Page 35 of Shadow Caster
“What has she done now?” my father asked Brunner.
His words had me curling my hands into fists.
“Baron, please take a seat,” Brunner said with a smile. “Indigo hasn’t done anything. It’s more what has happened to her that concerns us.”
My father didn’t even look at me. “I’m sure whatever it was, she brought it on herself. My daughter has a penchant for attracting trouble. Anything for attention.”
“Mr. Justice—”
“Whatever it is, I suggest you take it with a pinch of salt and send her back to her dorms.”
“It’s not that simple. I—”
“I know what this is.” My father took a step closer to Brunner’s desk. “You’re trying to get rid of her. Use this incident, whatever it is, to force her out of the Academy. Well, let’s get something straight. We have a deal in place. The council has put her in your care for the next three years. It’s your job to keep her out of trouble. To train her and shape her.”
“Like you failed to do?” Hyde said, his tone low and menacing.
My father straightened and looked down his nose at Master Hyde. “I’d remember your place if I were you, Archer. Tenures can be cut short.”
“And maybe you should bloody listen to what the principal has to say,” Garnet snapped. “Instead of making incorrect assumptions.” There was sympathy in her gaze when she turned it on me. “Show him, Indigo.”
I kept my gaze averted because if I looked at him, if I met his eyes, I’d lose my shit and either scream in his face or burst into tears. The pressure building in my head and throat meant it could go either way. I pulled my tunic down far enough to reveal the mark.
Someone gasped.
My mother.
My gaze flicked her way to see her eyes bright and her mouth quivering. Taking a breath to rein in my emotions, I lifted my head to finally look at my father, needing to see his reaction.
His lips were bloodless, and his eyes were dark with anger, almost as if he was furious with me. Nothing new there. But how could he be mad at me over this?
He took a shuddering breath and fixed his attention on Brunner. “That’s whathewould have been then,” he said softly. “That mark washisdestiny.”
Who was he talking about? “Mother?”
She slumped into the nearest seat, her hand covering her mouth.
Brunner looked from my mother to my father. “Mr. Justice, if you know something that can explain this, then please, enlighten us.”
He cleared his throat. “Indigo was a twin. Partway into the pregnancy, she absorbed her brother. They call it vanishing twin syndrome in humans. They’d never seen it happen in a supernatural pregnancy before and there was no literature on it. No explanation as to how it happened. They said it meant our son was never meant to be. But it seems now he had a destiny of his own.” He looked at me now, locked gazes with me, and there was so much vitriol in his eyes that my insides shriveled up, and any tiny hope of ever earning his love died. “A destinyyoustole.”
I felt the eyes of the room on me, the shock and the sympathy. Anger and despair rose up to choke me. I stood, toppling my chair.
“That’swhy you didn’t love me? Why you treated me like an obligation rather than a fucking daughter? Because of something I had no control whatsoever over?” My voice rose incredulously. I looked to my mother. “What is wrong with you? You’re my mother. You carried me in your womb for thirteen months. How can you not feel anything?”
She kept her head down and the urge to shake her rose up to choke me. I took an involuntary step toward her. The door swung open, giving me the second I needed to get myself under control. Shit. What the fuck had I been about to do?
A familiar figure strode in. Master Payne froze and took in the scene, and then his gaze fell on my mother, and his mouth turned down as if in displeasure.
“Hello, Carter,” my father said. “I see everyone is invited to witness the spectacle that just happens to be my daughter.” He waved a hand in my direction.
Master Payne’s gaze flicked to my chest then back to my mother.
She was looking up at him now. Her expression was soft. “Hello, Carter.”
He nodded curtly. “Lea.”
“So, Justice has the gene,” Master Hyde said. “What now?”
