Chapter 31 By a Demon’s Hand
BY A DEMON’S HAND
The moment my father demanded to know what I was doing, I felt the familiar coldness sweep over me.
The same suffocating pressure that had smothered every breath of freedom I had ever tried to draw in this place.
I tightened my grip on the doorknob, the duffle bag held against my chest like a shield as I tried to decide if I should lie, run, or attempt the impossible task of explaining myself to a man who never listened.
“I was going for a walk,” I said, but even to my own ears the words were thin and trembling. The lie destined to fail.
He stepped closer, his robe shifting around him like a shadow.
“At two in the morning? With a bag? Do you take me for a fool, Alora?!”
“No,” I whispered.
“Then tell me the truth,” he snapped, his voice rising sharply. I swallowed, my throat tight, my heart slamming against my ribs.
“I just needed to get out. I needed some air.” His lip curled in disgust.
“Air. Is that what they are calling it now? Wandering the streets like your mother used to, careless and disrespectful. Always looking for trouble, and different ways to embarrass me.”
My stomach twisted painfully.
“Do not talk about her like that.”
He stepped forward again, close enough that I could smell the faint mix of cologne and feel the anger radiating off him.
“I will speak about her however I please. Do you know why she ran off? Because she was weak! No discipline. No structure. A dreamer who drowned in her own stupidity. And do you know what she left me with? A child just like her. A fucking disappointment!” The words hit me harder than I expected, even though I had heard versions of them my entire life.
Something inside me snapped, a small, fragile part of my heart that had been clinging to silence and obedience out of habit.
“I hate you!” I breathed venomously, the confession ripped out of me with more force than I intended.
“I hate the way you talk to me. I hate the way you try to control me. I hate the way you try to make me feel small. I hate you for what you say about her. And most of all… I fucking hate you for being my father!”
His face darkened instantly, the shift vicious and immediate as if I had thrown a dagger straight into his pride.
His hand came up so fast I barely had time to gasp before his palm cracked across my cheek.
The impact knocked me sideways, the bag falling from my hands and hitting the floor with a heavy thud.
The sting burned hot across my skin, and tears sprang to my eyes.
“You ungrateful bitch!” he hissed, his voice trembling with fury.
“If you think you can speak to me like that, you are mistaken. You will not leave this apartment. You will not see anyone. You will focus on school and the future I have secured for you. I will not have you ruining your life the way your mother ruined hers and making a mockery of this family!”
“She did not ruin anything,” I cried, my voice shaking but strong.
“You didn’t ruin her….you were nothing to her! She was everything, and once we were rid of you, she was the happiest person in the world!”
His arm came up again, higher this time, the promise of violence in the tightening of his jaw. I squeezed my eyes shut, bracing for the blow, my entire body trembling with dread and anger and grief I had been holding in for far too long.
But the hit never came.
Instead, a sharp, strangled gasp filled the air.
I opened my eyes slowly and felt the world tilt.
My father’s arm was suspended in the air, the muscles bulging as he tried to move, but it was held completely still in the unyielding grasp of a large, pale hand.
Thane stood behind him, his expression carved from stone, dark and deadly and somehow calmer than I expected.
He looked entirely human again, but the cold fury in his eyes told me the demon inside him was very much awake.
“That…” he said, his voice low and ice-smooth,
“…is the very last time you ever raise a hand to your daughter.”
My father’s breath came in short, shocked bursts as he tried to pull away. Thane didn’t let him. He squeezed just enough to make him drop to his knees, the pain obvious in the way his face twisted.
“The only reason I am not going to kill you where you stand…” Thane continued, leaning closer, his voice dark enough to drain the blood from my veins,
“…is because Alora would not want that. But know this. If she ever gives me permission… and I very much hope that she does one day… know that your death will come, and when it does… it will not be swift.”
My father’s face went sheet white.
Thane let go, and my father’s arm dropped uselessly to his side. Thane did not spare him another glance. Instead, he moved past him with quiet, controlled purpose, bending to pick up my fallen duffle bag. His other hand reached out to me, palm open, offering not a command but a choice.
“Come, Alora” he said softly, his voice shifting, gentler now but still threaded with that unbreakable determination.
“You do not belong here… you belong with me.”
I stared at his hand, then at my father, whose expression twisted with impotent rage and something else… fear. Real, genuine fear. It was the first time I had ever seen it on his face. For a heartbeat, I hesitated, torn between the life I had always known and the one waiting beyond the door.
Thane’s fingers brushed mine and instantly,
I took his hand.
Without looking back, he led me toward the door, duffle bag in his other hand, his body a barrier between me and the man who had controlled my life for far too long. As the door shut behind us, something inside me closed with it.
Something heavy and hollow and old.
I was not going back.
And wherever Thane was taking me, whatever future waited beyond the night,
I knew it was no longer mine to choose…
It was my Demon’s.