My eyes narrowed as I snapped, “I would never be on your side. I’d rather die than be a puppet for you to control.”
Mid-step he halted, the jovial mood he’d exhibited souring as his fists shook at his sides. Those red orbs for eyes seemed to burn with flames as he cocked his head to the side and smiled, sighing wistfully as he muttered, “How nostalgic. Those are the exact words your mother whispered to me on her deathbed.”
The fire burning through me instantly chilled, my body filled with ice at the shock of his statement.
He’d managed to completely catch me off guard, and I stuttered, “Wha…What do you mean? How did you know my mother?”
On instinct, my hand raised, reaching for the necklace she’d left me, but I stopped, knowing I had daggers in my hand and the gold flower was covered by my armor.
His gaze followed my movement, and his lips split, revealing a fanged smile now. “Still wearing the necklace I left for you? How easy it was to slip it around your neck right after I ensured your mother’s death looked as if she’d simply bled out while giving birth to you.”
Myrin’s words echoed in my mind. “Your mother was gifted the necklace by someone who knew of what was to come.”
Bile rose in my throat as I resisted the urge to rip the armor off me to stop the necklace from touching me.
He was lying. He had to be. How had he been with my mother in her last moments?
My teeth ground together before I finally spat back, “You’re a good liar, I’ll give you that, but I’m not falling for your shit.”
A dark chuckle permeated the air as he shook his head and gave me a searching look. “I would have given you and your mother the world. I loved Katarina, but she refused to be mine,” he sighed. “Therefore, I ensured she could not be anyone else’s by killing your father and her.”
He killed my biological father and my mother…and the way he intimately uttered my mother’s name, coupled with the pain that flashed through his eyes as he mentioned her refusal…It felt so real…but no, this couldn’t be true.
“She had no clue the power she was birthing, but I’m old enough to remember the creatures I spent countless years eliminating from this world,” he tossed out as he ran a hand through his hair. “I thought that maybe you would be different. You could be the best of Katarina, and I could mold you into what she lacked. It’s the only reason I didn’t kill you as she clutched you to her bosom.”
“You’re fucking sick,” I seethed in disgust. “If what you’re saying is true and you loved my mother, how could you ever kill her and think that her child could simply replace her? She was her own person, with a past full of an accumulation of moments that made her exactly who she was. That couldneverbe replicated. We aren’t alive for your amusement, despite thinking yourself a god.”
“That’s where you are so very wrong, dear,” he rebutted, a wicked glint gleaming in his eyes as he took another step toward me. “Your entire life has been purely for my amusement. I let you live. I marked you with the flower, and I whispered into Malakai’s mind about the power you held inside of you.”
Everything that had happened…was because of the influence of Lazarus?
Tossing his hands up in the air almost jovially, he added, “I was the one who placed you with your mother’s closest friends to be raised by after her death! I did that for you to have a normal life that wouldn’t harden you before you were of a ripe enough age for me to have Malakai fetch. Truly, you should be on your knees thanking me for all the time you had with them as your surrogate family.”
It took every ounce of self-control I could muster to not be provoked by his words. It was as if he knew every single trigger within me and was simultaneously pressing upon each of them to break me down.
There was so much to unpack in his words.
If I was to believe Lazarus, that’s how I came to be with my dad and aunt. They were my mother’s best friends…the childhood stories my aunt told me must have still been true. It brought me an immense amount of relief to know that they hadn’t made up any bit of information they’d told me about her.
Just because neither of their titles as my dad or aunt came from a biological tie, didn’t strip away the sixteen years of love and memories that lent them those positions in my life.
I clung to my father’s advice. I wouldn’t be controlled. My reactions were my own. I’d let myself truly soak in this new information after I’d killed Lazarus.
“It was far too easy to control your life every step of the way, but I suppose I truly must thank that spineless vampyre you just beheaded. He was such a great pawn to move across my chess board. I could control his mind as easily as I could breathe, which aided me spectacularly in feeding him thoughts about the knowledge of dhampyrs and how he was in danger unless he had one under his thumb to feed from. It created a beautiful, frenzied fear of his mortality, even as a vampyre.”
I stopped him there. “If you wanted to mold me yourself, why leave it to Malakai to do?”
A tutting sound came from his mouth as he raised a finger and wagged it back and forth. “You’re not listening to me, dear. I inhabited his mind countless times until my own thoughts and desire slowly became his own, even when I wasn’t in control. His mind was pliable, just like the countless vampyres and humans I’ve used in the past to get what I want. But dhampyrs…” he spat the word, venom dripping from his voice. “You’re the only creatures that time and again seem to refuse my influence.”
Mind control. That’s what he was trying to do when the pain seared through my head?Thathad to be the individual power that Lazarus held that Barnabus never knew. Who would think of such a power when all vampyres had the power to subtly influence and control those who drank their blood?
It seemed that he didn’t need his blood to be involved at all, however. Everyone was susceptible to his thrall, with the lone exception of dhampyrs. No wonder he’d led a crusade against my kind. We were the only ones who stood to oppose him.
It was like watching multiple personalities flash across his face the way he flipped between disgust, love, spite, and then calm.
“Don’t fight me,” he pleaded. “I don’t wish to hurt you. I’m the one who ensured Malakai believed you weren’t to be touched, ever, in a sexual manner—not even by him. I helped ensure you remained pure for me.”
My stomach churned at that revelation, unsure of how to process those words and the intention behind them.
