Curran exploded from his spot by Dali. He leaped over the table and tore out the door. I grabbed Sarrat and ran after him.
We burst onto the street. The window on the top floor of George’s house lay shattered, the bars missing. A man landed in the middle of the street with inhuman grace, his patched trench coat flaring around him. Razer.
He was clutching my son to him, pointing the tip of his dagger at Conlan’s neck. The dagger gleamed with silver.
Sarrat smoked in my hand. I snapped my magic like a whip, activating the long-distance ward that would lock him in. He’d have to break it to leave the street, and I had a lot more magic than he did.
Curran shifted. An eight-foot nightmare rose next to me, a meld of human and lion distilled into a thing of power and speed, designed to do only one thing: kill. A huge Kodiak, bleeding from a gash on its head, tore out of George’s house.
Hugh moved to the right of me, a sword in his hand. Next to him Elara stepped forward. Dali stalked to the left of Curran. Derek and Julie sprinted to us from Derek’s house. A trio of vampires burst from the other end of the street, cutting off his exit. More werebears poured out of George’s place.
Razer looked up. Christopher swooped over his head, blood-red wings spread wide.
My aunt burst into existence next to me.
“Give us the child,” Curran said, his voice a low growl.
Razer clenched Conlan to him and bared his long, sharp teeth. Fae teeth, made to strip flesh off human bones. My son was looking at me, his huge eyes wide and scared.
“Give us the child, and I’ll let you live,” I told him.
Razer looked left, then right. There was nowhere to go. He was caught in a ring of snarling fangs, glowing eyes, and steel.
“Don’t be an idiot,” Hugh said. “Give us the kid.”
“I hold the cards,” Razer rasped. He flicked the dagger and cut Conlan’s cheek. Blood swelled, the edge of the wound turning duct-tape gray—the virus dying.
I would kill him.
Everyone snarled.
“Stay back!” Razer barked.
Conlan swiped at the blood, saw it on his hand . . . His lip trembled. He sucked in a lungful of air and screamed.
“Shut up!” Razer snarled into his face.
Conlan’s gray eyes went wide and flared with hot, furious gold. His human body tore. A demonic half-lion, half-child burst out. The blood snapped from his wound, forming red blades over his claws. Conlan raked Razer’s face, ripping bloody gashes in the flesh. His claws caught Razer’s left eye and tore it out of the socket. The fae howled and caught it reflexively into his hand. Conlan kicked free and dashed to me. I caught him in my arms and hugged him.
The whole thing took less than a second.
My son had just made blood claws. He’d made claws out of his own blood.
Blood claws.
The street had gone so silent, you could hear people breathing.
Razer stared at his own eye in his hand.
Curran surged forward.
My aunt softly praised Conlan. “Such a gifted child,” she cooed. “Such a talented little prince.”
The little nightmare smiled at Erra, showing all of his teeth. He struggled to say something and changed back into a human. “Gama.”
“Grandma is so proud,” Erra told him.
“That’s my boy.” I made my voice happy and light.
Conlan hugged my neck. “Bad.”
Razer was screaming because Curran had pulled his left arm off.
“Yes, bad. Look at Daddy ripping the bad man to pieces. Go Daddy!”
Conlan clapped his hands.
Curran snapped Razer’s spine with a loud crack, then twisted off the fae’s head.
“Look, Daddy killed him dead. All dead.”
Conlan giggled.
Dali was staring at me with a look of pure horror.
“I don’t want him to have nightmares that the bad man is going to get him,” I told her. “This way he knows his daddy killed him.”
Curran stood over Razer’s ruined corpse and roared.
“Rawrawrawr,” human Conlan said.
“That’s right,” I said.
“What happened to not wanting to traumatize him?” a vampire asked me in Ghastek’s voice.
“I gave up,” I told him. “We are a family of monsters and he’s our child. People will always try to kill him and we will always protect him. He better get used to it.”
CHAPTER
16
I SAT ON the back porch in my chair, drinking a glass of iced tea. Curran crouched in the backyard. His gray eyes tracked the faint hint of movement through the raspberry bushes at the edge of the lawn. Elara had walked out into our woods for a bit after the Razer incident. I wasn’t sure if she needed to cool off or compose herself, but she was back now, sitting on the lower branch of a large oak and watching Curran.
The door swung open and Hugh shouldered his way out and dropped into a chair next to me.
“Did Dali leave finally?”
“Still on the phone,” he said.
Once Razer’s corpse was removed and everything went back to normal, Dali decided to have an important conversation with Jim about having Hugh perform the surgery. Unfortunately, she refused to leave because, according to her, I could murder Hugh while she was away. Instead she chose to have this conversation via our kitchen phone. Things weren’t going well because Jim, understandably, wasn’t enthusiastic about having Hugh d’Ambray cutting his wife open and removing parts of her. She had hung up on Jim twice and he had hung up on her once. Last I heard, they’d gone from wild accusations to cold logic. Given that they were two of the smartest people I knew, they would be at it awhile.
“She’s slipping,” I said. “I could kill you right now, while you’re out on the porch with me.”
