Chapter 51
Raven
Itore my eyes from my beloved storm mage and focused on the male who called himself my father.
If anyone had asked me a few months ago how I thought my father-daughter reunion would go, I’d have said badly. I fully expected he would have horns and a tail. Or worse. So the stylish, handsome male standing before me wearing a Hugo Boss suit and Prada loafers had me lost for words.
It turned out my demon dad was a style icon.
Yeah, Dad rocked the silver fox vibe.
“How did you find me?” Alaric gripped my hand so tight it hurt as my other four mates edged closer. I swallowed hard, unable to process how I’d managed the unthinkable and brought him back from the dead.
But it might not matter if my father was here to steal me away to the demon realm. Tiberius and Brianna were no longer our biggest threats.
The glass rattled in the window frames as a dragon roared somewhere above us, but I was too busy spiraling to care.
“We need to leave,” Maverick warned the others. Kenji stirred on my lap but didn’t wake. I must have depleted his energy to the point of exhaustion. The other two Ks moved away and watched from the corner, paying no attention to the dead mages littered around the room.
“Your magic called to me, darling.” Dad smiled like he was proud of me for being a mass murderer. Hmm. I guess I was a chip off the old block. “I knew you’d manifested your demonic powers, but I was dealing with a minor rebellion at the time and couldn’t leave.”
Amazing. My ancestral home was apparently a war zone. Yeah, I couldn’t wait to visit. Not.
“What did you expect it to be like?” grumbled Kenji. “Cancun during Spring Break?”
“No…just less dangerous.”
My familiar rolled his eyes. “The demon realm is the very definition of dangerous. Demons are forever at war with each other. Fighting is what they do to pass the time.”
“Um, Kenji says the demon realm is super dangerous,” I said to anyone who cared to listen.
My father smirked. “Not for you, my darling daughter. Nobody would dare hurt you and risk my wrath.” His black eyes slid over Tiberius and Brianna, both of whom had taken a few giant steps back and glued themselves to the wall as if they hoped he might not notice them.
Brianna made a show of acting relaxed, but Tiberius’s jaw ticked, and I suspected he was quietly shitting himself.
“King Nymon, we would never—” he began before my father cut him off with a raised fist.
“Silence.” Once again, Tiberius opened his mouth—because he apparently lacked any sense of self-preservation—but this time, nothing came out. He gaped a few times, doing a wonderful impression of a goldfish, and then gave up.
Hmm. My dad must be more powerful than the mage. Who knew?
A small smirk slipped free, which Brianna noticed.
“My king, I apologize for my husband,” she simpered, eyes cast downward. “He’s allowed his ambition to get the better of him.” What an ass-licker. I was low-key embarrassed for her.
“Wow, is Alaric’s evil stepmother really throwing Tibs under the bus?”
“Looks like it,” Zane agreed, now close enough that he could sink to his knees and wrap an arm around my waist.
Alaric tried to sit up as his father turned a horrible shade of green, but I pushed him down. I wasn’t an expert on how necromancy magic worked, but common sense said a nap was an essential part of the recovery process.
“Did you really think you could harvest my daughter’s magic?” Dad asked Tiberius. “And that I wouldn’t care?”
“She’s mated to my son, so of course I’d never hurt a hair on her pretty little head,” the mage spluttered.
“Really? That’s why you kidnapped and performed inhumane experiments on me?” I couldn’t resist stirring the pot. “Oh, and that son you profess to care about, you FUCKING KILLED HIM!”
Shadows burst from my chest, swirling around the room in search of more enemies to kill. When they reached Brianna and Tiberius, I yanked them back. As much as I wanted to wreak vengeance on the pair of them, I wasn’t sure I had enough juice left in the tank.
My father bared his teeth in a smile so hideous I gulped. His nails lengthened into claws, and for the first time since he appeared in the room, I fully understood why magicals had fought so hard to keep him locked away in the demon realm.
“We made a deal, Brianna Montclair. You wanted power and immortality, and I granted you both. But in harming my blood progeny, you have broken the terms of our deal.”
