Page 70 of Demon Found

“He wanted to know the extent of your involvement.”

Silas. His betrayal squeezes my chest tight, removing the air from the room. I thought . . . I really thought . . . The one figure from my childhood I relied on.Stupid. After every lesson my father gave me, I should have learned. He holds all the cards. I steady my ragged breathing.

Footsteps reach the door and deafening silence fills the air. I left the door ajar. They’ve noticed.

Slinging my legs onto Father’s desk, I wait as nonchalant as I can force myself to appear. My father barrels into the room and his face turns purple as he registers me. He doesn’t hesitate, tipping me sideways out his chair.

“Get out, Silas. This is a private matter.”

I hold Silas’s gaze. “Yes, Silas. Get out.”Traitor.

Silas ducks his head and slinks out the room, pulling the door gently closed behind him.

It’s never good when Father dismisses the staff. When it’s just us, and he’s angry. I push the dread down. I’m a fully grown man. I’m probably already more powerful than him. Probably.

“How dare you, boy?” he booms, shaking the windows, smoke emitting from his nostrils. His control never was as good as mine. It doesn’t have to be. “You’ve been spying.”

“I was investigating, Father. You’ve been keeping me out of the loop.” I keep my expression blank, not letting him get a rise out of me, just like he taught me. “We really need to talk about a new security detail. Getting in here was far too easy.”

He blinks and assumes the sly look I know so well. He didn’t miss the fact that I said we. He’s beginning to wonder if I’m still onside, if he can save this.

“Donotdisrespect me by spying, boy.”

“I’m no boy.” I let my exasperation show. “I won’t spy if you’re straight with me. What’s your interest in Lorelei? She’s my allegiance.”

“Such disloyalty to this family, after all I’ve done for you, all I’ve done for this rebellion.Yourrebellion. If you want to succeed, my boy, to destroy the Angel King, you have to put this family first, allegiance second. For the sake of all Eltanin.”

Clenching my teeth, I nod briskly. He doesn’t need to know I’m beginning to disagree. He certainly doesn’t need to know there are five of us now.

“If I’m to lead the rebellion, Father, you need to start treating me as a man.” I nearly said equal. That would have been a disaster. He’s an egomaniac. He couldn’t deal with that. I’ve been careful not to disagree with anything he’s said in the past few years.

He’s raised me to be cold and unfeeling, to lead, to do what’s right, and dammit, I’ll do just that. Once I’m in control, I’ll remove him from office. But that, only Zephyr knows.

My father regards me for a long moment before sinking into his chair and nodding for me to take the seat across from him. He pops open the drawer I’ve just been rifling through and pulls out a box of cigars. This was our party trick—he’d take a cigar and I’d light it for him by blowing flames. This time, he offers me a cigar too. A first.

Cautiously I lean toward him and let out a tiny lick of flame, igniting the end of his cigar before doing the same to my own. He regards me, taking a slow drag before sitting straighter and clapping his hands.

“Fine. No need to beat around the bush. Lorelei Smith’s high school exam results were interesting.”

I raise an eyebrow.

“I’m keeping an eye on her, for her own good. There are plenty of people who would take advantage if they knew . . .” He turns in his chair toward the credenza behind his desk.

He’s drawing this out, the asshole. But I’ll bite.

“Knew she’s smart?”

“Knew she has aether,” he says, dropping the bombshell while casually pouring us both a fifty-year-old Scotch.

Aether. That’s what she’s been hiding. I knew it. Iknewshe was suppressing something. I recognized the magic. How the hell could one of my own allegiance keep this from me? I have to swallow the desire to let my flames roar.

“She didn’t tell me,” I say, keeping my voice carefully neutral.

“She can’t. She doesn’t know. It’s for her own good. Can you imagine what someone from her upbringing would do with that power? How easily she’d be manipulated? She could be a direct threat, not only to the Angel King, but to your uprising, my boy.”

This is big, but I know my father’s tells. That tightness around his mouth. There's more. He’s not telling me everything.

Lorelei denied she was hiding something,despiteall the concealment I sensed wrapped around her. All this time shewasn'tlying to me. She had no idea. Relief seeps into me, releasing some of my tension.

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