“I just got her,” Daryl whispered, vulnerability leaking from his tone. “She’s been through so much, Darkmore. I don’t want her to get involved with romance and get her heart broken.”
Blinking at him, I realized he was only trying to protect his daughter. “Death, I give you my word that if I ever break her heart, you can have my soul.”
“I would take it regardless of your allowance.” His lips curled into a dark smile, and a chill hit the base of my spine.
I didn’t like being on Death’s bad side.
19
DEXTER
My footsteps left faint imprints in the sand, but nobody could see me in the darkness. The desert sun dipped slightly below the horizon, casting long, stretched-out shadows that crept over the sands and stone walls of the academy. I moved among them, and the dark cradled me like I’d never been held before. The tattoos that ran down my arms absorbed the shadows around me, swirling with a life of their own. Darkness used to be the one thing that I craved.
I’d tied my white blond hair back loosely, but the strands brushed against my neck as I moved through the shadows, scanning the campus for dark magic remnants.
Each step I took was measured so that I stayed hidden until I slippedout of the shadows and into Skel’s and my room. I let out a breath of relief that the fucker was passed out with his purple pipe on his chest.
Skel and I had similar tastes in decor. The room was sparse, just like I wanted it, with minimal dark furnishings and dark curtains drawn across the small window to block out the remaining stubborn rays of sunlight. We both had matching black comforters, and that was pretty much it.
Badass, I know.
I moved to my desk, where the academy’s assigned sleek tablet lay dormant until my fingers brushed its surface, and the screen lit up. The device hummed to life, projecting an incoming call almost as if they knew exactly where I was.
My blood turned to ice as the name popped up on my screen.
Rod Shadowheart.
My father. Which also meant my mother. For a demon couple that weren’t fated, they were always together. Not necessarily because theylikedeach other, though.
My lips twisted into a sarcastic smirk as I tapped the screen to accept the call.
“Mommy, Daddy,” I greeted with feigned enthusiasm.
But as both of my parents’ images flickered into view, my mind wandered.
I couldn't help but think ofher—Pandora Gravesend, the soul eater who kept monopolizing every thought I had. She was nobility, sure, but there was something about her that set her apart from the spoiled and self-absorbed shitheads that were dubbed nobility in this territory.
Her beautiful bright red eyes had turned dark and deep as the void itself when she approached the dark magic circle this morning, and they held a depth of understanding that no other demon I knew possessed.
Bram and Skel couldn’t see shit, but I could. There was so much more to her than the old money clothes and her daddy’s status. There was a tortured agony within her soul, and it drew me in like a moth to a flame.
“We told you not to call us that,” Poppy, my mother, remarked, bringing my attention back to the tablet.
My birth-giver happened to be a shadow demon like me, with white blonde hair cascading down her shoulders. As always, she exuded an air of apathy that was palpable even through a digital screen. This bitch was vicious, and she never cared for me. Our interactions were strained, filled with a tension that was caused by her and my father killing my big sister—the one fucking being in this world that I knew without a doubt Iloved.
I wasn’t capable of that emotion anymore, though.
And like most demons, I was still under my parents’ thumbs. I didn’t dare try to separate myself from them because last time I tried to say no…
My fingertips traced the thick, jagged scar around my neck.
“Youalsotold me to refer to you as my parents while I was at the academy, Poppy,” I quipped, sneaking over to Skel’s side and snatching the pipe off his chest before making my way back to the tablet.
She regarded me with the same cold gray eyes so similar to mine, but unlike me, her expression stayed unreadable. There was nothing in her gaze, no flicker of maternal instinct that I used to desperately crave. Not an ounce of the mom instinct that my sister had even when she was a child. No. Atoddler,even.
But no, this bitch saw right through me. SheknewI was nothing more than a disappointment, a shadow of what she had expected me to be.
“Stop being a smart ass,” Father barked, his voice like gravel, rough and abrasive.
