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“Valva,” Adam said.
Tristan nodded.
I tried to imagine my father, half crazed, lumbering through a labyrinth of bodies and then seeing a six-foot-tall golden demon standing there. It’s a wonder he didn’t just lose all his marbles right then. “That must have been quite a shock.”
He laughed a little. “It was. After she convinced me she was real and wasn’t there to kill me, she said she had a message from Lilith. She said that I was wasting my time looking for a door that I wasn’t meant to find. She also said I’d be reunited with my Phoebe eventually, but first I had a job to do.”
“What kind of job?”
He sighed. “She said that as the father of the Chosen, I had to ensure Cain didn’t bring about the end of the dark races before the Chosen had a chance to fulfill the prophecy.”
“So that’s why you’ve been so obsessed with Cain?” Adam said.
Tristan grimaced. “Not entirely.”
Judging from the reluctance in his tone, I knew I wouldn’t like the next part of the story.
He turned to me. “This might be hard for you to hear, but I need you to listen.”
I frowned at him. He made a move, like he wanted to take my hands, but I folded my arms against my chest. “Okay?”
His hands fell uselessly at his sides. “When I met your mother, I was in California on a diplomatic mission. Ameritat wanted to negotiate some new provisions for the Black Covenant with the Dominae. I went out with a group of Pythian Guards.”
“Was Orpheus there?” Adam asked. In addition to leading the Hekate Council, Orpheus had been the head of the Pythian Guards in the years before his death, but back then he would have just been a member of the special force that protected the Council.
Tristan nodded. “Yes. Anyway, the discussions were going surprisingly well. Lavinia and the others seemed open to the discourse. We’d been there about five nights when Phoebe arrived. She’d been away at one of the estates your grandmother owned, but that night she came home and we all met her. Her beauty struck me immediately. But she was the daughter of Lavinia Kane. I wouldn’t have dared incurred her wrath. Besides, I’d been raised to hate all vampires; the idea of becoming romantically involved with one didn’t interest me in the slightest, no matter how attractive.”
“But you were there on a diplomatic mission.”
“Sure,” he said, “but that didn’t mean I trusted them. Far from it. I slept with an applewood-handled knife under my pillow every night.”
“So you didn’t dig her immediately,” I said. “What changed?”
“It was odd. I’d barely spoken but a few polite words to her over the course of a few days. She seemed equally uninterested. But then, one night, after a large state dinner, we both ended up in one of the gardens at the Dominae estate. Maybe it was the way the moonlight hit her hair or the music coming from inside the house, but I suddenly found her quite beautiful.” He shook his head. “Then we started talking. About books, music, silly things. We didn’t have a thing in common, but we talked so long that eventually her maid came looking for her. Before she left, she asked me if I’d meet her again the next night to continue our discussion.” He waved a hand. “Anyway, that’s how it all began. Once we confessed our feelings for each other, I never questioned how it came about. Or why.”
I frowned at him. “What do you mean? Isn’t that normal? You spend enough time with someone and feelings sometimes just happen naturally.”
“Sabina,” he said, his tone frank. “There was nothing natural about it.”
I stared at him, confused. “What do you mean?”
“That’s what Valva told me in the Liminal. Phoebe and I didn’t fall in love because we wanted to. We fell in love because Cain had one of his Caste of Nod mages cast a love spell on us.”
I stepped away from him, as if it could protect me from what he was saying. “But why? Why would he do that?”
He raised his hands. “Don’t you see? If my negotiations with your grandmother had continued to go well, then Cain would be that much further from his goal. He needed to do something to ensure that lasting peace was never achieved. What better way to do that than to orchestrate a forbidden star-crossed love affair between the daughter of the Alpha Domina and the son of the Hekatian Oracle?”
My breath whooshed out as if he’d punched me.
“Once I found out that all our suffering was based on a lie, making Cain pay became my sole purpose for living. The irony is Cain’s plan backfired because his love spell led to the birth of the Chosen. And according to Valva, the Chosen is the only being capable of killing Cain without repercussions.”
I’d fallen silent as I tried to absorb the concussions of his bombshells. Only instead of getting all introspective and considering how this information changed my view of myself and my purpose on this earth, I gathered my rage like a lightning bolt in my midsection.
“So to summarize,” I said, keeping my tone even and cool, “a Vanity demon showed up when you were crazy and drunk and told you a story where the father of the vampire race forced you to fall in love and make babies with the wrong chick. She also told you not to feel too bad about it because eventually one of those kids would make sure the revenge you craved was carried out. You, naturally, latched on to this explanation because it was easier than accepting that you had any responsibility in the situation.”
“No,” he said, his voice rising. “It wasn’t like that.”
I slashed a hand through the air. “You know what?” I said, my voice trembling. I hated that I couldn’t hide my anger. “You could have just admitted that you didn’t want us.” I shrugged but my hands were trembling with rage. “Maybe the thought of being around Maisie and me would just remind you too much of Phoebe. Maybe you’d never wanted kids period and it was more convenient to pawn us off. Whatever. It wouldn’t have been easy to hear, but at least it wouldn’t have been as insulting as that bullshit you just fed me.”
“I know you are angry. It’s probably well deserved. However, it doesn’t make the facts less true.”
“That’s funny,” Adam snapped. “I haven’t heard one fact yet.”
“Then maybe you’ll believe this.” Tristan turned and retrieved one of the books from his orderly desk. “This is a ledger listing members of the Caste of Nod.”
