His mouth pinches, and a look of disgust falls over his face. “That a creature like you has no right to exist.”
A creature like me?
I would stumble if the wall at my back weren’t keeping me upright.
My skin is suddenly crawling. The sensation is all over me, but it’s especially intense along my spine, a tingle that runs from my lower back up to the base of my skull.
I try to steady my breathing as I yearn for the abhorrence in my father’s eyes to fade.
When it doesn’t, a cold anger rises within me and a shield I’ve long held over my heart and body lifts back into place.
“What could you possibly mean, Father?” I ask, sounding nonchalant in the face of his contempt. “Do you mean a creature like this?”
I focus on the prickling sensation in my back that increases beneath my shoulder blades. I draw on the strange sensation that I’ve taught myself to ignore because this aspect of myself doesn’t fit with who I am.
WithwhatI am.
Or maybe more accurately, with what Ishouldbe.
Hunching my shoulders, I allow the sensations within my shoulder blades to take control, gritting my teeth as a part of my spine tears apart and my back bursts open.
CHAPTER TWO
Iscream with pain as ragged, black wings burst from my back.
They extend for a full five paces to each side of me, every feather long, jagged, sharp, and misshapen.
My wings are not beautiful. They aren’t flowing or majestic.
They’re the kind of wings that belong in a nightmare.
My fists clench reflexively, the tips scraping my palms before I force my fingers to relax.
Well, not exactlyrelax.
I draw my lips back, letting my teeth sharpen and the shape of my face to change, elongating and becoming more wolfish.
And there I stand, a wolf with golden eyes that see perfectly in the dark, indestructible black claws that can cut through anything, and deadly-sharp teeth that can rip out another creature’s throat as easily as snapping at air.
Oh, and wings.
I’m a wolf with fucking wings.
A mash up of a dark angel and a hellhound. A strange combination of the two. The keeper hasn’t seen this part of me. Nobody but my mother has.
Until now.
My father’s jaw drops. His throat visibly constricts and a strangled sound leaves his lips.
I’m not sure why he seems so surprised when he was the one who asserted I have no right to exist, as if a creature like me is so abhorrent, I don’t deserve life.
As he stumbles back a step, I’m once again aware of Lucian where he huddles on the other side of the room.
Hisfather, who ismyfather.
Lucian must be my half-brother—my younger half-brother—although exactly when he was born isn’t my greatest concern right now.
My larger worry is the way he’s looking at me as he rises to his feet. His wing is broken and it unbalances him, making him wobble and then press back against the wall as if for support. I didn’t break his wing. Our father did.
