And now, he whispers the same question that he asked me before, his voice hollow. “Will you have your revenge, my Veda?”
Even now, he calls mehis.
His Veda.
Hisconqueror.
I inhale what could be one of my last breaths, preparing to leap into the unknown, an abyss where the tiniest sliver of faith is all that could keep me alive.
It’s a faith that doesn’t belong to a dark creature like me. But still, I dare to reach for it.
I remain aware of my father, who has taken a small step farther to my left. His eyes narrow as he fixates on Emil’s new form. There’s a hint of wariness in my father’s posture for the first time since he appeared in this room. The smallest indication of fear, as if something about Emil’s face scares him, too.
I’m conscious of the keeper of light magic with her dazed eyes as she slumps against the far wall.
But most of all, I’m mindful of my left hand where it rests benignly on my lap, the claws on that hand completely retracted, the muscles of my left arm deceptively relaxed.
To Emil, I say, “My mother raised me to understand love. She taught me its value, even for a dark creature like me. I knew love for the first thirteen years of my life, but when she died, I lost it.”
My jaw clenches and the claws of my right hand dig deeper into his skin.
I will him to hear the power in my words.
“And then I found it again,” I say.
I found it in my new family. I found it in the loyalty and care of the shadow panthers who form my pack: Anarchy, Riot, Rumble, and Strife. They are dark elves, cursed to take the form of panthers for thousands of years until I freed them from their cage, after which the keeper broke their curse.
I found it in my half-brother, Lucian, who vowed to stand at my side, helped me start using my previously useless wings, and told me that I have what no other dark creature he has ever met has: an internal moral code all my own.
I especially found it in Emil.
In the way he brought Anarchy back from the dead when she had been badly injured. In the way he healedmeafter the last time I’d fought my father. And in the way he respected my body.
He slowly opens his eyes and now there’s a slight crease in his forehead, a wary purse to his lips.
“You thought I would break when I readThe Book of Dark Magic,” I say, nodding softly to him. “And for a moment, I did. But this book gave me a gift. It restored the truth of my memories. And I am stronger for it.”
As I speak, I reach for that tiny kernel of faith, of belief, that I am worthy of more than darkness and pain.
“I am not broken.” I return Emil’s gaze, daring to meet his pale green eyes, which are like coils of rope winding around my soul, binding me to him.
His weight against my hand eases, less heavy, more in control, a small sign of his returning strength as his gaze burns into me.
My father, on the other hand, is now poised nearby, his forehead deeply creased and an alarmed expression spreading quickly across his face.
His focus flicks urgently to the book lying close to my side, and I can see him calculating how fast he can get to it.
As much as he wants me dead, his first priority will be retrieving the book. It’s everything to him.
I have only seconds to act.
I lean closer to Emil, certain now that his power has returned enough for him to fight back.
Pressing my forehead to his, I say, “My fate is in your hands now, Enemy.”
And with that, I extend the claws of my left hand in a flash and drive them down.
CHAPTER THREE
