Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
CADEN
“Caden . . . I think we have a serious fuckin’ problem.”
The camera was dark and grainy, making me doubt the images coming back from Killian.
Heat clawed down my spine, locking down the influx of anger and terror underneath.
I despised my father, what he had turned into, what he had done, especially to my mother and me, but this was like a knife to my gut, hacksawing at everything I knew and understood.
My home, my very foundation, which was already crumbling under my feet, was now the headquarters for our enemy.
I trained my whole life and was programmed to be a proud HDF soldier, believing I was on the right side. A patriot who would one day lead as my father had. Now as I looked through the square, I found nothing recognizable.
“What? What’s going on?” Birdie’s voice came into my ear.
My eyes automatically went to where I knew she was stationed along the wall.
Only I was able to see what Killian and Rosie could; the rest were only connected through our earpieces—equipment so deep in the black market, my father couldn’t even get it.
“Can you get closer?” My heart thumped stronger in my chest, still hoping the black uniforms with an embedded insignia were a trick of my eye, that the hazy night was affecting the camera.
The camera danced as Killian and Rosie snuck closer, hiding behind the Kossuth Memorial—an old monument dedicated to a long-ago Regent-President Lajos Kossuth.
It was their last line of defense before it opened up on the enormous square filled with training soldiers.
Their backs were to us, but I could see they were women and men, mainly young, but some appeared rail-thin and fragile as they held their rifles, stabbing them in the air.
Their movements were rigid. I knew the signs. They were all on the pills.
“Strike! Kill!” the instructor on stage yelled out. The camera was close enough to see him this time, his voice coming in clearer, taking me back to ballrooms, champagne, and decadence. To the sick little fuck who I wanted to punch in the face every time he was near.
“Holy shit. It can’t be . . .” Killian’s tone made my stomach drop, catching the same thing I did.
No. My brain wanted to reject it, not letting me connect the two opposing sides. Two worlds that didn’t belong.
The son of Prime Minister Lazar.
“Sergiu.” I breathed out, my eyes locked on the weasel of a man onstage instructing the troops, colliding with the entitled, lazy son of a bitch I grew up knowing. The fucked-up asshole Brexley was supposed to marry.
“Sergiu?” Hanna exclaimed into our ears. She had also known him, not like Brexley and me, but Hanna knew him enough to understand his character. “What the hell is he doing here?”
My question exactly. Why was he dressed in the insignia of the fae? Leading them like he was a captain?
Images flickered in my mind—my father holding Sonya, Alexandru, and Sergiu at gunpoint, turning against his allies, taking them prisoner before Věrh?za was attacked by Povstat. In our world, that kind of insult would cause war against nations.
My throat tightened, and my skin flushed warm, clashing against the freezing air, my mind spinning with thoughts.
“What the fuck is that little twat Sergiu doing here? Wearing Sonya’s mark?” Killian’s smooth voice went low, edging on guttural, feeling the deeper threat on the hold of his kingdom.
Not one person here didn’t remember him watching us fight for our lives in the pit, snickering, until he was the one my father turned against.
Alexandru Lazar was smart, shrewd, and knew how to play the game to survive. Romania’s allies were few, and losing Hungary . . .
Sergei was too arrogant and conceited to see anything but his own ego.
“Daddy put him there.” I gritted through my teeth.
I never enjoyed the backstabbing and maneuvering the leaders did, but I knew their plays well.
I understood more than anybody what Alexandru was doing—saving his own skin.
Tossing away his country, his people, hoping he would be inside the protected elite circle as the human hold came tumbling down.
With my father running off, leaving the field open, Lazar saw Sonya was gaining control, and he had no chance against her.
He tossed all his morals away to survive as she took power.
Getting Sergiu in her fold, working for her, was probably one of the many ways Lazar was solidifying his place. His safety within her reign. I would have no doubt many of these people building her army were from the streets of Romania.
Sergiu screamed at them in repetition, thriving off his own anger, his ego reveling in the dominance and power he wielded. He was standing on a house of cards, but the idiot was far too self-absorbed to see it. The little prince was playing dress-up for a war he wasn’t prepared to fight.
