The back of my head had only just stopped bleeding, but the ache across my skull seemed permanent. I kept lifting fingers to my skull when my father wasn’t glowering at me, just to check the damage. And every time my fingers dusted over the split and bruised skin I thought of Hector.
If Tomin noticed I was hurt, he didn’t say anything. After all, I wasn’t prepared to explain to him exactlywhyI had a mild concussion when I wasn’t the one who’d actually hurt themself.
Instead of worrying on something I couldn’t control, I put that energy into my hate for the man I was stuck with.
I’d killed my father in so many ways. Too many to count. The list was long. From shooting him, holding his head under the water until the breath left his lungs, to helping tie a noose around his neck and watching as the life was strangled from him. Every one of those deaths had been under his own request. Every single one was because he was testing the limits of his curse—using me, traumatising me, all for the same result.
He would live, and it would bemyfault.
Arwyn Hopkin, the failure. Arwyn Hopkin, the useless son who couldn’t even do one thing right for his own dad. At least, that was what he’d tell me. Over and over.
There was a time I would’ve melted at the mere thought of him asking me to kill him again.
Now, however, as I watched him walk down the line of gravestones, I wanted to try again. I fisted my hands at my sides, trying to ignore the large stones scattered across the path. My mouth salivated at the thought of driving one of those very stones into his skull until it popped like a grape. I imagined what it would feel like to smash his head into a gravestone, or push his face into the dirt to suffocate him. My mind whirled with all the possibilities, teasing me to just try.
My hands were still coated in the Hunter I’d killed, but that wasn’t enough to satiate my unending need for more.
I had no doubt he knew what was going through my mind. Every time he glanced over his shoulder at me, a knowing smirk played across his mouth. He knew, as well as I did, that I couldn’t harm him without failing the trial.
Failing meant dying, most likely. Failing meant being taken by a demon from the man I loved.
I had to exercise control… for now.
In our little pairing, that threat only really meant something to me. If I laid a finger on Tomin, Bahmet would destroy me. Whereas the demon couldn’t hurt him. There was no killing the unkillable. If Tomin decided to turn on me now, harm me, he would face punishment only for him to resurrect over and over.
So, for Hector’s sake, I had to stay alive. Which meant trying my fucking hardest not to provoke Tomin.
That didn’t mean I needed to help him though.
“Are you just going to sulk back there, or are you going to make yourself useful for once, and do something?”
There would’ve been a time the underlying jibe in his words would’ve hurt me. Now, I couldn’t find a fuck to give. “I think we both know the answer to that, don’t we?”
“Smart mouth for a boy who wet the bed until he was in his twenties.”
My gut twisted into knots at the comment. The reaction played across my face, making Tomin’s smile grow larger. I bit down on my tongue just to stop myself from continuing the back-and-forth.
To my pleasant surprise, Tomin didn’t add another comment in.
Yes, sure, I wet the bed until I was an adult. But it was the man walking ahead of me that was the root cause of that. He haunted me in my waking hours, and during those few hours I could sleep. His demands, his disappointments in me, lingered even in my dreams. I understood that now. I wasn’t about to start being embarrassed for the way his mistreatment affected me.
The further we navigated the strange field of gravestones, we came across no other competitors. Not one.
Tomin studied every gravestone in detail, before moving on to the next. I looked out across the endless horizon in search for signs of Hector. Even Romy and Kai. My worry for their sakes only grew louder with every passing minute.
“Ah!” I sucked in a breath as a sharp and heinous pain lanced across the side of my face.
My vision blurred, my legs giving out from the suddenness. It was as if someone had slammed a fist into my cheek… twice over. The mysterious head wound I’d received earlier throbbed in tandem, twisting my concussion until vomit burned up and out my throat.
I was doubled over, on all fours, emptying my stomach of the food I’d not long ate, when Tomin came to stand above me.
“Get. Up.”
I ignored him, which brought me a lick of joy. “Aren’t you worried about me, Daddy?”
“Not even a bit.” He cringed at the use of the title, as I knew he would. “Whatever you are playing at, it isn’t helping. You can attempt to hold me up, and it still will not have an effect on my success. I suggest you stop fucking around and do as I say.”
“How about you come a little closer and say that again,” I said, practically pleading for Tomin to do so.
