My aunt softly praised Conlan. “Such a gifted child,” she cooed. “Such a talented little prince.”
The little nightmare smiled at Erra, showing all of his teeth. He struggled to say something and changed back into a human. “Gama.”
“Grandma is so proud,” Erra told him.
“That’s my boy.” I made my voice happy and light.
Conlan hugged my neck. “Bad.”
Razer was screaming because Curran had pulled his left arm off.
“Yes, bad. Look at Daddy ripping the bad man to pieces. Go Daddy!”
Conlan clapped his hands.
Curran snapped Razer’s spine with a loud crack, then twisted off the fae’s head.
“Look, Daddy killed him dead. All dead.”
Conlan giggled.
Dali was staring at me with a look of pure horror.
“I don’t want him to have nightmares that the bad man is going to get him,” I told her. “This way he knows his daddy killed him.”
Curran stood over Razer’s ruined corpse and roared.
“Rawrawrawr,” human Conlan said.
“That’s right,” I said.
“What happened to not wanting to traumatize him?” a vampire asked me in Ghastek’s voice.
“I gave up,” I told him. “We are a family of monsters and he’s our child. People will always try to kill him and we will always protect him. He better get used to it.”
CHAPTER
16
I SAT ON the back porch in my chair, drinking a glass of iced tea. Curran crouched in the backyard. His gray eyes tracked the faint hint of movement through the raspberry bushes at the edge of the lawn. Elara had walked out into our woods for a bit after the Razer incident. I wasn’t sure if she needed to cool off or compose herself, but she was back now, sitting on the lower branch of a large oak and watching Curran.
The door swung open and Hugh shouldered his way out and dropped into a chair next to me.
“Did Dali leave finally?”
“Still on the phone,” he said.
Once Razer’s corpse was removed and everything went back to normal, Dali decided to have an important conversation with Jim about having Hugh perform the surgery. Unfortunately, she refused to leave because, according to her, I could murder Hugh while she was away. Instead she chose to have this conversation via our kitchen phone. Things weren’t going well because Jim, understandably, wasn’t enthusiastic about having Hugh d’Ambray cutting his wife open and removing parts of her. She had hung up on Jim twice and he had hung up on her once. Last I heard, they’d gone from wild accusations to cold logic. Given that they were two of the smartest people I knew, they would be at it awhile.
“She’s slipping,” I said. “I could kill you right now, while you’re out on the porch with me.”
“If I didn’t fight back.”
“Would you fight back?”
“I’m thinking about it.” He was watching Elara. She sat on the branch, swinging her feet. His expression was still hard, but there was something softer in his eyes. Something warm.
Curran pivoted toward us, away from the bushes.
“You should fight back,” I told Hugh. “Nobody likes a quitter.”
Conlan exploded out of the bushes and pounced on his father’s back. Curran roared dramatically and collapsed in the grass.
“Is this what you wanted?” Hugh asked.
I knew what he meant. He was asking about Curran, and Conlan, about the house with the woods out back, friends, and a house that never stayed quiet for too long.
“Yes.”
“You know Nimrod would give you all the power in the world. If you told him that you accepted him, he would turn himself inside out to please you. He would build a palace for your son.” A note of bitterness slipped into his voice. He killed it quickly, but I’d still heard it.
I understood. No matter what Hugh did, no matter how hard he tried or how good he was at doing it, my father would never value him as much as he valued me. I was blood and Hugh wasn’t. The kicker was, he didn’t value me all that much either.
“But all his gifts would come with a collar around my neck.”
“True.”
“That’s not how Roland sees me anyway. He doesn’t see me as a daughter whom he can teach. He sees me as a sword he can use. Once in a while he rubs me the wrong way and I cut him, and he’s surprised and pleased the sword is sharp, but it never goes past that.”
“You have no idea,” Hugh said.
“I do. He tried living next to my territory. He would bait me every few days. He couldn’t help himself. That’s why the castle he started is now a burned-out ruin. You and I have that in common—neither of us will ever get what we want out of a relationship with him. He mostly wants me to be your replacement. He hasn’t realized yet that I don’t have your training or your mind. If he gave me an army, I would have no idea what to do with it.”
“Your aunt did well enough,” Hugh said.
“My aunt studied strategy and tactics since she was old enough to read. I’m a lone killer. That’s what I do best.”
“Whatever you did worked well enough when you fought him, from what I hear.”
“He formed his troops in two rectangles and marched them on the Keep. I couldn’t believe it.”
Hugh grimaced. “Did he ride a chariot?”
“Mm-hm. It was gold.”
Hugh shut his eyes for a second.
“It was slow as hell.”
“Well, of course it’s slow. It’s gold. Did you know he wanted to put a figurehead on it?”
I blinked. “What, like on a ship?”
“Yeah.” Hugh looked like he’d just bitten a rotten lemon. “Your mother’s face with diamond eyes and wings made of electrum. Spread wings.” He held his hands up, the tips of his fingers angled back.
“How aerodynamic.” I grinned.
“I told him he’d need a damn elephant to draw it forward.”
“Did he give up?”
“No,” Hugh said. “Last I know of it, he was building a pair of mechanical magic-powered horses to draw the chariot.”
“Let me guess, platinum? With gold manes?”
“What do you think?”
We laughed.
“What about you?”
He raised his eyebrows. “What about me?”
“What happens when all is forgiven, and he needs you again?”
Hugh glanced at Elara again. “It already happened.”
He’d said no.
Huh. That must’ve cost him. My father was everything to Hugh: surrogate father, commander, god . . . And Hugh had walked away from it. He could be lying, but it felt like the truth. It was in his eyes, the way they turned a touch sad and resigned.
“All of his children turn on him eventually,” I said.
“I was never his child.”
I rolled my eyes. “He raised you, he taught you, he encouraged you.”
“He fucked with my head.”
“He fucks with everyone’s head. Yours more than most. For all it matters, you’re his son. You’re fucked up enough to be.”
He barked a short laugh.
“Face it,” I told him. “We are damaged siblings.”
We watched Curran chase Conlan around.
“What was it like?” I asked.
Hugh’s face fell. I didn’t need to elaborate. He knew exactly what I was asking.
“It was like having the sun ripped away,” he said. “I’d reach for the connection out of habit, and there would be a raw wound there, filled with all the shit I did.”
“Sorry,” I told him.
“Don’t be. I’m me now. Still a bastard, but I’m my own bastard now. Nobody tells me what to do.” He glanced at Elara and smiled. “Well, she does once in a while, but it’s worth it.”
“He would give you the world if you came crawling back,” I told him, mimicking his voice.
“I have her. I have our soldiers and our people to protect. I have a castle to run. I don’t want the world. I just want that small corner of it to be safe.”
“Going to war against a dragon isn’t exactly going to keep your Iron Dogs safe.”
He looked at me. “No, but it will help you.”
“You don’t have to pay your old debts, Hugh. Not with me.”
“Just accept the help,” he growled. “You need it.”
“Oh, I’ll take it. Three hundred Iron Dogs and Hugh d’Ambray. I’d be crazy to turn it down.”
“Smart girl.”
“But you and I are fine, Hugh. I mean it.”