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It grabbed him around the throat and held him fast.
“NO!” His mom rushed forward, burning with maternal instinct to save her child. He saw the expression on her face. There was no fear anymore. There was pure determination and absolute fury. The creature had dared touch her child, and she would not give him up without a fight.
The monster slew her with a single motion of its great clawed hand. Her flesh peeled open like butter beneath the slashing of those infernal appendages. Carter saw the life go out of her eyes, and in that moment wanted nothing more than to join her. He felt an overwhelming sadness, a complete and utter weakness as he gave up instantly, surrendering to the murderous creature and the terrible fate it brought with it. He had no desire whatsoever to survive his family.
Of course, with unerring instinct for cruelty, that was precisely what Gideon had forced him to do.
….
“I have not forgotten,” Carter said to Gideon.
“What have you not forgotten?”
“What you took. What you destroyed.”
Gideon nodded slowly. He did not seem upset or ashamed by Carter’s mention of the misery caused.
“I do not forgive you,” Carter said bravely. “And I will never like you. I didn’t run when the swat team came because I wanted to see them destroy you.”
Gideon smiled, then gave into the smile and outright laughed.
“You deserve to be destroyed,” Carter said. “We all do.”
Gideon’s laughter only grew in intensity and mirth, as if Carter was the most amusing creature he had ever been in the presence of.
“I forget what it is like to be a fledgling,” he said finally, when his mirth died down a little. “It is such a time of tumult and transformation. A lot of vampires assume that becoming vampire happens physically in one night and then is done, but that is not the case. It can take a hundred years to shed all the shackles of mortality.”
“You’re not angry that I hate you?”
“No!” Gideon sat down with eternal elegance. “Why shouldn’t you hate me? I stole your family, your youth. I used you as a pawn in my game, not knowing you at all. I have made you eternally what you are now, not for your sake, but in the effort to control my own offspring, your maker.”
The words were faintly confessional, but the tone was not. It was apparent that Gideon did not feel guilty for any of his actions. Carter was not receiving genuine sympathy, but at least he was getting some validation.
“Why don’t you care that nobody likes you?”
“Ray thinks he loves me,” Gideon mused. “Though at times I wonder if he doesn’t hate me most of all. It is not strange or unusual for a creator to be loathed by his or her creation, for they are always the source of the created’s suffering. If not for the creator, the created would swim in the peaceful waters of non-existence.”
“Can you be killed?”
Carter asked the question without guile.
“Until my recent meeting with your mother, I would have said no. Now, I am not so sure. She was able to wound me, and she is not done with me.”
Carter’s reply was fascinatingly perceptive. “You sound like you like that.”
“It is invigorating.”
Carter looked nervous for a moment, then made a request. “I’d like to see her again. She’s my mom. I miss her.”
Gideon’s demeanor hardened, then softened almost immediately. Perhaps it was the feast that had put him in a good mood. Or perhaps it was his perception of Carter’s bravery that had impressed him. Either way, he found himself entertaining the thought beyond simply dismissing it.
“Perhaps that can be arranged,” he said.
Maddox had made himself scarce, obviously on the path of his wolf perversion. But that also meant that Carter was unprotected, and Carter made the perfect bait for a creature like Candy.
“You’d really do that?”
Gideon reached out and ruffled Carter’s blond mop of hair. “I’m going to make it happen.”
