze with me and I thought it was because I was a year older. Finally, mature enough to get his notice. A man!" Emrys let out a bitter laugh. "Both my mother and father had ignored me from birth, really. I was raised by a variety of nannies and social secretaries. I'm surprised I wasn't a complete wastrel at that point. But I -- I held some innocence. Or maybe ignorance is the truth of it. Not as pretty as innocence."

"There you go again with pretty things," Nate said hollowly.

"Yes, you see my whole life up to the point had been a pretty lie." Emrys stalked over to the window and pulled back the curtain to look out. His face was alive with a sadness that hurt to see. "I thought they loved me as much as they could. Yet at the same time, paradoxically, I thought I could win more of their love if only I was a bit better. I thought that maybe I had. That night. Oh, that night."

"It's not a bad thing to want that, you know. To want your parents to love you," Nate said. He itched to go over to Emrys right then and hold him as if he were the older one, the stronger one, the bigger one. But he didn't think Emrys wanted to be touched at that moment.

"Unfortunately, it can be. Because it blinds to you to what people really are capable of. Your want does not make them different." Emrys continued to stare out the window. "So when my father slung his arm around me, his eyes blazing with a strange light I thought was warmth and his mouth wet with wine and led me down to the cellar at two in the morning, telling me he wanted to show me something extra special ..."

"Oh, God," Nate said unconsciously. He got up from the chair and rubbed his arms. Gooseflesh had broken out all over his body.

"God really wasn't there," Emrys said with a trace of amusement. "My mother was waiting at the bottom of the cellar stairs. She was wearing this long ruby-colored dress with a single sapphire at her throat. Her hands were behind her back and she was smiling as we stumbled down the steps. As I stumbled ... because he didn't."

Nate went to his closet with Emrys' description of that night winding around him like a cold sheet. He blindly grabbed for a t-shirt of one of the hangars and put in on over his shaking body. He could see Emrys' mother, picture her, with that faux smile gracing her lip-sticked mouth, but not reflected in her eyes as Emrys was led down to her like a lamb to slaughter.

"He was suddenly very steady on his feet. And his hand on the back of my neck was so very strong that it hurt. I think I made some comment. A statement to not go so fast. To let up on his grip. But he just laughed." One of Emrys' hands lightly traced the edge of the moonlit window sash. His body seemed relaxed, his voice calm, as he spoke of something that was terrible to listen to let alone tell.

Nate tugged on the shirt and grabbed a pair of sweats off the bottom of the closet. He didn't even stop to sniff them to see how fresh they were. He was so cold and Emrys' story made him desperate to be covered and warm.

"When we got to the bottom step, she pulled one hand out from around her back. In it was a sparkling black powder. I opened my mouth to ask what it was. That's when she blew across her palm and the powder went straight into my mouth and then my lungs," Emrys said. He touched his throat. "I couldn't breath. I strained for air. Black spots danced before my eyes. I grabbed the front of my father's tuxedo and pulled the white shirt out of his pants as I sank to the ground."

Nate slid the sweatpants up underneath the wet towel. There was a slight clearing of a throat from Emrys that had Nate whipping around to face him. The older man had turned around. "I'm listening! I'm ... I'm just so cold."

"I know you're listening." Emrys walked over to him. He ran his knuckles down Nate's cheek. His eyes glowed with warmth. "I can feel your agony for me. You are thinking if only you had been there! You would have --"

"Stopped them. Not let them hurt you. I wouldn't have let them get you alone!" Nate found himself saying.

Emrys pressed their foreheads together. "Such a brave, bold boy. But you must remember that you were only six when this happened. We did not know of one another. There was nothing you could do. And now ... it is a memory."

"But it's like you're still there," Nate whispered.

Emrys feathered one hand in Nate's hair. "In a way, I always will be."

Nate gritted his teeth. "Tell me that they're in prison! Tell me that they were arrested for what they did!"

"But you haven't heard it all yet. I'll tell you their fate after you hear it all," Emrys murmured. He drew his mouth along Nate's cheek, kissing him lightly then pulling back. "I collapsed on the floor and the next thing I remember was waking up on my back and blindfolded. I was naked. It was cold in the cellar. I was chained spread-eagle, and from what I know now, I am sure that design in chalk beneath me. It would have had sigils of power. Then the chanting began."

"Was it them? Your parents?" Nate asked. His hands moved to Emrys' powerful biceps. He could feel the ridges of the scars underneath his palms and it burned him, but he held on because he had the absurd fear that Emrys would suddenly be ripped away from him if he didn't.

"It was just the two of them and not the full coven. They wanted this power all for themselves. And perhaps, even they knew that the coven would have found their actions a step too far," Emrys answered. "I could see slashes of things beneath the edge of the silk that bound my eyes. I saw my mother, her breasts bared and a sigil drawn in blood between them at my feet. She had a candle and a dagger. My father walked proudly into view. Both had on the hooded cloaks, but nothing else. His cock was erect and he rubbed it against the back of my mother's head."

