Black Moon (Alpha Pack #3)(60)

"You are mine! My son! You have always been mine!"

Kalen's glass hit the carpet. He stared at Malik in sheer horror.

Malik's palms cupped his face, sharp claws digging into his scalp. His dark gaze captured Kalen, refused to let him go. "I am your father, my boy. Your mother was once royalty, a much younger cousin to the Seelie queen who birthed Sariel. I talked my way into your mother's bed in the Seelie court, f**ked her right under your grandmother's nose." He chuckled, low and dangerous.

"Then I waited for her to realize I had bestowed a child upon her. She would hand over my son at his birth, and I would take away the evidence of her shame with none the wiser. That was my offer to her."

"Which she refused." Kalen felt numb.

"Yes, which she refused, the stupid bitch," he spat. "She and your grandmother secreted you away to the human realm. There she seduced Black, let him believe the child was his, and he was happy. Until you were born and he overheard the two women whispering that he could never learn you were not his."

"And you left me at his mercy for years," Kalen hissed.

"I did not know where you were! When I finally found you, you were wearing your grandmother's pendant and I couldn't approach you. I waited and bided my time. Allowed you to grow into a man."

"Allowed me to suffer, you mean," he choked, shame and regret clogging his throat. "The pendant didn't save me from doing what I had to do to survive. You should have intervened."

"You grew stronger," Malik countered. "Because of your trials, because of the darkness you encountered at the hands of others, you learned to feed your own."

"So that's the real reason." He hung his head. "You let me suffer to feed this awful rage inside, so you could one day come in and show me how to hone it into a weapon."

"You needn't make it sound like such a harsh decision," the Unseelie said with uncharacteristic gentleness. "Are you not strong? Are you not ready to stand at my side?"

A bitter laugh escaped his chest. "Strong? Not so sure. Stand at your side? I don't f**king think so. I stand alone. You taught me how, remember?"

To his surprise, Malik smiled, looking extremely proud. "Yes, I do. And I taught you well. Had you agreed, that would have been a great disappointment. No one will ever be your equal, boy. Not even me, given time. I have more to teach you yet, but you have all the makings of a fine Unseelie king. My son."

He backed away, panic fluttering. "No, I don't. And I'm not your son. Not in any way that matters."

"You are, and you will prove me correct."

"Yeah? How's that?" He was about two seconds from bolting. Fuck, he needed out of here.

"You will see." Malik paused, studying him. "Have you forgotten why you came here today, to my humble cabin?"

Kalen's mind was a mess. He thought for a few seconds before he recalled his original reason for the visit. "You claimed my mate lied to me. That she knew something and wouldn't tell me."

Malik paused, then detonated his world. "Your Mackenzie knows that you are my son. She knows that the baby she carries is my grandchild."

The room dipped and the Unseelie's clawed hand steadied him on his feet. "You're lying!"

"No. I told her several days ago, a fact that you can easily confirm by speaking with her. Which I assume you will do."

"Does Nick know?" he managed.

"That I cannot say." Malik shrugged. "But he is a Seer, is he not? How many, I wonder, hid the truth from you? Perhaps my other wayward son-your half brother, Sariel? Did he lie as well?"

His conversation with Sariel in the infirmary flashed through his mind in snippets.

As his progeny, I am the only being with the power to destroy him. Or so I believed until recently.

I've known you were Fae since the second you entered the compound.

As humans say, my sire lies like a f**king rug. Don't believe anything that passes his foul lips, Sorcerer. I mean that.

Kalen couldn't speak. There were no words for the agony of betrayal. His mate's, perhaps Nick's and Sariel's, too. So many lies and half-truths, he didn't know who to believe. Who to turn to in his confusion and pain. And Malik understood exactly how to apply salt to the wound.

"Those pathetic humans you've come to trust, they will destroy you," the Unseelie said, placing a hand on his shoulder.

"They won't." But he was no longer sure. Hadn't Nick promised that if Kalen gave in to the darkness he'd be executed as a rogue?

"The commander practically has a hard-on at the possibility of being able to blow your brains out. And Sorcerer or not, there's no coming back from having your gray matter splattered over the forest."

That image reminded him of another, this one very real. "You really did murder my mother and my fa-David Black," he accused, seething.

"Yes. I wiped from the earth the man who had abused you for years and the woman who stood by and allowed it to happen." He regarded Kalen coolly. "And when you saw their bodies, didn't a large part of you wish that you had done the deed? Isn't that really why you became ill?"

God help him, he couldn't deny that.

All he could be thankful for was that his grandmother had died months before he was forced from his home. Ida May never knew the horror that befell her daughter.