“Fuck,” Wesley hissed. “Romania is with her? This is so much worse than we thought.”
It was, and I still couldn’t understand how this happened. Where was Andor? He was my father’s right-hand man. Wasn’t he in charge? How could my father just have abandoned HDF? Left it to this?
“Get out,” Hanna spoke. “This is far too dangerous.”
“No.” Rosie’s British accent flared in my ear. “We are too close. We’re here. We’re never going to get this chance again. There might be more inside that lockbox than just the whereabouts of the lab.”
More rope snagged around my lungs, knowing my father was in Ukraine, building his own empire.
Pushing Ivanenko out, taking over his throne, power, and well-trained military.
It was why my father wanted me to marry Olena at one time.
To be the one to take Ivanenko’s position while father stayed in Hungary. Our power expanding wider and wider.
As an alternative, if I couldn’t step up, he was fucking my fiancé behind my back, impregnating her to make sure no matter what, we were “in bed” with them.
The rage and hate I felt for my father roared through me, my lungs heaving and my vision blurring. To my father, I was never enough for him. Never the son he wanted. Never strong or disciplined enough. So, he tried to mold me into a legend, but that I couldn’t even do right.
He left me to die, even hoped I would, so I would no longer be a concern. A threat to his new son and wife.
I wanted to destroy my father.
I wanted his death.
The sensation was so overpowering, my stomach rolled with nausea. It vibrated through my muscles, sang in my veins, embedding into my DNA.
Into my fae DNA . . .
I rankled with fury. I could feel that legendary asshole everywhere. His magic changing me. Tying us together.
What scared me the most? I liked the power.
The magic curling around my spine, making me stronger than I could ever dream.
And that pissed me off. I didn’t know what was happening to me.
My morals still fought against what felt natural.
I was becoming one of them. The enemy. The soulless.
Though, I seemed to feel everything more.
My senses and emotions were heightened to the point I couldn’t breathe.
“There are stairs to your right, which lead you down into the training rooms.” I shook myself from my dark thoughts, zeroing in on the mission.
I agreed with Rosie—keep going. There was nothing I wanted more than to take my father down.
I heard Killian take a deep breath. As leader, he shouldn’t even be on this assignment, but as stupid as it was, I kind of respected him for it.
He wasn’t sitting on the sidelines like my father did.
I had always idolized Brexley’s dad growing up.
Benet was the first to ride into a battle.
He stood with his men, and he died with his men.
He wasn’t behind a desk, ordering others to die in his name without also risking his life.
“I decide if we go forward or not,” Killian bade, his camera turning to Rosie.
“We’re too close,” Rosie protested, shooting him a look.
“I would be ending this mission if my men were here and not me. I would not put them in harm’s way for something they are not prepared for, getting them killed.”
Through the camera I watched Rosie fold her arms, her jaw rolling, her gaze not leaving Killian’s
“I swear to the gods, Red.” Killian muttered, the camera shaking with his head. “We go on, you listen to everything I say, you got it?”
She nodded her head.
He sighed again.
“We go on three. Do not stop for anything,” he instructed.
Tension rose in my throat as Killian peered out.
The troops were still doing their drills, the shadows of the foggy night providing some cover to the vast square.
“Okay, one, two, three . . .” Killian shot out from behind the statue, moving so quietly, his feet like a cat’s, darting like a bullet to the stairs.
Rosie worked hard to keep up, her breathing laboring in my ears.
“Go down and turn immediately to the left once you’re through the doors.
” The camera flickered as Killian and Rosie headed underground.
I knew every inch. The smell of sweat and damp musk from the showers.
The squeak of the lockers, the piles of training clothes heaped in the laundry baskets.
The gym and training area was more of a home to me than the flat I lived in far above.
It was where I felt the happiest. Not under my father’s eyes, where I always had to prove myself more than anyone else.
I still felt free in the world down here.
The camera flickered again when Rosie and Killian entered, the light blinding from the darkness outside. They turned left toward the locker room. The normal noise of booming voices, showers, and lockers slamming was gone.
The room was eerily silent. Not one person was there.
This was the easiest access point to get up to the higher levels without notice, as the doors above ground were always guarded. Or at least they were when my father was in charge.