“Look, if you’re going to kill me, then get the fuck on with it,” he says. “I can’t tell you anything that could be worth something to you because our father didn’t trust me with information that was worth having.”
My response is a low growl. “I think you know more than you’re telling me.”
He shakes his head, a slow, side-to-side motion, the corners of his mouth turning down and his shoulders hunching again. “If I am, what are you going to do about it, Veda?” he asks. “Beat it out of me?”
I rub my hands over my face, my voice losing its growl, my thoughts becoming quiet. “I’m not going to kill you, Lucian.”
At my declaration, the anger drains from his face and he looks at me with a deeply furrowed brow.
The airwhooshesout of my chest in a defeated sound. “I didn’t free myself from a dark prison so I could destroy my family.” I dare to look away from Lucian, even though I’m standing close enough for him to strike me while my back is turned.
I take in the panthers and the keeper, the way they’re all standing close enough to back me up, no matter what happens.
“I came hereformy family,” I say.
When I turn back to Lucian, he gives a heavy sigh that sounds a lot like my own defeated exhalation.
“Yeah,” he says. “But you can’t trust me.”
I wish I could tell if he’s lying from listening to his heartbeats. Some supernaturals give away their lies when their heartbeats jump—that is, according to my mother. But dark creatures are very good at masking their lies, aided by a general lack of guilt that means their actions don’t affect their emotional state.
There are a few supernatural species with the ability to instantly detect lies, no matter who is telling them. Creatures like the Valkyrie, Keres, and of course, Avenging Angels. They all had that ability, but they’re extinct. Even if they weren’t, it’s not like I could convince one of them to help me.
Keeping Lucian at my side is a huge risk.
It’s true that I need family, but I have a pack. The panthers are my pack. So is the keeper. I need to protectthemnow.
So I make a decision: I will ask the keeper to heal Lucian, but after that, I don’t have much choice but to send my brother on his way. The keeper will need to find us another home base, since Lucian has seen this one, but I hope it won’t be too hard.
Already, I’m cataloging in my mind the things I want to take with me, all of them having a personal meaning to me—my mother’s old shirt and the strip of material from her old skirt, the sash of black material I took from the angel’s cathedral when I first escaped, and the torn-out page fromTheBook of Dark Magicthat I retrieved from Central Park.
I’m turning to the keeper when Lucian speaks softly again.
“You asked me what Iknewabout you, which pretty much amounted to nothing until I met you, but I can tell you what Iknowabout you.”
I consider him carefully before I ask, “Which is?”
“You have what no other dark creature I’ve ever met has.”
Oh, he’d better not mention my wings.
Or repeat that bullshit our father was spouting about me filling the streets with blood.
Before I can speak, he continues. “You have an internal moral code.”
It isn’t anywhere close to what I thought he might say.
He exhales softly into the silence. “That mother-wolf back in the forest described you as a dangerous, wounded creature, but when she asked you what you would do if she let you live, you said you didn’t know.”
I stare back at him warily, uncertain where he’s going with this.
He continues softly. “There isn’t a dark creature on this planet who wouldn’t have immediately said they wanted to tear our father apart. But you hesitated.”
He peers at me with an intense gaze, as if he can’t really understand what he’s looking at. “There also isn’t a darkcreature on this planet who would have let me live this long—no matter that I hit our father over the head with a useless plank of wood. But you haven’t killed me, and you’ve said you won’t. Despite the fact that I probably shouldn’t believe you, I do.”
He finally rises off the chair, although his wings hang even lower than they did before and he reaches for the table to keep himself steady. “So, yeah, you can’t trust me. Not at all. But maybe you can trust this: I’m not going back to our father. I’d rather fucking die. And the chances of dying at your side are way higher than anywhere else, so this is where I’d like to stay.”
I blink at him, mentally replaying what he said and trying to process it. “I can trust you… because you have a death wish?”
