Only Lucian is grinning. A dark smile. “Our father would not have been pleased to watch you do it.”
“He was not,” I reply.
“Damn, Veda,” Lucian continues. “You really fucked up his prized possession.”
“I did.” A little of the weight inside me lifts because, at least in this one thing, I succeeded at what I’d set out to do: deprive Taiven Nostra ofThe Book of Dark Magic.
My smile fades. “But what are the consequences?” I stare at the book. “What does this mean?”
Jonah speaks up from the other side of the campfire. “It means you’re impossibly dangerous, Veda.”
I meet his piercing gaze, my own unwavering. “Jonah?”
“I was fully grown when the books were created,” he says. “I never met their creator, and I was grateful for that because her power was terrifying.”
“Her?” I ask.
“A woman who wielded the same arcane magic that was used to create your mother’s heart.” Jonah nods in slow motion. “She used that power to create these books.”
He gives me a hard stare. “Even more dangerous is the power that could destroy them.”
I’m tense where I sit, fully aware of the friction rising around me and the way my pack is leaning protectively toward me.
“Are we going to have a problem, Jonah?” I ask him.
“Fuck, no,” he says, his declaration bringing the tension down a notch. “You’re Galeia’s daughter. You’re family.”
But then the tension rises again when he continues. “But until you understand how you did what you did, you’re a danger to everyone around you.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Jonah rises slowly to his feet.
There’s a part of me that wants to stand and face him, to downplay what I did to the book and all its unknown consequences.
But I can’t.
If I believe that my father once loved my mother, then he imprisoned the love of his life because of the danger she carried:me.
He asked me if I had ever seen true darkness, and he implied that true darkness was me.
Even Halle said I shouldn’t exist.
And Emil brought me here… for what? Protection? Imprisonment? Or perhaps for some other purpose that has yet to reveal itself.
So I stay exactly where I am, my knees drawn to my chest, a storm of uncertainty within me as Jonah slowly circles the campfire and steps toward me.
I know Anarchy and Riot well enough to believe that at the first hint of danger to me, they’ll spring into action. Rumble and Strife will attack Jonah from behind, and Lucian—well, I’mcertain he will be conflicted because Jonah was the only person who looked out for him while he was growing up.
But I also know that Jonah could turn them all to ash in a blink.
“Don’t,” I whisper to them. “Don’t react. If there’s a fight, then it’s mine.”
“There will not be a fight.” Jonah lowers himself into a kneeling position in front of me, somehow managing to squeeze between me and the campfire. But of course, he’s a fire jotunn, so the flames won’t worry him.
His voice is quiet as he says, “I want to tell you about the first time I met your mother.”
I’m cautious. “Okay?”