“If I didn’t fight back.”
“Would you fight back?”
“I’m thinking about it.” He was watching Elara. She sat on the branch, swinging her feet. His expression was still hard, but there was something softer in his eyes. Something warm.
Curran pivoted toward us, away from the bushes.
“You should fight back,” I told Hugh. “Nobody likes a quitter.”
Conlan exploded out of the bushes and pounced on his father’s back. Curran roared dramatically and collapsed in the grass.
“Is this what you wanted?” Hugh asked.
I knew what he meant. He was asking about Curran, and Conlan, about the house with the woods out back, friends, and a house that never stayed quiet for too long.
“Yes.”
“You know Nimrod would give you all the power in the world. If you told him that you accepted him, he would turn himself inside out to please you. He would build a palace for your son.” A note of bitterness slipped into his voice. He killed it quickly, but I’d still heard it.
I understood. No matter what Hugh did, no matter how hard he tried or how good he was at doing it, my father would never value him as much as he valued me. I was blood and Hugh wasn’t. The kicker was, he didn’t value me all that much either.
“But all his gifts would come with a collar around my neck.”
“True.”
“That’s not how Roland sees me anyway. He doesn’t see me as a daughter whom he can teach. He sees me as a sword he can use. Once in a while he rubs me the wrong way and I cut him, and he’s surprised and pleased the sword is sharp, but it never goes past that.”
“You have no idea,” Hugh said.
“I do. He tried living next to my territory. He would bait me every few days. He couldn’t help himself. That’s why the castle he started is now a burned-out ruin. You and I have that in common—neither of us will ever get what we want out of a relationship with him. He mostly wants me to be your replacement. He hasn’t rea
lized yet that I don’t have your training or your mind. If he gave me an army, I would have no idea what to do with it.”
“Your aunt did well enough,” Hugh said.
“My aunt studied strategy and tactics since she was old enough to read. I’m a lone killer. That’s what I do best.”
“Whatever you did worked well enough when you fought him, from what I hear.”
“He formed his troops in two rectangles and marched them on the Keep. I couldn’t believe it.”
Hugh grimaced. “Did he ride a chariot?”
“Mm-hm. It was gold.”
Hugh shut his eyes for a second.
“It was slow as hell.”
“Well, of course it’s slow. It’s gold. Did you know he wanted to put a figurehead on it?”
I blinked. “What, like on a ship?”
“Yeah.” Hugh looked like he’d just bitten a rotten lemon. “Your mother’s face with diamond eyes and wings made of electrum. Spread wings.” He held his hands up, the tips of his fingers angled back.
“How aerodynamic.” I grinned.
“I told him he’d need a damn elephant to draw it forward.”
“Did he give up?”
“No,” Hugh said. “Last I know of it, he was building a pair of mechanical magic-powered horses to draw the chariot.”
“Let me guess, platinum? With gold manes?”
“What do you think?”
We laughed.
“What about you?”
He raised his eyebrows. “What about me?”
“What happens when all is forgiven, and he needs you again?”
Hugh glanced at Elara again. “It already happened.”
He’d said no.
Huh. That must’ve cost him. My father was everything to Hugh: surrogate father, commander, god . . . And Hugh had walked away from it. He could be lying, but it felt like the truth. It was in his eyes, the way they turned a touch sad and resigned.
“All of his children turn on him eventually,” I said.
“I was never his child.”
I rolled my eyes. “He raised you, he taught you, he encouraged you.”
“He fucked with my head.”
“He fucks with everyone’s head. Yours more than most. For all it matters, you’re his son. You’re fucked up enough to be.”
He barked a short laugh.
“Face it,” I told him. “We are damaged siblings.”
We watched Curran chase Conlan around.
“What was it like?” I asked.
Hugh’s face fell. I didn’t need to elaborate. He knew exactly what I was asking.
“It was like having the sun ripped away,” he said. “I’d reach for the connection out of habit, and there would be a raw wound there, filled with all the shit I did.”
“Sorry,” I told him.
“Don’t be. I’m me now. Still a bastard, but I’m my own bastard now. Nobody tells me what to do.” He glanced at Elara and smiled. “Well, she does once in a while, but it’s worth it.”
“He would give you the world if you came crawling back,” I told him, mimicking his voice.
“I have her. I have our soldiers and our people to protect. I have a castle to run. I don’t want the world. I just want that small corner of it to be safe.”
“Going to war against a dragon isn’t exactly going to keep your Iron Dogs safe.”
He looked at me. “No, but it will help you.”
“You don’t have to pay your old debts, Hugh. Not with me.”
“Just accept the help,” he growled. “You need it.”
“Oh, I’ll take it. Three hundred Iron Dogs and Hugh d’Ambray. I’d be crazy to turn it down.”
“Smart girl.”
“But you and I are fine, Hugh. I mean it.”
“Just like that,” he said.
“No, I thought about it. I let it go for me more than for you. You’re not the only one with corpses in your memories. I killed on command. I didn’t ask why. Voron would point and I would murder.”
“You were a kid,” he said.