Nate made a gagging sound. "They were getting off on -- on hurting you?"

"Of course. Power, blood, and the forbidden. Those things were aphrodisiacs to my parents. Sometimes they are to me as well." Emrys kissed his forehead and mouthed the orbit of his eye before speaking. "My mother turned her head and she sucked on my father's cock in front of me for the first time. She left a smear of red lipstick along the shaft."

"God, why? What -- no, just no," Nate breathed. He could see it in his head. He imagined the elder Frosts' cock wet with her saliva and stained red with her lipstick.

"He batted it against her lips then took it away from her hungry mouth. She moaned and leaned after it like it was a treat he was denying her. I remember then that I saw one of her hands was busy rubbing her clit. She was wet and her juice coated her fingers. It dripped onto the floor," Emrys said.

Nate shivered. Mixed in with his disgust though was a sliver of arousal as Emrys caressed his shoulders, his back and front while he told this horrible tale. Emrys' breath puffed against his mouth.

"What did you say to them? You must have been afraid. Totally freaked," Nate said.

"I was. I most sincerely was. Part of me still hoped that this was a ritual that wouldn't hurt me, that would instead bring me fully into their world. If they were willing to do this in front of me then surely ... surely, they trusted and loved me," Emrys said with a soft laugh. "I spoke up. Asking them where I was. What was happening. I saw my mother's head turn towards me. Her mouth was parted and her tongue snaked out and licked her lips like I was a meal."

"Jesus Christ," Nate whispered and gripped Emrys closer to him.

"Again, not present. But my father was. His mouth was suddenly at my ear and he asked me if I wanted to help them, if I wanted to be a good son, and give them something for Christmas just like they had given me for so many years," Emrys said. His arms went around Nate and he began to sway them back and forth like they were dancing.

"No, no fucking way he asked you that!" Nate's throat felt tight.

"Yes, he did. And what will make your skin crawl was how I answered: of course! I wanted to give them something! I loved them. I could hear a smile in his voice as he responded, 'Good, Emrys. My very good boy.'" Emrys went quiet for a long moment. "Then the cutting began."

Nate's stomach lurched. "No."

"The knife he had was so sharp that it just felt like something hot flicked over the skin of my arm," Emrys said. "I felt something wet rush along my wrist and drip. Then the pain came. I realized he had cut me. I cried out. He said, 'It's all right to scream, Emrys. It will only make it better for us.' They were both on me then. Mother and him. Their knives flickering all over my body. Cutting, slicing. Making sure the cuts were deep but not too deep. They worked from the outside in. My father on my arms. My mother on my legs. Then they carved my chest and down ... down to my fucking cock. They cut me there, too. I know you were wondering earlier."

Nate nearly gagged at that. He pulled back from Emrys and rested his head against the wall. His breath came in choking gasps. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"About them? Yes, but about yourself and what you feel about the scars ... I'd rather you weren't," Emrys said. His body was suddenly resting fully against Nate's. He wasn't aroused, but Nate could tell that he could be if Nate responded to him.

"Why? I feel like them! I'm disgusting for --"

Emrys kissed the back of his neck, silencing Nate. "No, you're nothing like them. And you are naturally responding to what your subconscious mind knows while your conscious does not."

"What am I responding to? Your pain? I don't want that! I would never want that!" Nate cried out.

"No, to the power. To the magic in my blood. To the timeless symbols they drew on my body. For you see, the joke in the end was on them. The ritual they performed did not give them power as they thought," Emrys said. He turned Nate around so that they were face to face.

"What did it do?" Nate asked.

Emrys smiled. "It gave me power. And that's when I saw It ..."

"The Devil?" Nate breathed.

"I called It to me I think. I was in so much pain. And my hate was like nothing I had ever known. Especially as I saw my parents kiss over my writhing body." Emrys' lips writhed back from his teeth. "It was a deeper darkness just at the corner of my eye. It was just ... there. And the air froze hard and cracked. My parents turned to look at what had invaded their cellar and --" Emrys suddenly stopped talking.

"Emrys? What did they see?" Nate asked.

Emrys raised a hand up in warning for him to be quiet. He growled low in his throat and suddenly dashed over to the window.

"Emrys?" Nate repeated.

"Stay here. Whatever you do, don't follow me," Emrys said over his shoulder as he crawled out the window. Fur had already started to sprout from his back.

"What? Why?" Nate asked, fascinated as he watched Emrys change from man to wolf for the first time.

Just before his fangs fully descended, making speech impossible, Emrys said, "One of the wards has been breached. Someone is coming."

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