The Royal Series 0 - A Royal Archive

Chapter 7

† Braddock †

"Commander?"

Braddock frowned, as he realised that he did not face the monster he had expected to find within this tower. The man before him was none other than his own military leader.

Commander Lee stood by the window, gazing out into the fog. "I see you have sent the woman and children running," he commented.

Braddock rushed to the window and saw Eryk pushing Yalena towards her horse, while lifting Amil onto his own. He seemed rushed and frightened, while Yalena hesitated by the horse and gazed up at the window. She would not be able to see much through the fog.

Then Commander Lee waved his hand and the small visibility that had been possible a moment ago faded, until all he could see was the fog. "It does not matter." He dismissed their escape with a smile and a shrug.

"You are responsible for harming those children?" Braddock asked, in shock.

He watched, confused and concerned as Commander Lee crossed to an armchair by a fire and sat down, lazily, as though this were any other visit.

"Take a seat, son. I will explain everything in due time," he admitted.

Though desperate to know the truth, there was one thing that stopped Braddock from sitting. And it was not his shock or the betrayal of knowing that a man he had trusted and idolised could commit such crimes.

"Where is the monster?" he asked, looking around the empty room. "Where is the beast that attacked Yalena and those children, to disguise what you did to them?" he demanded.

"Ah!" Commander Lee smiled a sickening, twisted smile. "So you still have not figured it out? You think the monster was merely a cover for my deeds? Oh dear. Braddock, I thought you much smarter than that," he said, with a chuckle.

When he gestured to the seat across the fire from him, Braddock sat reluctantly, confused. "Then why mutilate the bodies? Why assault those children and tear them to shreds?" he persisted.

Commander Lee placed each arm along the arm of the chair, moving very carefully, in pain or stiffness. "I am old, Braddock. I have lived a thousand years and encountered tens of thousands of people. Not one has felt like family, until you arrived in my regiment. You were so alone, so untrained and wild." He chuckled again and shook his head. "I was half convinced that you had lycan blood in your veins, until I learned of your family. A father who beat you, a mother who took an unhealthy addiction to opiates. Once I knew the truth, I realised that you had been left to raise yourself and had come out remarkably well, considering."

Braddock clenched his teeth. No one knew of his family situation, nor had he wished them to. Those details were private and he had thought them irrelevant, after losing both his parents long ago. It was true his father beat him, but he had also been a kind, loving father at times. It was the drink he swallowed in bucket loads that made him lash out. And it was his mother's addiction that made him drink.

His childhood had been a vicious circle of unfortunate circumstance. Yet, he had nothing but fond memories of his father. Not the man who took a belt to him six times a day, but the man who sat Braddock upon his knee and told him stories of far away lands. The father who spent nine years washing up his mother's vomit and cleaning up after her tantrums, mopping her sweat beaded brow when she had a drug induced fever. The father who always listened when he needed advice and knew how to make him feel better.

The man with the belt had become an unknown entity, years later. An alter-ago to the father he loved. Braddock had labelled him the 'monster' that dwelled in the darkness of their home.