by J. L. McCoy
I watched him closely as my words sank in. His impassioned eyes slowly dulled as his lips formed the cold hard truth. “You are no child of mine,” he whispered icily. “My inferior human seed may have created you, but I do not claim you. I will never claim you. You disgust me, Day Walker.”
The melodic sound of truth rang out in his words, and I gasped as if I’d been slapped hard in the face. Tears pricked my eyes, and I turned my face away from his gaze. I didn’t want him to see my tears; I didn’t want him to know just how bad he’d hurt me... again.
Desperately needing this to be over, and knowing my time was short, I took a deep breath, steeled my features, and turned back to him. “If you answer my questions, I’ll leave and I promise I won’t ever bother you again. But I want the truth, dammit. The night I first met you, was anything you told me true?”
Lucian just shook his head, refusing to answer aloud.
“Were you ever even sick before you were made vampire?”
His brow slightly furrowed as he pondered my question, no doubt debating whether or not to actually answer my question, before his features morphed into one of resolution. “No,” he spoke calmly, smiling in secret satisfaction, “I was not sick.”
“Why did you tell me you were?”
“To gain your sympathy.”
“Why did it matter?” I asked, not understanding.
“I needed you to believe I had no other choice but to turn in order to save my life. I knew it would make you feel sorry for me and, in turn, bond you to me quicker. The reality was, I couldn’t stand your nagging, whore of a mother and wanted nothing more than to get as far away from her and the fetus she carried as possible.”
“Why?” I asked, swallowing hard at his honesty.
“I was sick of my life. When I learned she was expecting you, I knew she’d try to shackle me to the two of you for the rest of my miserable human life. I didn’t want that, and I sure as hell didn’t want you.”
Ouch. “Why did you have the picture of you and my mother from college? If you hated your human life so much, why carry it around all these years?” That had to mean there was some small, miniscule speck of humanity left in him, right?
Narrowing his black eyes at me, he sighed with a bit of impatience. “To remind me of how far I’d evolved and how I never wanted to go back to such a pathetic existence.”
“Why did you even bother coming to our house when I was a child?”
“I was curious,” he said, sounding bored, offering no other explanation.
“What about the money you gave my moth—”
“It was for a fucking abortion,” he yelled, moving closer to the bars, his angry spittle flying toward me, “and yet you stand before me pestering me with your stupid, pointless fucking questions! Why?”
His words cut deep, the exactitude of them like a knife to my very soul. “How could you be so cruel?” I asked in a broken whisper, my steely façade shattering. “How could you lie to me and manipulate me the way you did? Have you absolutely no humanity left? Are you truly the monster I see before me?”
Lucian’s hateful face slowly eased into a satisfied smile, and he turned his back on me, resuming his original spot at the far side of the cell.
How dare he turn his back on me! I wasn’t finished with him yet. I still had a lot more questions. “Don’t you dare turn your back on me!” I screeched indignantly as my hands flew to the bars, gripping them hard, before I realized my mistake. The painful bite of silver was excruciating, and I ripped my hands away with a hiss.
“Your time is up,” the guard barked, and I pried my eyes away from my healing wounds to see him stalking toward me.
“I’m not done,” I protested, turning my head back toward my father.
“I don’t care,” the guard growled, grabbing my elbow and dragging me back down the hall. I wanted to put up a fight, but remembered my place just as my fists closed in preparation of my punch. I knew I wasn’t going to get anything more from my father, and it was pointless even trying.
“Take your hands off me,” I bit out between clenched teeth, jerking my arm out of his hold. “I can find my way out.”
“You do that,” he rumbled, eyeing me distastefully.
Straightening my back, I found my way back to the entrance, secretly heartbroken, but seething nonetheless.
Chapter Nine
Corvus was waiting for me as promised, but upon seeing my face, respectfully refrained from asking me any questions. I think he could tell how upset and pissed off the visit had made me. We walked back down the hall and entered the courtroom in silence.
To my surprise, Atticus was standing near the door conversing with someone. He quickly excused himself upon my arrival and turned his attention to me.
“Skye Morrison,” he said, slightly nodding in greeting.
“Mr. Frost,” I replied, shoving my inner turmoil aside for the moment. “Thank you for allowing me to see Lucian.”
He chuckled slightly, as if he found what I’d said amusing. “Do not make the mistake of asking me for favors again, Day Walker. You have no standing here, and you’d do good to remember that.”
The nerve of this mother—“Understood,” I said, biting my tongue. I’d done him a huge freaking favor by thwarting his attempted overthrow and killing Weston Ley, but damn if he’d ever actually admit to it, the pompous jackass.
“I hear you had an issue with your security escort tonight?” he asked, as if my objection to Aiden Mac Gabhann’s presence was ludicrous. “I was doing you a kindness by sending another Day Walker. I assumed his company would have been good enough for you.”
“You know what they say about those who assume,” I snarked, unable to reign it in before it left my mouth.
“Master,” Corvus spoke up, trying to deflect the verbal vitriol I was no doubt about to receive from his maker, as he pulled me away from him, “attendance is at capacity. Shouldn’t we start the proceedings soon? You know how the natives get... rowdy when restless. We promised them a good show, after all.”
