Page 66 of Petals for Vicious Secrets

“I tire of the past and this conversation, girl,” her father said, indifference lacing his words.

“You sired me. You owe me the truth,” she spat, her voice raising more than she wanted it to. She didn’t want to seem like she was losing control of herself. But she was. She very much was, as this man in front of her seemed impenetrable, and she hadn’t come here for nothing.

“I do not owe you anything, bastard. I don’t owe you even a minute of my life,” the Organ Mandor said, another wave of panom power, stronger than the previous ones, menacing to move her steady position.

He flicked his hand behind his back, keeping his hands away from sight. Hope wouldn’t risk it, her hands close to the hilts of the sharpest blades that could penetrate through ribs and skull at the ready.

Rhei Coralt continued, “There was a reason you were discarded, and that is because you meant nothing. You are nothing. And so is she.”

With that, a black crystal blade shot through his hand at an impossible, unnatural speed. A blade as dark as a starless night sky. A blade with the presence that only weapons with their own history and name had.

A blade that went through her mother’s heart before Hope could step in front of her.

Aurora fell backwards, Hope unable to take her eyes off her mother’s body as she saw it falling with all its weight on the stone floor. The sound echoed in her ears.

Hope kneeled next to her, gasping for air as she removed the black blade that had perforated her mother’s heart with immaculate precision and depth, and she begged Ciaran, “Heal her. Heal her, please. Please, please, please.”

Ciaran kneeled next to her, placing a hand over Aurora’s eyelids, closing them gently, removing the awfully frightened last expression on her mother’s face.

“The Black Lawful Stab allows no Healing,” he whispered, with pain in his grave voice.

Her father was a killer. Just like Hope was.

What growing in Verdania had made her become. A killer. And a very well skilled at that. She had been a killer all her life, fueled by the need to live and see another day.

Hope looked at her mother’s dead body with tears and pain and sorrow in her eyes.

It was too late.

Too late to go back to doing nothing about the fact that her mother had been thrown like a piece of garbage with her newborn daughter into a cruel island where only death ensured one would live. Too late to ignore the years of pain that had consumed her. Too late to not make her father pay. The being who caused her mother’s soul to break into such small pieces that had taken years of tears before a half smile appeared. The being who had fucking killed her after two decades of ignoring their existence.

Too. Fucking. Late.

And as she stood up with the black dagger in her hand, Hope realized she was ready to become a killer fueled by revenge. She was ready to make him pay. She was ready to kill her father, even if that meant killing all the truths and answers with him. And she couldn’t wait to have his blood in her hands.

“I will fucking kill you.”

The Black Lawful Stab trembled as she held its hilt tightly. As Hope threw it with all her might against the room. Against her father’s heart.

The blade didn’t move as fast as it had moved before. No, it definitely wasn’t as fast. It was actually slowing down as it approached its target. It landed slowly on the Organ Mandor’s palm, his expression smug and proud.

“The Black Lawful Stab only obeys the only panom blessed by my beloved Cardinal Queen: the Organ Mandor of Thyria,” he smiled, and Hope’s guts twisted at the sight.

Without waiting for Rhei Coralt to finish the sentence, Ciaran moved his hand and Hope’s body slammed against him, still kneeling next to Aurora. He placed his hand on both their necks, one warm with rage and one cold with death.

He moured them away before Hope could tell her father that not killing her before her mother would be the biggest regret of his wicked life.

Ciaran moured them away before the Black Lawful Stab, thrown by her father and now aimed at Hope’s heart, ended her life as well.

41

Lenna

Lenna was trying to force her still very heated blood to chill the fuck down after almost breaking Thyria in half because—

No, better to not remember precisely what had been pressed tightly against the apex of her legs, if she truly wanted to cool down. Shame she didn’t have access to a cold shower.

They needed clothes, because she was not going to go around with her peaked nipples covered by the blanket around the cell underneath the Organ House, and because if those strong muscles on Jake’s chest were not covered, it was very hard to resist touching them again.

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