Brianna paled. “But my lord, I gave you the witch’s mother!”
Dad and I needed to have words about that. My mother deserved vengeance.
“I’ve changed my mind,” I called, my pettiness knowing no bounds. “I want to kill the bitch.”
Shadows lashed out, only this time they belonged to my father, not me.
Brianna wailed as the shadows bound her limbs and snaked around her neck.
I watched with a mixture of horror and fascination as her looks faded and her body shrank until nothing remained of the stunning witch she’d been a few minutes earlier.
“How freaking old was she?” I gasped as she turned into a shrunken crone.
“More than a century,” Kenji replied with a yawn.
Brianna collapsed as the shadows retreated. I might have felt a teeny bit sorry for her if she hadn’t been so awful to Alaric and me. Or tortured poor, defenseless magical creatures in the pursuit of power.
“Are you not going to kill her?” I asked my father, grimacing at the feeble creature drooling on the floor, her joints withered like dried sticks.
Dad shrugged. “Why bother? She’ll be dead soon enough.”
While his wife got what was coming to her, Tiberius had edged toward a door at the back of the room, probably hoping to creep out via a fire exit.
But before he could make his escape, a huge eagle landed on the terrace. My eyes widened as the eagle shifted back into Alaric’s mother.
“Mom?” Alaric croaked.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you, your mom survived.”
Adam sat up, confused, scrubbing his face as he tried to process what the fuck was going on. The poor guy looked as shell-shocked as Alaric when he realized his new lover had arrived.
Nula yanked the sliding door open and stormed over to Tiberius, slapping him across the face so hard I winced.
My dad didn’t appear at all surprised. Had he known this would happen?
Before any of us could say or do a thing, Nula’s nose and mouth shifted into a vicious beak. She plunged that beak into Tiberius’s chest and tore out his heart.
The mage’s eyes widened in horrified surprise before he choked and collapsed, blood spewing everywhere.
I averted my eyes for fear of vomiting at the gore. It was a wonder the mage’s seer hadn’t warned him of his impending demise. Or maybe she had, and he’d not believed such an awful fate awaited him.
“Nula!” Adam cried. She fell to the floor unconscious. Or dead. I wasn’t sure which.
It was as if she had saved her last burst of energy for a final fuck you to the male she hated. And who could blame her? Feminine rage was a dish best served cold.
If anyone deserved to have their heart ripped out by a freaky bird woman, it was Tiberius fucking Vane.
Adam pulled his jacket off and flung it over the female he cared so much for, but from the way she lay still, her mouth and chest caked in blood, I wasn’t certain she had long left. Her aura slowly turned gray, a sure sign of imminent death.
“Can you bring her back if she passes?” Alaric whispered.
“She’ll be fine,” I lied. “Adam can heal her.” And if he couldn’t, then it was the end of the road. Yes, I’d brought my soul-bonded mate back from beyond the veil, but it was a one-time thing. Any more gargantuan efforts like that and it might kill my beloved Kenji.
“As if.”
Zane squeezed me tight as my other mates all huddled around me, offering me comfort while Alaric joined Adam at his mother’s side.
Poor, sad Nula.
“You hypocrite,” Kenji scoffed. “I thought you didn’t like her!”
“I never said that,” I hissed, hoping Alaric couldn’t hear me. Kenji was right. I wasn’t Nula’s biggest fan after she’d muscled in on Adam, but stars, I didn’t want her dead!
“I’m going back to the mansion to eat. It’s been a long day.” Kenji yawned and stretched. “I’m in the mood for bacon.”
He and the other kitsunes vanished as a blood-spattered vampire warrior queen burst in through the door. She took one look at the piles of dead mages and then her gaze snapped onto my silver fox father.
“Who’s the delicious snack?”
I shuddered at her lecherous purr.
I fully expected my father to smite her into a pile of ash for being so disrespectful, but much to my surprise, he smirked.
“The name’s King Nymon, but you can call me Daddy.”
Oh my goddess, kill me now.