Chapter TwentyForeign memories unspooled into him, filled with passionate anger and furious fears, lives lived secretly behind rigid rules. Mason let them come, sinking into the tub as it filled with cold water.
The old man's people were cautious and painfully closed off. He lost himself in the wash of other lives, holding himself under water as the memories sorted themselves, shifting into place among those of his mother and grandmother. The water siphoned off the heat from his skin as he worked through the bulk of the collected life of a man he barely knew and all of his ancestors.
He was nearly done enough to deal with his other physical needs when he felt a tickle in the back of his mind. It was warm and familiar, then Alaric's presence filled him, pushing aside everything else. “Mas
