Page 37 of Madness Behind the Mask
He stops in front of the desk. His dark-brown eyes do not even drop to the severed head in front of us. They hold mine, but I cannot read anything in them. “You’re really awake,” he says. “After all this time…”
I flinch, wondering if he hates me for all those years I wasasleep.“I’m sorry –”
“For what?” David cuts in. “You did your duty to this family, Sau. You gave us the next generation of Shadows.”
I swallow, my lips pressing together under his praise.There was a time were that would have left me bouncing in happiness for days, buttoday,guilt hammers against my throat. A part of me wants to just accept that I did what I was created for – birthing six healthy children,so I have nothing to apologize for. But that is a coward’s way out. Itisbecause of me that my family is dead.
“I could have saved them if I wereawake,” I say. “I’m a healer. I could’ve saved Luther if I just woke up earlier. I could’ve saved Dad –”
“There was no saving them, Sau. Their wounds were too great.”
“But Luther only lost his arm! I could’ve –”
“It wasn’t just his arm that was the issue.They tried to turn him into a vampire. His blood was too infected.”
“What?” I bolt upright, my mind reeling from the pain he must’ve suffered. “Why would they do that? You can’t turn another sup into a vampire without making them Crazed.” Their mind would fracture, and they’d become a rabid animal that would have to be put down.
“That’s what they wanted. They hoped he would be their Trojan Horse.”
I shake on Caden’s lap as I turn to him. “Why didn’t you tell me this?”
His jaw is tight as his eyes move from Uncle David tome, softening slightly but still holding their edge. “I didn’t want you to think of him like that,” he says.
“So youlet me think I could havesavedhim if I just woke up a bit sooner.”
“I didn’t know you blamed yourself.”
“How could I not? He was mybrother,and I justslept through his death!” Closing my eyes, I push my palms against them. “I slept through all of their deaths. I could have saved some of themif I just tried.I could’ve –”
“Sau!” Uncle David’s voiceis sharp andauthoritarian,and I clamp my lips shut instinctively, bowing my head as I did all my childhood. “That isenough. You are making a fool of what it means to be a Shadow.”
I flinch but keep my head bowed, knowing he is right.
“Get out, David,” Caden says softly. “And be thankful your tongue is still in your fucking mouth.”
“She is my niece.”
“She is your queen.”
My cheeks burning,I don’t dare lift my head. My new status is one Iwas trained for all my life,buthearing it used to chastise my uncle makes my skin itch,especially since it is a position that is and was always known to be temporary. I am a woman, and we cannot hold power. As soon as our eldest son turns twenty-two, he’ll gain the seat of Boss – the chair only ever permanently going to a true Shadow. If our eldest was a girl, then she would’ve been bred as soon as she hit puberty and her son would take the throne once he turned of age...if she wasn’t killedfirst. Having two generations of first-borns being female isseen as a curse,a thinning of the Shadow name, and the second one rarely lives long enough to become a mother.
My head snaps up as the door closes behind an exiting David. Although I hate his absence, my attention is solely on my husband,Leon’sage pounding in between my ears.He can’t be more than twenty – ten years younger than Islept.
“How many?” I rasp.
The firstborn is a moving title, passedto whoever is the oldest.With Father’s death, David would have become the firstborn, meaning he would’ve become Bossunless I was already pregnant.
There was a condition in our marriagecontractthough because we needed the Davenports’ support. Caden would have a month to get me pregnant ifFatherdied beforehecould take the throne.But Leon is not thirty.
“How many of our children havedied?”I demand, my body shaking from all the loss I suffered without knowing.
“Eight.” The word is clipped. Factual. Without a hint of remorse, and I close my eyes as my heart wails in close-mouthed silence. His arms tighten around me, holding me together too because the Boss of the Shadows does not cry. My father never did it – even when Antonio’s father made him watch as he raped and then murdered his first wife and two bright-eyed toddlers.
He’d had his fingers broken and his tongue ripped out so he couldn’t use his magic. Uncle David said theyhad been about to kill him when he and their younger sister, Adri,hadarrived. Despite being a woman, she’d refused to stayathome, and together, the three of them –Delun tying his hand to the sword Adri had brought with her– had killed the wolves.
Dad did not cryas he cradled the mangled bodies of his wife and two children. He did not crywhen Adri was the one who had to wrap her shadows around them, pulling their corpses into her domain and robbing him of their presence in hisbecause he was too broken to do it himself.
Because Shadows do not cry.
