Chapter 16 #3
I shake my head frantically, begging Caelan without words to understand. He has to understand.
What if he doesn’t?
Fear slices through my panic, refusing to leave.
Fates, what if he believes what Father’s implying? What if he looks at me and sees what he wants him to see?
A trap.
A horrible, ignorant Omega who sold him out.
My gaze flies back to Caelan. In a desperate attempt to make him understand, I raise my still shaking fist to my chest and slam it against my sternum, right where I feel our Bond. Right where I feel him, tucked safely between my ribs.
Caelan’s eyes soften. A warm burst of reassurance explodes through me. I exhale, dizzy with relief.
He knows. Of course, he knows.
He can feel me, just like I can feel him.
My relief is short-lived. One look at my father, and I know he’s nowhere close to done with me yet.
“Won’t you join us downstairs, daughter?” His silky purr raises the hairs on the back of my neck. “I’m sure this Alpha at least wants a closer look at the Omega he so stupidly threw away his life for.”
Only a threat to Caelan’s life is enough to make me comply. It’s clear his words aren’t a request. They’re a demand wrapped around a hidden threat.
Come down here, or I’ll kill him now.
I don’t argue. I wrap my hand around the banister and force my legs to move. The walk down the winding stairs feels endless. I know I’m most likely walking to my own execution.
I’m certain of one thing. If I can save Caelan, I’ll do anything Father asks. Even if I have to bargain with my own life, I’ll do it. I’ll make it my only demand.
I have to protect him.
My vision darkens around the edges by the time I make it halfway down the stairs. I’m desperately weak, but the silver pool provides me with just enough strength to keep moving. I take another step. Then another.
Don’t faint, Idril. Don’t you dare faint.
I don’t stop once I make it to the landing. I can’t. My movements carry me straight toward Caelan, like metal pulled toward a magnet.
No one stops me. No one dares.
Father’s men part soundlessly as I drift through them like a ghost.
Maybe I am a ghost.
Maybe I’m already dead, and this is hell.
Caelan hasn’t moved. His muscles strain the closer I get, but otherwise, he’s as still as stone. His piercing black gaze blazes with fury as he tracks my movements. I’m so close, only a few more steps, and I’ll be close enough to touch him. Four feet.
Three—
Two—
Father’s arm snaps out, and his hand clamps painfully around my neck from behind. I whimper as his fingers dig into my flesh. Pain explodes through my neck, radiating up the base of my skull.
Rather than ease up, he squeezes, digging into the bruises that have only just begun to fade. I hear bone grinding against bone. A pained whine rips up my throat, straight from my Omega. The shrill sound echoes through the foyer.
The pressure around my throat chokes off the anguished soun, but not fast enough. The damage is done.
Caelan’s control snaps.
All civility or trace of humanity drains away, leaving behind something ancient and terrifying. Something that’s hunted and killed indiscriminately for centuries before, and will continue long after.
His lips peel back from his teeth in a feral snarl so terrifying it’s immediately clear who the real predator in this room is.
When his fangs drop—long, razor sharp and deadly—the promise of death chills the air, turning it cold and oppressive. The sound Caelan releases is a vow of pure, unadulterated violence.
Every predatory instinct he’s honed for centuries is salivating for the blood of a single target.
My father.
Even knowing the threat isn’t directed at me, my body locks up. Some primal prey instinct that’s been buried deep comes alive, warning me not to move. Not to make a sound.
The silence holds for a long, suffocating moment, then my father breaks it with a laugh.
It’s not a nervous laugh. He’s not trying to cover his fear with a fake sense of superiority. Neither is it the desperate laugh of someone buying time to think.
It’s unhinged. Delighted. Full of a smug joy that turns my blood to ice.
He crouches behind me and yanks my head back by my neck until I can feel his hot breath on my skin.
“I told you, didn’t I? I told you he’d come back.” His words hold a sick sort of triumph. I press my lips together, refusing to respond. Refusing to play his game. Refusing to show him how terrified I am.
Because I just realized something terrible.
My father isn’t the least bit afraid. He’s standing five feet away from a centuries-old vampire Alpha who can presumably tear his throat out in mere seconds. And he’s… excited.
Which means I’ve seriously miscalculated. My father didn’t simply set a trap. He has something up his sleeve.
A plan… or a weapon… or a secret or—
Something. Something that’s giving him the confidence to face down a male like Caelan and laugh in his face.
Fates…
We truly might not make it out alive. Neither of us.
A tear escapes my lower lashes, falling down my cheek and over my lips. It follows the same path as Caelan’s fingers when he touched me for the first time in the quiet stillness of my room. That moment feels like it happened ages ago.
The look on his face guts me.
Rage, hopelessness, grief. Like he’s terrified he’s about to watch me die and knows he can’t do anything to stop it. Like his mind is spinning in circles, following the same paths to the exact same realizations as mine.
My father snarls and his hand flexes harder, demanding I answer his taunt.
“Yes.”
The word comes out as a choked wheeze because he won’t release pressure on my neck until I respond, and that one word is all I can force out.
Tears fill my vision and before I can blink them away, another tear falls, trailing the first. Caelan following its path down my neck and over my collarbone, refusing to look away until it falls, blending with the cotton fibers of my dress.
“Search him,” Father commands with a final, sharp squeeze to my neck.
Almost as soon as I register the weight of his hand lifting off my neck, he grips my arms by the wrist with both hands and jerks them behind my back.
One hand slips and he doubles down, yanking my arms back so forcefully I have to bite my cheek to keep from screaming in pain.
I won’t scream. I refuse to give him the satisfaction. I won’t do anything to provoke Caelan into reacting on instinct. That’s probably exactly what Father wants. He hasn’t got a chance against him unless he can trick him into something.
Resolve hardens my insides. If this is my last night on earth, I’ll face it.
I won’t run. I won’t hide.
Because this time, I have something to fight for. Something more than my own life. I have Caelan, and the promise I made to keep him safe.
And the swirling, silver pool that churns furiously at the mere sound of Father’s voice.