He chuckled under his breath, saying, “Yeah. As I said, he could have handled it better.”
“You said ‘a little better,’ ” she replied. “He could have handled it a lot better.”
“He’s young and learning.” Not necessarily an excuse so much as a fact. “And his experience with non-Seraphim beings is sorely lacking.”
She grunted. “No shit.” She considered that for a moment. “Is Mom…?” She trailed off.
“Similar to Gabriel?” Sethios asked.
Astasiya nodded.
“At one time, yes,” he murmured, recalling how he first met Caro at the Arcadia in New York City.
His lips twitched fondly with the memory. She’d shown up in her regal Seraphim form, wanting to deliver an edict to his father. Only, Sethios hadn’t allowed her to utter that message to the intended source. Instead, he’d persuaded her to remain silent, then he’d taken her home for some fun.
“She learned how to feel,” he summarized, not wanting to provide his daughter with the details of how she was created. Something told him she wouldn’t be interested in hearing the story about how he’d used her mother’s favorite knives in the bedroom.
Do you remember that night, angel? he thought at Caro. How I fucked you up against the glass? Then taunted you with your blades the next morning? You came all over the steel edge before I fucked you to oblivion and back.
A spike of heat caressed his heart, there and gone in a second, causing him to frown.
Is that what you need, angel? Visuals of our past? He would send her thousands if that was what it took. His mind contained an arsenal to last a lifetime. Even with a child running around, they found time to indulge in his dark depravities. Mostly because there was just so much he’d needed to teach Caro.
Which drew him back to Astasiya and her questions regarding her mother’s emotions. “She’s much more in tune than your brother,” he said.
“I think everyone is more ‘in tune’ than Stark,” she muttered.
Sethios couldn’t argue with that. Even Leela and Vera appeared to be more emotionally inclined than the warrior Seraphim.
He studied his daughter for a long moment, curious as to why she’d sought him out. “What do you want to ask me?” He pitched his voice low, letting her know with his tone that she could demand anything and everything from him, and he would ensure it happened. She meant the world to him. Just like his Caro.
But does she really mean enough? he wondered idly, some of his guilt peeking through. You forgot her for eighteen years. All because of Osiris’s compulsion.
Sethios’s jaw ached from clenching his teeth, annoyed with that pesky line of reasoning. Yet it continued to haunt him, the very realization that he’d let his entire family down for eighteen fucking years.
Astasiya must have read the change in him, because she took a step back, her throat working over a swallow. “I… I wanted to talk to you about Mom. I had another dream.”
His focus sharpened. “In the water?”
She nodded, then frowned. “Sort of.”
That didn’t sound good. “Sort of?”
“It was strange. We were in the water, but she could breathe.”
“Did she say anything?”
Astasiya shook her head. “No. She was too terrified to speak.” His daughter paused, her brow furrowing. “It was just really weird because we didn’t drown. Yet everything was dark and heavy, like we were in the water, but the atmosphere didn’t feel right. I don’t know; maybe it was just a standard nightmare.” Her lips twisted to the side. “Except, it felt like Mom.”
Sethios considered the description, his own mind seeking out Caro for an explanation and coming back with nothing once more.
It frustrated him to no end.
Yes, all right. He’d fucked up. His father had broken him via a method he never could have anticipated.
The issue was he should have expected it.
Osiris was creative and always one step ahead. Sethios knew better than to think he could possibly best him.
