I stared at him. “Who is my father?”
“Lucifer’s son.”
I swayed on my feet. Lucifer was my grandfather.TheLucifer. Samael held out a hand to steady me and I stumbled away from him.
Harriette had lied to me. No, she hadn’t lied exactly. She’d skirted the truth the way the fae always did.
“He was a high demon who was in the underking’s inner circle,”she’d told me.
“Where is he?”
“He disappeared before you were born.”
“I know that. Is he back in the underworld?”
“No. My spies say he hasn’t returned and is believed to be dead.”
I swallowed. “If I’m so dangerous to Lucifer, why hasn’t he killed me?”
His eyes were very hard and very cold. “Because the bastard can’t leave the underworld, and the people in this world are loyal tome. The only way for him to wield enough power to take my grandfather’s throne was to bind his lifeforce to the underworld. Until you opened that book, he had no idea you existed. Now, every demon alive knows the Nephilim is alive.”
I didn’t like the way he said ‘Nephilim,’ as if I was nothing more than a tool.
I stared at him.I don’t like when my tools are broken before I’m finished using them.He’d said that to me soon after we first met.
My heart twisted. “Tell me you didn’t know who I was. Tell me you didn’t know I have the power to take down your oldest enemy. The man who slaughtered your family.”
He gazed at me steadily and I lunged toward him. He made no move to stop me as I held Misty to his throat.
“Tell me.”
A muscle twitched in his cheek, but his expression stayed blank. Inscrutable bastard. I let out a bitter laugh.
“You knew who I was this entire time, and you let me stay ignorant. Worse, you were probably planning to use me to take down your enemies. Deny it.”
Betrayal had sharp teeth and vicious talons. It ripped through me until I was one big, gaping wound. All this time I’d been asking Samael about my mother, when I really should’ve been asking about my father.
Did all of Samael’s people know who I was? Did Vas? I’d begun to make… friends.
“Tell me you weren't planning to keep this from me forever. Tell me you weren't planning to use me against Lucifer."
I'd let him in, I realized. Somewhere along the way, I'd let him crawl beneath my rib cage, and he was buried there, where my fucking heart should be.
I was going to be sick.
My breath caught in my throat as Samael’s hand blurred toward me, and Misty went flying. His hand slid to the nape of my neck, his hold warning, possessive. He’d moved faster than I could blink, and I reached for my Nim Cub. His other hand plucked it from my sheath.
“I don’t think so. Youwilllisten to me.”
Fine. I gazed somewhere over his left shoulder. I didn’t believe he’d kill me. After all, he needed me for his revenge plans.
There was a gaping hole inside my chest. A wound that would never heal. Despite knowing who and what he was, I’d started trusting him at some point. And he’d taken that trust and strangled it.
He cursed as my face told him everything I was thinking. Either that, or he felt it down our fucking bond. “Don’t look at me like that. I was planning to tell you.”
“Let me go.”
“You will allow me to explain.”
