Broken (The Captive #5.5)(68)

"Why?" Atticus demanded. "Why did you do it?"

"Do you honestly think I was going to allow some village whore…" Atticus slid the table back a few inches but before his father could break free, he remorselessly pushed it into his father again. Grim satisfaction filled him as the resounding crack of his father's hip filled the room. His father was able to suppress a cry but he couldn't stop himself from slumping onto the table.

Atticus smiled cruelly at him as he shook his straggling, blood-drenched hair away from his eyes. "I told you before, don't ever talk about her like that!"

"Let me out of here, now."

Atticus released a harsh bark of laughter before leaning over the table toward his father. "It's amusing how you still seem to think you have some control over this situation, over me. Don't you understand yet? I'm not your son. Your son died the second that she did." For the first time apprehension flickered over his father's features. His eyes rapidly ran over him before settling on his left hand. Atticus had taken the ring off and placed it in his pocket when he'd met with his father earlier, but he'd slipped it on before coming back here. "The second that my wife died. You have no say over me, no control. You are not in charge here. Now tell me why? I had agreed to marry Anna…"

"You think Silas was going to allow you to marry his daughter when he found out you were keeping a mistress? No. There was no way I was going to allow this marriage to fall through because of some village…" his words trailed off when Atticus's upper lip curled back and a snarl escaped him. "Some woman."

"How did you do it?"

"Atticus…"

"Tell me!" he roared and placed more pressure against his father's hip.

His father winced, his hand clenched on the table as he strained to stay upright. "I had some of my men go into the human village and rile up the humans. They planted seeds of mistrust about what resided next door."

"And you told them what time to attack?" he demanded.

"I did," his father admitted. "She went to that school almost every day."

"Pathetic." Atticus raked his father with a scathing glance. "You threw away your life to ensure a marriage that you'll never live to see."

His father's eyebrows shot up as he realized that this wasn't merely just an argument or a simple physical altercation. This was a fight to the death and he was already on the losing end of it. His gaze darted frantically toward the doorway. Atticus had never seen his father even a little ruffled; it entertained him to see him so terrified now.

"Guards!" his father shouted.

Atticus laughed at him. "Shout it again," he taunted.

"Guards!" He yelled again, except this time Atticus yelled it loudly and laughingly with him.

"Oh guards!" Atticus called once more in a mocking tone of voice and pushed the table in a little more. His father's face twisted in agony, his hand fell onto the table as his body was forced over it. "I don't think they're coming. As a matter of fact, I know they're not coming. Do you know how I know?" he leaned toward his father and smiled to reveal his fangs. "Because I already killed them all. Just like I'm going to kill you."

Grabbing hold of the end of the table, Atticus flung it smoothly up as if it weighed no more than a log. It flipped end over end before smashing against the far wall. Freed, his father lurched to the side but he didn't come at Atticus like he had before. Instead, he seized upon this opportunity as a pitiful chance at escape. He hobbled toward the open door with his left foot dragging on the ground behind him. Atticus followed behind him, grim satisfaction filling him as he watched the man limp awkwardly down the hallway toward the stairs. His father paused only briefly to gawk at the crushed heart lying beside the guard at the top of the stairs.

"Aren't you stronger than me?" Atticus mocked as his father made it to the stairs. He paused in his pursuit of his father to pick up the body of the guard. He swung it easily over his shoulders as he strolled leisurely down the stairs behind his father. "Isn't that what you always remind me of? I'm not strong enough to take you yet."

His father glanced back at him before continuing in his awkward movements down the stairs. "Why are you running then father?" he inquired. "Why not face me and teach me a lesson?"

His father was only three feet away from the bottom of the steps when Atticus raced past him to the bottom of the stairs. He dropped the body of the guard carelessly onto the other two and leaned his elbow on the rail of the stairs. Folding his fingers before him, he smiled up at the horrified face of his father. "I think I may be old enough to take you now. What do you think father?"

Before his father could even blink he was on top of him, bringing him down beneath him. Perverse glee suffused Atticus as he wrenched his father's neck to the side and sank his fangs into his throat.

***

Atticus stepped back to survey the bodies he'd gathered around the massive table in the main hall. Most of the bodies were now as useless as the table always had been. He didn't know what had possessed him, but he'd felt the inescapable urge to place what remained of the servants and guards there. To make his father see what it was that he had pushed his own son to become before Atticus finished him off. He dropped the body of his father's favorite guard into the chair at the end of the table, across from where his father sat. He pushed the chair in before walking down to where his father sat at the head of the table.