AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Dannika swallowed dry air. “Who is my father?”
CHAPTER4
Dannika focused on Killian’s features. The similarities in bone structure to Steele were obvious. The same eyes she saw when she looked in the mirror. Fire light flickered over his skin, illuminating masculine beauty, as long as she didn’t look at the red flickering globes. The windows to his soul. To a fiery hell of his own design.
His smile revealed his fangs. “I’m your father, Dannika, but you already knew that. You may not have wanted to believe it, but I’m sure you suspected.”
She held out her hands, backing up a step. Her boot kicked loose gravel into the metal of a crushed car. The twang made her shoulders tense. “No. I’m related to Steele. On one of his descendants.”
Killian arched an eyebrow. “I can understand why you would’ve come to that conclusion, but it isn’t true.”
Her stomach rolled, as much from dizziness and pain as from the hunger crawling through her belly. She leaned against a car with yellow marks spray-painted on the side, unwilling to admit to her reaper father how weak she was becoming.
His eyes narrowed on her. “You’re exhausted from regeneration. It’s time for you to feed.”
She shook her head, unable to form words while her world turned into a nightmare.
Killian motioned with his fingers and a reaper materialized. “Get my daughter a snack. One from the crate.”
The reaper nodded and dissolved.
Dannika put her hand on the broken door handle of the car. “I will not kill a human. I won’t turn reaper.”
Killian sighed as if he was talking to a toddler. “If you’ve been listening, you would’ve realized I need your blood as is. While you will turn reaper eventually, I can’t take the chance it will alter the properties in your blood. You have a task to complete, and I need you to be a shadow to accomplish it.”
She glanced in the direction the reaper had disappeared. “What kind of snack is he procuring?”
Killian focused on her. “You’ll see. I have plans for you.”
She cleared her throat, forcing herself to stay upright when her legs felt like rubber. “What plans?”
“Do you know what my abilities are?”
She stifled the chill running over her skin. Killian appeared so powerful. If he had multiple gifts, she needed to know what they were. “Steele said it was foreshadowing.”
“That is my primary ability. Do you know how it works?”
Her body slumped against the car. “You see possible futures. Changing certain events can alter them.”
“You are so weak, and yet if I offered you a human, you would refuse. Allow your own death,” he said.
She slid down the metal until she sat on the ground. “You’re right. My body may be weak, but I would rather die than be a murderer.”
Killian’s eyes flickered. “We will see if that’s true, when the craving for blood crawls through your intestines like broken glass, begging for relief.”
She met his intense stare. “I won’t change my mind. I was prepared to die today. That hasn’t changed.”
Killian looked at the stars. “You aren’t the first to believe that. No matter.” He returned his gaze to her. “Foreshadowing is a rare gift and makes me an effective king. The only drawback is I can’t see my fate. I must read those around me. And each decision, even the ones that seem inconsequential, can make a monumental difference to my destiny. I must be vigilant in my pursuit.”
She took a ragged breath. “Your pursuit to be king?”
“It is my destiny, but it’s not preordained. Many events must unfold for me to reach my full potential.”
Her eyes closed before she forced them open. “If foreshadowing is such a powerful gift, then why didn’t you win when you attacked the wolves and they killed Maddock? Shouldn’t you have anticipated and adapted with the foreknowledge of those events?”
Killian smiled. “I’m sure it looked that way. I did achieve my goal that day, although events did not play out as I expected. I have been navigating and tweaking my destiny since my abilities developed. You would think a tiny change here and there wouldn’t make a drastic difference, but it’s surprising what’s relevant in the timeline. Sometimes killing a person, wiping them from existence, does nothing, where talking to the wrong person, stealing a personal item from them, can have catastrophic effects.”
“Don’t tell me you care one way or another about anyone.”