I turned my head toward him, surprised and a bit disturbed by how callously they were treating my father’s trial. I get that he was a traitor, but I came expecting an actual trial, not a performance.
“Yes,” Atticus answered, tilting his head thoughtfully as he turned his attention to Corvus. “Direct our guest to her seat.” With that, he turned his back to us and strode over to his throne at the head of the room.
Corvus looped my arm around his and ushered me to a reserved front row seat. “Try not to be confrontational, kitten,” he whispered as he took a seat beside me. “It will never work out well for you here.”
I opened my mouth, on the cusp of making another snarky comment, when a sound to my left distracted me. The door I’d exited after visiting my father opened, and I watched as Lucian was dragged to the restraints in front of Atticus. Never once did my father look my way on the walk there.
Shouting from the gallery behind me filled the air as those in attendance voiced their detestation.
Wearing thick black leather gloves, a guard I’d never seen before attached Lucian’s new silver shackles to the heavy matching chains on the ground. He immediately hissed as they were wrapped around his ankles for good measure.
Once he was secured, the guard stood off to the side as Atticus slowly raised his hand to silence the room. The loud heckles instantly terminated, and their leader began to speak.
“Lucian Mitchell, you are charged with high treason, aiding and abetting a known enemy, conspiracy to commit murder, and espionage.” Atticus’s fingers steepled as he brought them to rest under his chin. “How do you plead to the charges against you?”
“I am innocent,” my father answered, tying to mask his pain.
“Effing liar,” I whispered under my breath, sick and tired of the harsh screeching that sounded every time my father opened his mouth. This was one Divine Power I couldn’t wait to be rid of. It was annoying as hell, and I couldn’t stand n
ot being able to control it in some way. Corvus glanced over at me as the leader of the Dark Ones addressed Lucian again.
“Guilty or not guilty.”
Sighing, my father begrudgingly entered the latter.
“Now,” Atticus said, moving his eyes to his vast audience, “we will hear evidence against him.” He took a small remote out of the inner pocket of his tux, moved his arm over one shoulder, and clicked it. A large flat-panel monitor dropped down from the ceiling, and my eyes widened a bit in surprise.
“The accused has not been very forthcoming with information since his capture and imprisonment,” he continued, “so I’ve been forced to use rather unorthodox means of garnering an admission of guilt.”
“What is he talking about?” I asked Corvus, getting a bad feeling all of the sudden.
Amid excited, hushed whispers, the television screen burst to life as CCTV footage of my visit with my father played for everyone to see and hear. I sat shocked, appalled, angry, and betrayed. Atticus used me as a pawn, preying on my troubled relationship with my father in order to secure the damning evidence he needed.
I closed my eyes and waited for it to end. I couldn’t bear to see myself on the screen, so obviously broken by his cruel words. Once it did, I opened my furious eyes and stared daggers at Atticus. “How dare you? You used me, used what I was lead to believe was a private moment between family. How could you do that to me? Have you no decency?” I implored, my voice rising slightly with each word.
Corvus’s hand reached over and squeezed my thigh, silently cautioning me.
“My house, my rules,” Atticus said with a smile, shaking a slim finger at me. “Speak again without permission, and I’ll have you chained and removed.”
“I warned you,” his son murmured from his seat beside me, shaking his head.
Hushed whispers sounded behind me, the roomful of Dark no doubt enjoying the drama. I was painfully embarrassed to have my business laid out in front of a hundred or so strangers. I swallowed thickly, reminded myself of the political ramifications of killing Atticus, and nodded once curtly. I would bite my tongue and behave if it meant saving Archer and my family the heat it would undoubtedly bring down upon us.
Atticus moved his eyes to the gallery once more. “You have just seen fresh evidence against the defendant. He readily admitted to consorting with our enemy, Stanus Octavius, and plotting to take my throne. What say you? Should I find him guilty or not guilty?”
Boos, hisses, and vile curses flew from the mouths of every Dark One in attendance. They begged for, nay, demanded my father’s blood. A cold chill ran up my spine, and I swallowed hard as Atticus smiled widely, rubbed his hands together in satisfaction, and stood up from his marble throne.
He raised his hands, and the room quieted once more. The tension was palpable as everyone anxiously awaited their leader’s next words.
“Before I pass judgement, I will allow the defendant the floor.” Turning his gaze down to my father, he addressed him gravely. “If there is anything you wish to say to me or your former peers, now would be the time to do so.”
Lucian’s head lifted to Atticus’s, and I watched my father’s body tense. “Long live Stanus Octavius, rightful ruler of the Dark!” he shouted, his conviction resonating around the stone room.
Atticus’s lips pulled back in a snarl, fangs sliding down, as he glared at his prisoner with absolute hatred. “The accused is guilty of all charges! We have no mercy for traitors here. I sentence you, Lucian Mitchell, to one thousand lashes followed by the final and true death! Guards!”
Cheers rose from the gallery, and I tried to breathe through the multitude of conflicting feelings surging through me. Satisfaction, sorrow, disappointment, and objection seemed most prevalent, to my surprise. I silently tried to stumble through them, make some kind of sense of them, as the joy in the room suddenly eclipsed.
