“That doesn’t say much,” I tell him. “They were cruel. They should all die,”I mock,“Over what? Because from what I’ve witnessed of your courts, you’re all cruel.”
Moros’s gaze snaps to mine. “You want to know just how fucking cruel the gods are?” He sneers his lips. “I was eight when my mother was slain. At the hands of her husband.”
I’m not surprised. He did the same.
Looks generational. I think that’s what my cousins would call a red flag.
I say none of this because he’s so lost in his head I think he’s forgotten I exist.
“My father didn’t want to. Just as I didn’t want to, either. But you see, a weaker man would have allowed her to live and I couldn’t allow that.” I don’t know if he is trying to convince himself or me but he goes on. “My mother. Claimedhestole her in the middle of the night. She was gone for three days and three nights. When she came home she was pregnant.”
Oh no. That’s not possible.
Unless, it was a god. Who ishe?
I can barely hear his next words over the roaring in my ears.
“He cut off her head, then cut out the babe,” Moros says as though bored.
I want so badly to ask what happened. But I don’t because some horrors once known, you just can’t unknow.
“My brother lives in exile.” He sighs. “I think.” He shrugs as though it doesn’t matter. “The point is, they should die. Die for their petty games. Their vindictive laws. Cruel vengeance. They would have been just as merciless. In fact, they would have killed the babe. My father showed mercy!
“And you.” He finally turns to me. “You aren’t even real.”
I know I shouldn’t let this man get to me. I know better. But his words settle in my stomach and twist.
Because some part of me has always wondered.
If I wasmadeinstead ofborn. If the love I felt was glamour. If the woman who raised me ever looked at me and saw somethingwrong.
I bury it. Shove it so deep it can rot there with everything else I refuse to feel.
“You don’t even know the feel of a warm womb.”
“Ew.”
“Dirt. You’re full of dirt and roots.” He truly hates me. He steps so close. “No, see, you are going to help me kill them all.” He pinches my chin. “Every last abomination. And you are going to do it for us.”
“Otherwise,” I know her voice.Amarantha. “Your poor mother won’t survive.”
I spin just in time to see Amarantha slide a blade through her shoulder.
5
Orion
“Look at us. Just the guys.”Whispen sighs, resting his head on the top of his hand. “The gang back together.”
I glare at the pest. “I don’t know what you’re doing, but stop.”
“By the gods.” Kieran pinches the bridge of his nose. “Is he always like this?”
I lean across the table. Poor Kieran got stuck sitting beside Whispen, now in the form of a thirty-something Fae, that suspiciously looks like someone I once knew named Bloom.
“I have threatened to kill him,” I whisper.
“Yet he remains.”
