Burnt Devotion (Imdalind, #5)(84)

“So, he has seen you, then?” Edmund’s eyes flashed with greed again, desperate and needy as he watched me, unwavering as he held me in place.

“Yes.”

I would have thought the single word would have brought him joy with how he had taken the news so far, but in no more than a flash of light, the greed and desire that had filled him departed, leaving a mask of fury.

His eyes were dark, as he growled at me, “And what do you think will happen if he chooses to give Ilyan the information of your visit?”

I flinched at the ice in his voice, the carefully masked disgust that rang clear. I knew he had meant to manipulate me with the fear, but I felt none of it. It only ran through me like water as my own smile spread.

I took a step closer to him, his body stiffening in expectation of what, I wasn’t sure. He should know I wasn’t foolish enough to attack him. No matter how much power my body held, it still would not be enough to face him.

I wasn’t foolish enough to try.

I was foolish enough to face him for this, however.

He thought me to have failed, yet he shouldn’t be so na?ve. He was the one who had raised me, after all, trained me, turned me into what I was.

For the first time, I felt as though I had lived up to that.

“That won’t happen.” I was sure of myself, a fact that only enraged him more. My own joy at the game grew with what I knew to be coming.

“How can you be so certain, Ovailia?” It was a snap that bit through me, but I ignored it as well as the warning in his eyes. I ignored the way his guards flinched and moved against the wall in preparation for what was coming.

“Because of what I did to Thomas.”

His rage froze in place. His face was stuck in confusion until what I had said began to slip into place, his dislike for Thom fueling a whole other set of emotions.

“Ah, yes, the most foolish and useless of my children. I’m always surprised to hear he has evaded me,” he sneered. “Tell me, what did you do to him?”

“I poisoned him.”

“Poison? From the Vil?s?”

My smile only grew, the complexity of what I had done, of what I had created, swelling through me. Even my father with his brilliant mind could not see it.

An exhilaration twisted through me, tensing in my shoulders as I lifted my chin, ready to tell him and see the look in his eyes that I desired above all other.

“No father, with something the mortals do. It reacts to the body like a p?etí?ení dávka but cannot be healed the same way. If he missteps even a little bit, I will destroy his dearest friend.”

“Control.” It was one word laced with so much emotion I could have bathed in it.

He looked at me as he processed what I had said, his hand lifting to press against my cheek. I froze, waiting for what would come next.

A pat or a slap.

Pride or distaste.

“Just as you have taught me, Father.” It was my last plea, and I was certain the tone in my voice revealed that. Right then, I didn’t care.

“And I couldn’t be prouder.” He smiled at me, his lips curling in a long, greasy line that oozed into me in a relaxing warmth I hadn’t felt from him in what seemed like centuries.

Right then, I couldn’t have been prouder to be his daughter.

I would do anything for him.





RYLAND





Twenty-One


“Take it out,” was my first thought since waking. It seeped out of me in a moan that sounded more pained than pleading, the ache of my body following right behind.

I was sure I was awake, although I wasn’t positive why I had been sleeping in the first place.

I wasn’t certain of anything, really, except for the dim, red hue that cast over my closed eyes and the soft, rough feel of old cotton sheets against my skin. Those I was sure of, but where I was, how I had gotten here, and in some small respect, even who I was remained a mystery.

Muscles ached and throbbed over me as I shifted my weight, trying to pull myself to sitting, only to have my muscles ache more in protest. My eyes were a soft weight as they fluttered open, the bright and dark of the strange red light burning through me as they attempted to adjust.

When they did, they only brought more confusion. They only brought tall, sweeping ceilings and old buttresses that, while part of me thought they should be familiar, they weren’t.

Nothing about this was familiar.

You’re home.

The voice was a distanced growl within me, a hum that bridged the reality of now and before.

I jerked.

It was a hollow sound that moved through me and became something deeper. Something more frightening.

It was then that it all came back.

I could see it all. The city we had worked so hard to get to. The rumble of the earth as the sky had dimmed around us. The screams and wind as the Vil?s my father had mutated attacked us from all sides. Mostly, it was the voice—the voice that had rampaged through me, terrorized me. The taunts I had hoped would have become more manageable; instead, they had become an uncontrollable force I didn’t think I could have defeated had I tried.

And I had tried.

You haven’t tried hard enough.

But I had.

I had tried until the moment I had begged Wyn to remove the painful voices from me, until the world had become black. And now I had awakened in this strange place with the hollow sounds of breathing filtering toward me from all sides and distant footsteps echoing through the cavernous space.