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I’m about to turn to Phoenix and ask what she wants to name them when my father suddenly strides forward and produces a glowing halo from the pocket of his cargo pants. Before either Phoenix or I can react, he snatches our first son from Phoenix’s breast and snaps the glowing ring around his throat. “You are named Asmodeus.” My son immediately stops crying and gets a distant, faraway look in his eyes.
“Go stand outside the circle,” my father orders. I stand up, holding my little girl. I lunge for my firstborn as he obeys, walking on chubby little legs toward the outside of the circle. But I slip in the afterbirth and barely catch myself before dropping my slippery daughter. He makes it out of the circle to stand beside his other grandfather, Vlad.
“This one will do nicely,” Vlad says, smiling down at the little boy, who’s growing taller by the second. His brother and sister are also continuing to grow, but at the moment, I can’t care about that because my father is walking toward where Vlad stands.
“You are happy with our bargain then?” my father asks.
Vlad nods. “If I continue to get the firstborn of every yield, our deal shall continue.”
My father also nods his head, but by the glint in his eye, I can foresee what is about to happen next even if Vlad can’t. No, oh shit—Vlad feeding is necessary for Phoenix to be healthy because of their twisted blood bond thing.
“Vlad, don’t, he’s going to double-cross y—”
But before I can even finish my sentence, my father has produced a glowing blade, again seemingly from his pocket even though there was no natural way it would have fit there, and swings it in a killing blow, lopping off Vlad Dracul the Second’s head.
“No!” Phoenix cries. I’m not sure if it’s because she’s losing the source of her energy and health or because, in spite of his betrayals and the fact that he never gave her a reason to deserve it, Phoenix loved the old man.
My firstborn stands silently, looking on as Vlad’s head spins on the floor not far away from him. He now looks to be a kindergarten-aged child. Our second-born clings to Phoenix’s neck but is similarly growing, so much that I can see it’s hard for her to continue holding him like that. But still, she clutches him to her as dearly as I hold our growing daughter in my arms.
My father turns back to us.
“We’ll find you,” I say with all the hatred in my heart. I have no secret chamber of love for the being in front of me. If I could see him burn in the fires of hell right this minute, I’d send him with a one-way ticket there myself. “There’s no place you can take my child that I won’t find you.”
“Oh, don’t be silly,” Father says. “Why would I leave you behind when this worked out so well? I’d be a fool to leave the production factory behind, now wouldn’t I? No, the two of you are coming with me.”
“You going to snap gold bands around our necks, too?”
My father looks genuinely remorseful. “Would that I could. But the halos are only truly effective on newborns who have developed no will of their own yet. And I trust you and your lovely wife will give me a fresh supply of those.”
“That’s never going to happen,” I growl, but he disappears from in front of me. Poof, one second, he’s there, and then he’s gone.
“It already has,” he whispers in my ear, suddenly reappearing beside me and snapping another halo around my growing daughter as he snatches her out of my arms. “She shall be named Lilith.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
PHEONIX
Present Day
“No,” I say, my voice calm and cold. My entire life, I have denied what I am. But now, in the face of this monster, I need to become everything I’ve been afraid of. I need to remember who I was... before.
I will no longer be afraid of who I am. I am the one who searched with endless hunger for better than I had. I am the one who didn’t give up until I got what I wanted. I pushed beyond the boundaries of spirit and hunted until I found the warmth I craved. Until I found flesh and blood. I was young then. I can forgive myself for all I didn’t know.
Because everything that I was then has brought me here to where I am. It brought me to Layden. And now, life has given me three more gifts. In my arms, my second-born has grown almost to pre-pubescent age.
I look the angel hunting me in the eye. “You will not have my children.”
I will remember who I am if that is what it takes to protect what is mine. I will remember the darkness. I will remember my strength. I will remember all the sacrifices made to become flesh, born wailing into this world as my own children just were.
With my son in my arms, I lift off the ground. Not standing or even flying. I float up. The laws of gravity have no hold on me. I am beyond. I am not of this world, and its rules cannot hold me. My son begins to flap his wings, and he flies, hovering beside me.
“That is good, son,” I say to him, though I’m not sure if he can understand me. So, I speak in his mind through our blood bond: That is good. Stay away from that man. Mentally, I project the picture of his grandfather into his head, along with a bad feeling. My son and I rise higher.
My father-in-law only laughs, white wings suddenly appearing behind him. He lifts off the ground, easily flying to face off with me.
Below, Layden forms glowing runes in his hand and hurls them at his father. His father casts them aside with a careless swipe of his hand.
I try to feel for the blood in his father’s body. But there’s something… off about what’s inside him. There’s liquid circulating, but it’s not blood. Not the kind I can manipulate anyway. I can’t stop the flow of blood to his head or yank him apart from the insides out like I want to.
