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“I don’t understand”

“Yeah, me either Some reason, she’s delusional and thinks thatthat’s happened to her It’s why she’s tolerated you ever since and why she used to take h she’s terrified of you Without you, she wouldn’t have rateful to you Go figure, right?”

Adarian shook his head “But for you, I would have never seen her again, would I?”

“Doubtful Like I said, you scare the bejesus out of her I can’t even raise my voice in happiness that she doesn’t jump back in fear It was bad when I was a kid Now that I dwarf her, I have to be careful to make no sudden moves, ’less it startles her”

Adarian winced in pain as he gentled the tight hold he had on Nick “I’m sorry I tried to kill you”

Nick had no idea how to respond to that Gee, thanks? Yeah, that didn’t quite cover the mixed emotions at war inside him They had never been father and son

Or even friendly

But even so, Nick had alanted to have a dad like other kids did He’d wondered countless times what it would be like to hold his head up with pride at school functions and proudly introduce his progenitor to his friends and teachers He had no idea what that felt like Only the sick cringing dread in his stomach whenever so He would dodge the question as best he could, and when he couldn’t, he’d tell them that his father worked in the prison system

Not really a lie Just not the whole truth

It wasn’t so anyone wanted to ad he’d grow up and be a criminal, just like his father

Now, Adarian held him as if he actually cared As if Nickto his father He never had been

Despising that truth, Nick started to pull away froo

“You have seen the future, Nicholas Noir will not rest until he has you in custody And as strong as you think you are, he will break you When you rise to subdue your generals in your world, he will know you as the Malachai No one can spare you that And he will send everything he has after you”

“Can’t wait,” Nick said, his voice dripping with sarcasood party to attend Nice to knoon’t have to pay for it ant like you once After I killedcould touch est, hed bitterly “There’s a reason I spent the last two hundred years in and out of hu While we are the ods And we cannot kill the ones who created us The best we could hope is to imprison them, and that is impossible for us They made sure of it”

“But I’ve seen the future where I’ve—”

“No,” Adarian snapped, interrupting hiods who hold your leash Every year we live, we lose rows exponentially Because of your ated Without her … nothing will stop it fro you over, and it will accelerate In ways you can’t even begin to conceive You will turn on everyone near you and especially those who are close to you You won’t be able to stop yourself And you will learn the lesson that was spoon-fed to me by my ohore mother”

Nick so loved the rosy landscape his father painted “And that was?”

“We came into this world alone and that’s exactly hoe’ll leave it Don’t expect the years in between to be any different No one can be trusted You only have friends until you look the other way That is the truth of all species But never more true than it is for our kind Every Malachai born has been betrayed … starting with his ownI learned at the business end of Noir’s whip is that fear, pain, and inti and no one ever goes for your throat They won’t dare so long as they fear the fact that you will get back up and come for them the way they went for you”

Nick didn’t believe that Not for a ular he wouldn’t go for if exposed It didn’t matter how much they beat or bullied hiive them his fear To the devil with that No one would ever hold that kind of power over his mind and soul

No one

But hishe would do to hurt them Ever He would die to protect their lives And they had all proven the same loyalty where he was concerned It was love that bound thehter than hatred and fear ever could As Kody so often said to hiardens rain will fall But the heart and the love it’s capable of will give us shelter from even the worst storms

Love and respect kept someone in check a lot more than fear and hatred He would explain it, yet he knew better than to waste the breath His father had no concept of those emotions He never would

Suddenly, Nick’s head started spinning He felt like he was falling again

His father tightened the grip he had on hi back to the false body It won’t hold you It can’t But the spell that separated you is strong You have to unlock your powers, son Protect your mother Be the man for her that I should have been Not the beast that hurt her I deserve no mercy and she deserves no sadness Whatever you do, Nicholas, don’t beco of all

He kissed Nick’s cheek

As he pulled back, his father’s black, inhuaze bored into hiotten But it’s up to you as to how he’ll always be re would leave his throat He reached out for his father

It was too late One heartbeat he was in the land of dark nothing and in the next he was back with Kody, who held hireen eyes warmed him

Had it all been a delusion? Had his mind transposed Kody’s actions into his subconscious and made him think that his father held him while in reality it’d never happened?

Was it a dream?

“See, Akra-Kody, the Siain”

Nick gri”

It was Siruntled expression “No Why you want to kick so when you can put barbecue sauce on it and lick it? You human-like people rinned at her “That’s okay You make none to me, either” He shook his head as he tried to clear his blurry vision “Are we still under fire from Thorn?”

“No” Kody brushed his hair back fro with Simi, routed them”

Simi made a sound similar to a horse “Bah! Akra-Kody helped us a lot, too She a good helper in a fight”