“Makes sense, I’ve hated every day I’ve been alive.” And the fact that he was immortal infuriated him all the more. It wasn’t fair that death would never spare him this misery.
Noir’s eyes turned red again. “Do you know what I do to those who cross me?”
“Given that one of my brothers is enslaved to the Malachai and the other cursed by you, I have a pretty good idea.”
“And they are full gods, like your sister. You …”
“Half human. Did you think that would make me weaker?”
By the light in Noir’s eyes, Thorn would say yes.
Fine. Half human or not, he refused to cower. “If you want me dead, old man, kill me. Do us both a favor.”
Noir’s eyes glowed infernal in the dim light. “Why have you chosen to live here?”
Thorn started to lie or answer to aggravate him. Instead, the truth was out of his mouth before he could stop it. “I don’t belong anywhere else.” No one had ever wanted him.
His mother had looked on him with fear and Tesiah had viewed him as a legacy.
As for Noir …
He scowled as he considered Thorn’s words. “You came seeking a father?”
That was a bitter truth that stung them both. “Yes,” he whispered.
“Then why won’t you obey me?”
Thorn let out a ragged breath. “Grown children don’t obey. Besides, because of you, everything I thought I was and everything I thought I knew has been stripped from me. All I have left is my integrity. If I lose it, then I’ll lose me, too. And that I don’t want to do.”
That seemed to confuse Noir. “You don’t hate me?”
“I don’t know you, Father. But I was hoping to learn something about you other than rumors and lies.”
“So that you can hate me?”
Thorn shook his head at Noir’s insistence that Thorn would find nothing redeeming in his sperm donor. And maybe he wouldn’t. Only time would tell. But Thorn at least wanted to learn something about the creature who’d donated his DNA to his existence.
“That wasn’t my plan. I never hated Tesiah, until he turned on me. Now I hate them all.”
Noir considered that. “He abused you horribly.”
That was putting it mildly. “He was my father. Love and pain are rather synonymous to me. Hatred I reserve for those who earn it. Since you haven’t turned on me, I don’t hate you … yet. Insults and hostility don’t matter.” They were all he knew and they meant nothing.
Noir paused as he let those words sink in. All his children hated him. Dagon cursed him constantly and justifiably so given what he’d done to the god. Falcyn had turned on him centuries ago.
Laguerre …
She might serve him, but she held no love where he was concerned, and he knew it. Her heart was too cold. Just like her mother’s.
But Thorn was another matter. Was it because his mother had been human? Did it give him a greater capacity for love?
What do you need with such a petty thing?
He didn’t. He was an all-powerful god. And yet as he watched his son, he felt a peculiar sensation in his chest. A kind of pain, and something more. He couldn’t really describe it. Could it be paternal affection? To his knowledge, he’d never had that before.
Even though he was angry at Thorn, he didn’t have his usual need to beat or destroy him. Noir had never in his existence allowed anyone to speak to him the way Thorn did.
He had no idea why he put up with Thorn’s attitude or rebellion. Really, it made no sense at all.
