I try to push back with all of my strength, needing to control my arm and hand while at the same time afraid that he’ll break those bones, too. Panic floods me when I sense the pressure between the feather in my shoulder and the angle of my arm working against me.
Bones, please don’t break.
I moan with pain and fear, trying to get my right leg out from under me so I can kick him—assuming I can even reach across the space between us, since he was clever to crouch on the more heavily injured side of me.
He glances once more up at the feather in the wall, and I imagine he’s starting to think that my claws are becoming more effort than he was counting on.
Beads of sweat break out across his forehead, and a snarl rises to his lips.
That’s when a soft swishing sound registers in my hearing, and I become aware of movement in the darkness behind my father.
Lucian appears in the gloom, his broken wing dragging across the floor, his face pale. Like Taiven, his skin is fair, his hair is black, and his eyes are golden, but his blood is red and his wing isn’t healing quickly.
He carves a ragged, unsteady path toward the pedestal and kicks its wooden base hard. Once, twice.
It snaps near the bottom and topples to the floor with a clatter. The little platform that sits on its top breaks off upon impact, so that what remains of the pedestal is a plank of wood with two jagged ends.
I’m not sure what Lucian intends to do with that plank until he hoists it upward and carves another ragged path, this time in our direction.
As he comes closer, his other injuries become more apparent. There are bruises across his face and neck and on his arms where his sleeves don’t cover them. A thick ring of reddened skin is visible around his neck, the kind that might be made by a rope.
Lucian had none of those injuries before he brought me here and all of them when I woke up.
His golden eyes flash over me and I can’t decipher his expression—other than to register a hatred as cold as our father’s.
He isn’t my friend.
If he hits me over the head with that chunk of wood and knocks me out even for a second, it will all be over for me.
CHAPTER FOUR
“Do it, Son,” Taiven says without turning to Lucian. “Make me proud for the first time in your life.”
“Proud?” Lucian’s voice is an angry rasp. “Why would I give a fuck about making you proud?”
Taiven’s eyes widen.
Lucian swings the wooden plank.
It cracks across the back of our father’s head so hard that I’m sure a chunk of his scalp will fly across the room before his body follows.
Taiven barely flinches.
My stomach sinks low and bile rises to my throat.
Dark saints, what will it take to defeat him?
Taiven turns his angry eyes up at Lucian while managing to keep my claws pressing toward my chest.
“Oh… fuck.” Lucian backs away, the plank slipping between his fingers.
“Pathetic.” Taiven spits before returning his attention to me. “As weak as his mother.”
Lucian stops backpedaling, catching hold of the plank before it can drop to the ground. His fingers tighten around it, his knuckles turning white. “You’re the weak one.”
Taiven’s lips draw back from his teeth as he turns his head to side-eye his son. “What did you say to me?”
“I said, you’re a coward,” Lucian snarls. “Hiding behind powerful supernaturals like Jonah and Vanguard. Using their loved ones as leverage to get what you want.”
