I realized it was showing all over my face. An icy rage consumed my very being. A feral need, as an ancient, wicked melody whispered through my blood, to end him.
“I know how muchyouhatedhim.” Aldert jabbed a finger at me while turning to spit the words at Sirro. “This is an attempt to discredit my son!”
The Horned God ignored Aldert and instead politely asked my father, “How is the lovely Ferne these days?”
Astonishment jolted through me. He knew. Somehow he knew what Danne was capable of. What he’d attempted to do to my sister. What he suspected might have happened to Nelle when she’d been trapped with Danne.
Aldert swallowed thickly, his face paling to a sickly color.
My father replied to Sirro in his deep, rough voice, but he kept his wrathful gaze on Aldert. “Ferne is well.”
“Danne was obsessed with Nelle,” I said, catching Aldert’s unease. The flash of doubt. He knew what sickness roiled in his son, and that fact alone would make my lies sound like the truth. “So, he stole her.”
“He would never—”
“I went after what was mine and found Danne with her. I didn’t like the way he was looking at her, touching her. She didn’t like it either.”
Byron’s shocked gaze cut to mine as what I implied slammed through him. To my surprise, he spoke up. “Danne had been at me all weekend trying to get to Nelle. If she hadn’t kept constant company with Graysen, I’m sure your son would have kidnapped her earlier.”
“They were friends. We all knew that.”
Byron’s jaw tightened with building rage. “It would seem not, Aldert.”
Byron also couldn’t afford to have anyone suspect his daughter wasother. He and I agreed for once. Everyone, including Aldert, needed to see Danne as an obsessive stalker, and that being the sole reason he had stolen the Wychthorn Princess. I only hoped that Aldert didn’t dig any further as to why his son thought he had possessed someone ofworth.
I also hoped to hells that this was a wake-up call to Byron so that he’d end the engagement of Corné Pellan to his daughter Evelene. But there was something the Pellans had over him. Despite his high rank, Byron wasn’t permittedto know what was happening in the laboratories deep within the Carpellean Mountains—the secretive experiment the Pellans were conducting for the Horned Gods. And like his sadistic eldest son, Aldert arrogantly assumed this gave him a certain right to lord over Byron.
Practically spitting with self-importance, Aldert dared to take a step closer to me. “What did you do to my son?”
I braced my stance and glared. The words rumbled from my throat, frayed with malice. “I simply retrieved what belonged to me, and I let Danne go.”
Well,Ididn’t—Nelle did.
And technically, it was true—she let him go inside theswiftingvoid.
“He’s vanished,” Aldert snarled.
I mentally shrugged—again, technically true.
I lifted my brows, silently replying—I don’t fucking care.
And truly, I didn’t.
I could still feel the press of Danne’s blade at my throat, warm blood seeping from the shallow cut and dripping down my neck as he raised the weapon. Sunlight and mountain shadow flashed along the slender blade when he drove the dagger downward, intent on ending me.
The last terrified thought I’d had—that he would take Nelle and finish what he’d begun in the limousine.
And brave, fearless Nelle, hurling herself at Danne andswifting. Both of them vanishing into the void, leaving behind a wake of feathered wind that brushed against my bloodied, sweat-slick skin.
Aldert pivoted to face Sirro. Fury blotched his cheeks as he stabbed his finger at me. His voice boomed through the room like an explosion of thunder, presumptuous and demanding. “Sirro—”
A burst of savagery exploded.
Sirro’s power lashed out. Silver strands whipped around Aldert’s milky neck, squeezing viciously.
Everyone reacted.
My father and I were a blur, taking defensive positions in front of my vulnerable brother.
