Chapter Twenty-Five
W hen you hold a secret inside of you for more than half of your life, you expect to feel a sense of relief when the secret is finally out there.
Relief. Guilt. Fear. Shame.
Any of those would be logical responses.
So then, why do I feel such a heavy sense of…. Nothing?
Nothing at all has changed.
I don’t know what irritates me more, the fact that I feel nothing for finally giving a voice to the fear I have held inside of me through my entire childhood, or that my father has gone back to ignoring my existence and refuses to give his opinion or knowledge on the matter at all.
Once Father started denying literally everything that came out of my mouth, including my confirmation of my former name, I walked away.
He is worse than a child throwing a temper tantrum for not getting their way, and I’m done trying to be what I think he wants me to be because it’s finally glaringly clear that all he actually wants is for me… to be out of his life.
Forsythia walks over and sits on the rock beside me. She grabs my hand in hers, and I relax in her comfort. “So, Nox?” she asks me in a gentle tone.
I shake my head and give her the truth. “No. Nox was a child whose love for his mother nearly cost him his own life. I stopped being ‘Nox Tynnan’ the moment Euyriale pushed me off a ten-foot cliff.”
“She what?! Why?” Sythia sounds as upset as I should be at the admission. But truthfully? I still feel nothing about it all.
I shrug my shoulders and give her my best guess. “She always hated the fact that I got a warped version of the merfolk shifter abilities and no wings. She wanted a strong heir with more obvious demon traits. I think she thought she could force a pair of wings out. If it weren’t for my fast demon healing, though, that fall would have probably been fatal instead of just breaking my arm, nose, and some ribs.”
She shakes her head at me. “I’m so sorry that the little boy you were had to go through all of that. You didn’t deserve to have two terrible parents. No child deserves that”
I nod my head in agreement. Yeah, they were both pretty terrible.
But I guess at least my father attempted to protect me with his name and didn’t become a life-sucking creature that looks like something from your worst nightmares.
And it wasn’t all terrible. He did give me to Cord–
I jump to my feet, and Forsythia mimics my movements. “What is it?”
I look into her eyes and try to inject the urgency that I feel with maybe a little less of the raw panic. “My father’s words. Forsythia, they have Cordelia. We have to go. Now !”
I start moving, and Sythia follows. When we get back to Lucian and our fathers, I tell them to get ready to go. Orobas agrees to lead us there and help.
However, my father opts to stay behind and take care of the bodies of his people, stating that once he is finished, he will locate Ronan and the other children and to make sure they escaped.
It’s a solid plan, and I understand that as faction leader, he has to have a different set of priorities, but it still hurts that he isn’t more concerned for his own mother. Then again, Cordelia did always say that Dagon was more like his father than he was like her.
After a small debate, we decided to fly there, and by ‘we’ I mean I was out-voted by all the magickals with wings. There is a brief debate on who will carry me, but I ultimately go with Lucian.
Why?
Well, because I would rather look like a wimpy man in another, much larger, man’s arms than to look like a wimpy man being carried by a female half his size and much too strong for her own good. Besides, I don’t think she could see over my in her tiny arms if she were to carry me.
I am definitely not interested in her clumsy ass running us both into a tree or something. Or worse… crash landing because she doesn’t offset her stance to account for my weight.
We snag a few supplies from Cordelia’s, including a pair of boots for me and Orobas and a few more weapons we manage to scrounge up, and then we’re on our way.
I want to say that I look like a badass being assisted by a brother and held in a non-awkward way, but the truth is… I look like a damsel in distress with how Lucian is holding me.
The whole position makes me feel awkward as fuck, so I keep cracking jokes, and it’s making Lucian uncomfortable, so he keeps threatening to drop me. It’s a cluster-fuck in the sky, and for once, Sythia is the graceful one.
We touch down in a clearing that is mostly overgrown. Orobas clears his throat, but his words still come out gravelly. “This–this was the village center. At least the earth has reclaimed the land.” He bends down and brushes his fingertips across the petals of the wildflowers that are growing in a vast rainbow all around this space.
It truly is a beautiful sight, but when I see the heavy forsythia bushes lining an entire edge of the clearing, it brings a smile to my lips. It truly is sweet how much Sythia’s parents loved each other. Even if they never got their happy ending.
I make myself a silent vow that their daughter will have hers.
Movement at the tree line draws my attention, and the thing that was once Hudson emerges, tugging Cordelia behind him. He has her hands bound in front of her and a cloth secured across her mouth. Other than looking a little dirty, she seems to be okay. She has a small scratch under her left eye and the sight unfurls a heat deep in my belly.
They fucking hurt her. They will pay.
Un -Hudson’s three lackeys spread out behind him as they breach the edge of the clearing. They only walk a few steps before he is forcing Cordelia to her knees. Her eyes meet mine, and I see something flash in them that I have never seen before… fear .
“Hello again, Abomination ,“ he sneers at me before turning his gaze to Forsythia. “And Princess! Nice to see the rumors of your passing were simply that. Your death would be quite an inconvenience.”
Yeah… I will show him what a real inconvenience her death was…
“Let her go,” I growl out.
The fucker has the audacity to laugh at me but then goes back to talking to Forsythia, as if the rest of us don’t even exist. “You have caused a lot of problems, Princess, and you have gotten in the way of my plans a little too much. I didn’t realize that killing your little birdy pet would bring out some other abilities. All the better, though. You will make for a terrific feast for the Creatori, and once it has consumed your pure Gods-touched life essence, then it will be truly unstoppable.”
“I’m not your Princess, and you will pay dearly for what you did to Ori and in that merfolk village.“ She snarls at him and a quick glance confirms that her eyes are glowing brightly, her full magick only a breath away.
“You mean the young ones, yes?” He cackles at the memory, and bile rises in my throat. “I do so love it when they scream. It’s a deliciously pure fear.”
Hudson’s words bring the memories of Forsythia rocking the merfolk boy’s body and of the sight of all the other bodies she didn’t notice flooding to the front of my mind. If I had any question about the level of corruption within this being, he just answered it with an unwavering totality.
The air begins to stir, and the light begins to dim. I know without looking that a false eclipse is starting.
The look on Hudson’s face when he looks up at the sky, is nothing short of pure glee. “Ah! There she is. I am so glad you have come out to play, my dear. Let’s have a rematch, shall we??” His tone has become frantic, and his eyes are wild.
“Let’s see if you are fast enough to save her this time.” He holds Cordelia up by her hair in one hand.
Everything happens so fast and yet so slowly all at once.
I watch, frozen in my fear, as Forsythia dashes toward them.
Cordelia reaches up and yanks the cloth from her mouth. Her eyes meet mine, and she mouths the words she only ever spoke to me once as a child, showing she cared more with her actions than her words. ‘I love you’.
Tears pool in my eyes and run in rivers down my cheeks as I repeat the gesture. Mouthing the words back, “‘I love you always.”
Forsythia is only halfway there when Hudson raises his other hand and uses a finger to trace a circle around his own head.
The spell is immediate, and I watch in horror as Cordelia’s body crumples to the ground, with her head still hanging from Hudson’s hand.