Page 46 of Empire of Dark

It took several of his breaths along my neck before he exhaled a growl. “What do you mean I tried to kill my own daughter?”

“She told me.”

His grip on my right arm behind me tightened, sending a shock of pain along my arm and into my shoulder. “You aren’t supposed to be around her.”

“Says who? You? She’s withering away of loneliness—anyone with two eyes can see that.” I tried to look at him, but he had me locked down so tight I couldn’t see his face. “So I talked to her, because she’s alive and a girl stuck in this prison you’ve erected here and she deserves to be treated like an actual person. And you—you are the demon father that I knew you were, trying to kill her. I knew?—”

His roar cut off my words and he shoved me away from him. So hard, I fell into one of the easels and sent a cascade of canvases onto the floor with me landing in the middle of all of them. Dust flew up around me, clouding the air.

My limbs scrambling, I tried to find footing through the mess.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Ada. A stupid, overreactive simpleton is what Triaten brought me.”

On all fours, I paused, looking up at him. “You’re telling me she was lying?”

His mouth twisted to the side, his jaw clenching.

I scoffed. “Just as I thought. You’re a monstrosity.”

My feet finding the floor, I pushed myself to standing and rushed toward the doorway.

“It was desperation.” A yell behind me. A yell that made me stop just before I made it out the door.

I looked over my shoulder, a sneer on my face. “Desperation to kill your own daughter? Tell yourself what you want. But no matter how you paint it, you’re an evil, cold bastard.”

He shook his head, his jaw flexing in barely controlled rage. “What would you have done?”

“With what?”

“If your child, who you never knew, was about to kill millions of souls? Millions of mothers and fathers and children and babies? Millions of them. I thought to kill her in desperation, so that millions of souls wouldn’t be killed by her hand. I thought to save them, I had to sacrifice her.”

“What?”

“That was when I teamed with Triaten. When our alliance was first forged. He and his friends helped save not just the millions of people, but my daughter as well.”

I turned slightly toward him. “How in the world was she going to kill millions of people?”

“She was moving lava into the fault lines all across the western coast of North America. From California down to Mexico and up into Canada—all of it was going to break along the fault lines and dump into the ocean.”

My mouth fell ajar, my voice a whisper. “No—no.”

“Yes. Millions and millions nearly died. She couldn’t be controlled—and that would have been the consequence of her being out of control. Everyone dies.” His hand twitched at hisside, curling into a fist that he forcibly flexed open. “And it wasn’t just that once. Everyone around her dies when she cannot control herself.Everyone.”

I glared at him, horrified.

No. Not that girl. Not Venetia, with her shy eyes and cute little laugh once I finally got her to stop frowning. My fingers went into my hair, pulling at the roots. “Yet you’re alive.” The words ground out of my mouth, refusing to accept what he was telling me.

He shrugged. “Me, apparently, she cannot kill. She has control enough for that.”

I shook my head. “No. No. More lies. It doesn’t make sense.”

“Why do you think half my castle is crumbling, Ada? You think it is because I neglected it? Couldn’t afford to fix it? Let things fall to shit around me without a care?”

I gasped at the venom in his voice. My shoulders weakly lifted. “I—I don’t know.”

“It’s because she took down that entire side of the castle. Venetia did that. My daughter did that because the power in her is insane and she doesn’t know how to control it.”

My voice hitched. “She ruined the castle?”

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