Chapter 29 #2
Exclusive. Select. As if only humans could possess a soul or could be kind and loving. Humans created a word to make themselves virtuous. The ones fighting for good. When all I saw was the opposite.
It was bullshit, and I had believed it all.
“You have it all wrong.” I gritted through my teeth, feeling my body expand, magic boiling through my veins.
I welcomed it.
Wanted it.
Embraced it.
“It’s not the fae who took from me, who turned their backs on me . . . who betrayed me.” I sneered. “It’s not them I want to destroy.” I shifted my frame, towering over him. His soldiers cocked their guns, pressing them into me like that would scare me.
A smirk curled my lip as a low growl vibrated my chest, the sound even making my father gulp.
“You might have raised a boy to fight for you.” I snarled in his face. “But you created a monster who will kill you.” I lunged for my father as my hands wrapped around the barrels of the guards’ guns, yanking them out of their grips, flipping them around, ready to shoot.
BOOOOOM!
My feet were torn off the ground, the bomb sending me up in the air as more explosions went off around me, ringing in my ears.
I hit the ground, the weapons flying from my hands.
Everything went black as billowing dirt clotted my lungs, pain echoing through my bones when cement chunks came raining down on me.
I curled up, covering my head and neck from the wreckage.
They did it. They blew up the lab. I just hoped Brexley and all of them were out before those bombs went off.
The debris petered out into a light mist. Blinking, I opened my lids.
Darkness and clouds of dust cut off my sight from anything, my eyes watering, my lungs hacking, rejecting the grime thick in the air.
Groaning, I shoved off pieces of the ceiling, knowing at one time, every bone of mine would have been broken.
But a legend didn’t break so easily. Not even a partial one.
“Sir! Come on!” A voice hissed through the haze, my vision clearing enough to see the officer with brown curls getting my father to his feet. While my father struggled, hobbling and limping away, the faux-fae guard almost carried him down the passage.
“Nooo!” The legend part took over. The need to kill, to end his life, was like swallowing down my dry throat.
I craved the kill like water, the taste so vivid in my mind it became more than a thirst. The need rocked through me, forcing me to my feet, racing after them.
My mind was so focused on reaching my father that I didn’t hesitate to push through the thick metal door, following their exit into the main bunker.
My emotions overruled years of training, following only the barest of rules, like never run through a door without taking notice and precautions of what could be behind it.
Click. Click. Click.
A row of guards stood there waiting, their weapons out and pointing at me, ready to fire. My feet came to a stop, seeing the dozens of guns aimed at me. I was harder to kill, but not impossible.
I felt anger at my stupidity. My recklessness exaggerated the squawking sirens ringing in the bunker, screaming that the walls had been breached.
Guards were running around in the background, reacting to the attack.
Nowhere did I see any of my friends. The group that was left out here to set bombs of their own and wait for the signal.
I shoved back the panic in my chest, the thought of something happening to them . . . to her.
“Let me guess. This assault on me was courtesy of your little group. All my work . . . though you think this is the only one I have?” A flush of vibrant anger ran over my father’s features before he got control of them.
“I’m disappointed in you, Caden. I thought I raised a smarter person than that.
I have given you every chance in the world, and you have thrown away each one.
” My father shook his head at me with a frown, wiping off the dirt from his uniform, his arrogance back in place, forgetting that I was the one with his life in my hands only moments ago.
“You are either with me or against me. And it’s quite clear which side you have chosen. ”
I stared, my nose flaring, not rebuffing his conclusion.
Istvan dipped his head. “Then you are useless to me. But I can’t say it was for nothing. Just your existence has put Warwick’s life significantly above yours. He’s who I need. Whose essence I will take while the rest of you die tonight.”
Though I shouldn’t care what my father said about me, it cut deeply; the little boy in me wanted to please him.
Still did. I wanted to hate Warwick for being worthy when I was not.
Warwick was not to blame. My father would never find worth in me—because I wasn’t him.
Nor do I want to be. Thinking those words, a strange relief exhaled somewhere in me, letting go of trying to be what my father wanted.
Seeing my father in his truth, I couldn’t have been more grateful I wasn’t like him.
Brexley’s presence in my life had always kept me from tipping over.
Her sway was usually stronger than my father’s, keeping me from folding completely under his heavy hand.
Deep down, he knew that, and that’s why he never trusted or respected Brexley or me. He saw her influence on me at every turn.
“Tell Brexley I know where the nectar is. It was easy when you follow the ones who follow it.”
It took everything I had not to react, to decipher if he was telling the truth or not. Could he have found Olek’s hideout? Found the nectar?
“Now I must deal with this mess you created. Just know none of your friends will escape. They will pay for what they’ve done here.” He tilted his head with a cruel smile. “Maybe I make them mindless animals . . . like Hanna.”
My teeth ground together; the need to barrel forward and tear him apart flexed my muscles.