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He walks toward me, toward Onyx and Dusk. And he smiles. “Your brother is injured.” He cocks a brow, glancing from me to him. “It looks bad.”
‘It is,” I say.
For some reason, my treacherous heart wants to see any sign of concern in his face. Anything to signal that the man I love, the man I admired once upon a time, is still somewhere in there.
But I see nothing.
“It doesn’t have to be like this,” I tell him, again some small part of me hoping to see a soul somewhere inside this terrible man.
He tilts his head, still smiling. “I thought you loved battle.” It’s always been his way.
Battle, yes, but nothing like this. Not my brother gravely injured behind me and shadow beasts fighting shadow beasts. He knows this. He knows everything about me.
Or at least he did, once upon a time.
“You like it too,” I challenge right back.
“I do.” he wags his eyebrows. “But I don’t love battling my sons.”
Sons.Did he even still see us as his sons? Because no father could hurt their children the way he’d hurt us. No father could watch his son in pain, and smile.
“Then stop.” The words leave my lips before I can contain them.
If my father wanted to stop, he’d had a million times before this to do so. And he hadn’t.
The moments before we left our world flash in my mind over and over again. I trusted my father. I never saw his desire for power above all else. There was cruelty, yes, but I never thoughthewas cruel. Even when Onyx warned me. I never thought any of it could be true.
Until he stole the life from our world to feed his own power. Until the moment my brother had a chance to kill him and didn’t, and only seconds later we realized he should have. That was the first time I knew he had to die. Knew that he could no longer be king.
“Rule with me. We’ll end this ridiculous human occupation and the earth will be ours. You, me, your brother, even the little deaf boy. There’s a place for all of you.” Onyx breathes in deep but doesn’t move. Not because he’s afraid, but because I haven’t given a signal.
And because he doesn’t believe him either. My father is gone. Only the Shadow King remains. And given the chance, this man would kill us all.
The Shadow King doesn’t know the meaning of the wordmercy.
I smile and clench my sword more tightly. “I would rather die than rule with you.” I pause, hoping Ann is safe, praying for Dusk to get away, knowing this could be my very last battle. “Father.”
And my father, the Shadow King, smiles. “You’ve grown. Because, no matter how you answered, you were all going to die today. And you actually knew it, didn’t you?”
The dragon behind him roars, and it shakes the very earth beneath us.
I turn enough so that Onyx can read my lips “Get Dusk to safety. There’s nothing else you can do here.”
“Phantom,” my brother says my name weakly.
“I need to do what neither of us was strong enough to do before.”
Not looking back to see if he understands, I clench my sword tighter and start running, blade held out before me.
My father smiles, not even reaching for his sword, and I know. I know this is the moment one of us will die, either way, and this will all be over.
At last.
I picture Ann’s face.This time I can’t hesitate. I won’t hesitate.
My mate needs me to be strong.