Two guards stalked in from behind me, carrying whips, chains, and what looked like modified barbwire. They handed two weapons off to the guard by my father, and I watched the three of them begin to circle Lucian.
A firm hand gripped mine, and I turned tearful eyes to meet their owner’s. Corvus laced our fingers together and covered our joined hands with his other, a look of sorrow and pity marring his handsome face.
Without a single word from Atticus or the guards, the punishment began in brutal fashion. Screams ripped themselves from of my father’s mouth as the torture tools shredded and flayed his skin, each blow landing vociferously against him. Clack, whish, pop.
It was much more difficult to watch than I had anticipated. Yes, Lucian betrayed me in the worst way possible, caused my best friend to endure five days of total hell on earth, burned our house to the ground, and broke my heart, but seeing his skin laid open and hearing his bloodcurdling screams... I couldn’t handle it. I knew I should hate him, loathe his very sight, but for some inexplicable reason, I just couldn’t. I wanted his pain to stop, but I knew I had no choice; he’d made his, and now it was time for him to suffer the consequences.
Relentlessly, the punishment rained down upon Lucian; his crimson blood covering him, the guards, the weapons, and worst of all, splashing those of us sitting in the first row. Unable to witness another second of the brutality, I tore my gaze away from the horrors, closed my eyes, and rested my forehead against Corvus’s shoulder, praying his one thousand lashes would be over soon.
My father’s cries slowly faded until the only sound in the chamber was from the guard’s weapons beating his tattered flesh. Even the galley’s cheers had quieted down, much to my surprise.
A few minutes later, his first sentence was over, and I hesitantly opened my eyes and glanced at him. Lucian was no longer standing, but curled up in the fetal position on the floor; and the blood... there was so much blood.
Atticus, fangs still protruding from the satisfied smirk on his face, ordered his guards to make him stand, but my father could no longer stand on his own, so they had to hold him up.
“Corvus, bring me my halberd,” Atticus ordered.
Corvus gently pried his hand from my death grip and flashed out of the room. He returned a few short seconds later, carrying a medieval battle axe, and delivered it to his awaiting father.
My heart started to pound. This was it; my father was going to die. I’d never see him again, never have to worry about him ruining my life again. I felt sick to my stomach all of the sudden and was certain I was going to vomit.
Atticus nodded to the guards, and two of them took hold of Lucian’s hands, each pulling one arm out taut, stretching them wide. I swallowed the bile in my throat as I watched Atticus step off his dais and saunter toward the bloody offering.
“Death is almost too good for you,” Atticus sneered as he lifted the axe and swung it back, readying it for the life-ending blow.
“No!” I screamed, jumping up out of my seat. What the hell am I doing? I thought fleetingly, as stupidity took over once more. “Please don’t.”
The leader of the Dark Ones stared at me in shock as the free guard flashed over to me and began securing my arms behind me with silver chains; the pain barely even registering, the devastation in my soul eclipsing anything physical. Voices exploded behind me as the gallery gossiped over the new development.
Recovering, Atticus hissed at me in furry and ordered the guard to remove me from the chamber.
“Please! Spare his life. I’ll do anything you want. Just don’t kill my father,” I pleaded as I was drug to the back of the room. As the chamber door opened, my guard was ordered to halt and return me.
“Please, sir, I’m begging you,” I implored as I saw Atticus hand off his weapon to Corvus and saunter up to me, a calculated smirk on his lips.
Stopping in front of me, he studied me intently for a few silent seconds as the room continued to grow louder. “After his crimes against you, all that he did to you, you plead for his life?”
Swallowing thickly, I shook my head as a tear began to trickle down my face
. “I can’t let you kill him. I don’t know why, but I just can’t. Please, sir, spare his life. I’m begging you.”
“Can’t let me?” he scoffed indignantly. “Need I remind you of who you’re talking to?”
“I know who you are, but I still cannot stand here and watch you to kill my father. I can’t... I just can’t.”
“And what could you possibly do to stop me from delivering justice? You are but one vampire while I rule millions!”
Taking a deep breath, I tried to calm myself. Getting snippy with the leader of the Dark was not the way to get him to negotiate with me. “You know very well what I am capable of, sir. I know you know what I can do. I’m asking you as a favor to me. I very recently did one for you, and you damn well know it. Please, Mr. Frost, spare his life.”
He studied me closely, no doubt weighing my words. “You have no say here,” he needlessly reminded me, with a flick of his wrist as he turned his back on me.
“Spare his life and I’ll do anything you want. You have my word.”
Facing me, he smiled widely and clasped his hands together in front of him as he gazed at me intently. “Anything, Miss Morrison?”
“Anything,” I answered with conviction. “Name it.”
I was completely in over my head, and I knew it. I’d just agreed to give the leader of the Dark race anything he wanted in exchange for sparing my conniving, lying, manipulative, treacherous father from the final death. After everything he’d done to me, I still cared about him and couldn’t for the life of me understand why that was. I should have been among the masses, demanding his death, yet here I was, the solitary one begging for his life.
