“No, Mr. Demechnef.”
My jaw drops as I stare at the evil bastard who is Niklaus’s fucking grandfather.
“You remember what happened the first time you refused, don’t you? How painful that was for your system?” The tyrant of Demechnef is unblinking with eyes that look like preserved death.
“Yes.” He lowers his head.
“Defy me again, and I will make the punishment on your system last twice as long.”
My father flicks his hopeless gaze back to me once more.
“I can’t…”
“He said no, Vlademur.”
To my horror, I nearly cower and submit as Niklaus’s grandfather redirects his razor-sharp glare to me. And I am so much less than nothing to him. I am a woman. Property. Snake bait.
In my periphery, I can see that Vlademur’s hold on my father has profound roots. With this simple threat, calm and unfeeling—he was able to influence Kane with little to no effort. My father starts dissociating. It’s a survival disorder after all. He is protecting their system. All of the alters.
The trauma response is unstoppable at Vlademur Demechnef’s mercy.
“You don’t have to do this, Kane.” I ignore whatever this sadistic dictator will say next. My father is all that I see now. “You are the smartest man in the world. There’s a reason that you’re the only one who could help me! Vlademur can’t control you anymore. You and Dessin are far more powerful, and they know that if they lose control of you, that’s their death certificates.”
Sweat drips down the sides of Kane’s face as he hyperventilates. Those pupils dilate. The muscles in his upper back clench and contract.
“Please. Don’t let them control you anymore. You are the puppet master.”
Vlademur waves a few gentlemen in to observe my demise. But I hold out hope that he’ll pull through. That Dessin will come to the front and take over.Please!
I rise to my feet, ripping the IV from my arm and back away. This isn’t a fight I can win. Not with my father. Not with this type of alter born of forced violence to protect any other alter from having to harm an innocent person who is used as bait.
Kane’s eyes are glassy, as if someone blew out a candle in his mind. His breathing changes pitch, no longer at a human rhythm. His spine arches, and he crouches to the ground with knuckles grinding into the floor.
“Kane…” I whisper, standing behind my chair, as if that could protect me now.
From his position on all fours, he lifts his head. Nostrils flare. Black eyes see right through me. Head twitches like an animal hearing sound I’m incapable of catching.
Through the fear, I try to remember what Church told me about time traveling. My trigger. That protective love. But it’s hard to internalize it when I’m staring my own violent, gory death in the face at my father’s hands.
What if I can’t do it? Like so many times I’ve failed myself, this would top them all. I can’t make it back to Niklaus if I’m dead.
That sensation to protect him pulses into my fingertips, and I can taste the windy, cold air of the Nightlung.
“Dai! You are stronger than them! Protect your alters by killing the enemy. Not me!” I scream as he shifts on his heels, moving to me like a predator stalking his prey.
The air around us is heavy and spiked with the ghosts of the innocent women who have died this way. I look at what they’ve done to my father and choke on a sob for him. He was a child before he was a monster. He was a child before he won the war with my mother. He had only loved one woman his entire life. He was a child when he met her. He was a child when they started turning him into this.
I wish he could see me.
I wish I could tell him.
I sob into my hand as the look in his eyes tells me there is no getting through to him. Nothing I could say. Nothing I could do. Tears pressurize through my sinuses, causing me to hiccup at his current state.
He’s a non-human alter. Trained to be this way. Abused. No choice but this disorder made for their own survival. I never put this much thought into my father’s disorder. But seeing it up close. Knowing what these adults had to do to him to give it life.
And the murderous, animalistic growls turn into a warning snarl before Dai leaps toward me, soaring over a coffee table and tackling me to the ground. Hands pinning my shoulders to the floor, snapping his teeth in my face as I scream.
“Daddy, please!”