“And you had your emotions readjusted. I believe that’s what they call extenuating circumstances. Having them doesn’t help as much as it should, does it? I can’t change what I did. I can only go forward and try to do better. I’ll always be a killer. I like it. You’ll always be a bastard. There is a part of you that enjoys kicking the door in and throwing a severed head on the table.”
“N’importe quoi.”
I made a mental note to ask Christopher to translate. He spoke fluent French.
“Some pair we are,” Hugh said.
“Mm-hm. Sitting here all sad on the porch, while a dragon is invading and our dad is having a midlife crisis with golden chariots . . .”
Hugh grinned, and then his face turned dark.
“Do one thing for me,” he said.
“Mm?”
“Don’t do to the girl what was done to me.”
“Julie’s will is her own. I’ve never forced her to do anything, and I don’t plan on it.”
Elara slid off the branch and jumped into the grass.
“It’s not all bad.” Hugh rose and walked toward her.
I finished my tea.
“Do you trust him?” my aunt asked by my ear.
“I trust the look in his eyes when he speaks about my father. Like he’s torn between loving him and wanting to strangle him.”
“It may prove foolish.”
“If it does, I’ll deal with it,” I told her.
“Spoken like a queen.” My aunt ran her ghostly fingers through my hair. “I finally made you into one.”
“Too bad I’ve run out of time.”
“Is that defeat I hear?” Erra raised her eyebrows.
“No, it’s reality. We may not have the troops to fight Neig, and we definitely can’t face him and my father at the same time. The dragon hates us, but he especially hates him.”
“Are you asking me to persuade your father into an alliance?”
“If the opportunity presents itself.”
My aunt became still. Facing my father would cost her a great deal.
“You ask much, child.”
“Is that defeat I hear?”
She snorted.
“How is it you plan to convince him?” she asked. “Shame? Threats?”
What was it Roman had said? Parents love to play saviors. “No. I’m going to let you use those. If I do it, Dad will just see it as a personal attack and go on the offensive. He wants to be a hero. He wants to come in and save the day and be admired and loved for it. So I plan on being resigned to my fate. Grim, grieving, and in a dark pit of despair.”
“So your father can be your lone ray of hope in the darkness?”
“Yep.”
She studied me. “You’ve grown manipulative.”
“You disapprove?”
“No. I’m surprised.”
“Good. Dad will be surprised, too. I’ve spent a long time convincing him that I don’t do subtle. He doesn’t think I have the brains to manipulate him, so he won’t expect it.”
“You don’t do subtle. Your subtle is pulling a kick so you don’t kill a man with it, just break his bones.”
“I’ve learned.”
She waited, wanting something more from me.
“The word of Sharratum is binding,” I murmured. That was what Erra had said to me when she’d demanded I swear to never rule the land I claimed. “I don’t rule, but I am a queen. I claimed the city. They all need my protection. They don’t even know it, but they need me to survive.” My voice sounded dead. “So I’ll lie, and cheat, and give up my pride. I’ll do whatever I have to do to keep them all safe. I’m not my own person.”
Erra stepped to me
. Her arms closed around me. I couldn’t feel her body, but I felt her magic coursing around me.
“Poor child,” she whispered, her voice so soft. “I tried to keep you from it as long as I could.”
I felt like crying, but it didn’t quite come to the surface. I couldn’t afford crying. I had things I had to do.
Curran picked Conlan up and tossed him into the air. The sun hit them just right and I saw an aura emanating from him, a faint shimmer of warm glow. My heart flipped in my chest. He was so far gone.
“You encouraged him to become a god,” I whispered into her embrace.
“I did.”
“I’ll never forgive you for that.”
“You’ll change your mind with time.”
No. I won’t. I wanted to rage and scream at her, but it was Curran who’d made the final decision. I loved him so much and even now he was slipping away from me.
A dull noise echoed through my mind, a silent sound. Someone had just tested my wards. I stepped away from Erra, got up, picked up Sarrat, and headed for the door.
* * *
• • •
THE WARRIOR STOOD at the end of the street. He wore dark armor and held his helmet in his left hand and a golden chain in his right. I marched toward him, sword smoking.
I stopped just before my ward. He stood on the other side of it.
He was young, maybe twenty, with clear blue eyes like two chips of winter ice, a line of tattoos running down one side of his pale face, and long blond hair pulled back with a leather cord. The chain in his hand was attached to a locket with a gemstone the size of a walnut that looked like pure red fire caught under glass.
“My lord extends an invitation,” he said, his English stilted. “Come with me, and he will show you the might of his realm.”
If my father had lied to me and I went into Neig’s realm, I could be trapped there forever, or dead.
Behind me Curran walked onto the street. I didn’t have to turn to know that by now he was sprinting. If he got here, he would talk me out of it. We needed to know how many troops Neig had. Without it, we were blind.
“Kate!” Curran barked.
My father wouldn’t want me to be stuck in Neig’s realm, at the dragon’s beck and call. He and I had our problems, but he hated Neig. There was too much rage in his eyes when he talked about the dragon. He wouldn’t lie to me, not about this.
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