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What about your father?”
She shifted in my lap, and I tensed as the friction made me harden. I ignored it, unwilling to sidetrack her from spilling all her family secrets.
“My father has no family.”
“Everyone came from someone else.”
“All I know is that he’s not from my realm but from Volsci.”
Volsci, the realm of thunder. Something in the back of my mind niggled at me, but I couldn’t pinpoint it.
“Is he a mystic?”
She shook her head. “The rulers of Volsci forced his ancestors for millennia to become warriors. His kind had no choice but to serve Volsci’s army, often chosen to do the most difficult battles or forced into becoming mercenaries. So they escaped, making the trek through the Crystal caves and begging the late King Urien to give them passage so they could seek asylum in the other realms. He granted their request, dividing their convoy into three equal units, one settling in Frentani, another in Lucania, and another here in Raetia. Over the years, just as the witches, more and more of them never came into their power, and as far as I know, my father is one of those who remained mortal.”
Forced into becoming mercenaries.
Every muscle in me froze, and it became hard to swallow. This couldn’t be.
“Reaver, what’s wrong?”
It all made sense. My uncle’s insistence I take not just the Frentanian Princess but her mortal lady’s maid as well. The way she had drawn me to her from the beginning. An invisible pull I couldn’t discern but was impossible to ignore. The way she came into her powers, provoked by rage. The red bolts crackling all around her and maneuvering me as if I were but a puppet.
“Berserker.”
“What?”
“You father comes from a long line of berserkers, as did my mother.”
“What? But you’re a demon.”
“Half a demon. My father bedded one of his slaves and impregnated her. I’m the result of their tryst. After I was born, he refused to let her see me. Her rage and anguish were so profound it triggered her empowerment and she attacked him, revealing her abilities. My father and uncle restrained her. They caged her, controlling her mind in order to get her to do their dirty work, turning her into the most efficient and prolific killer this realm has ever seen.”
“Where is she now?”
I closed my eyes, the pain slicing through my heart as it always did when I thought of my mother, whom I’d never met but was a part of me as I was a part of her. When I reopened my eyes, Reetah was staring deeply into them with such a beautiful and honest blue, my black heart stirred, pumping all the sorrow and pain locked inside it, into my bloodstream. Her purity and genuineness made me want to weep, wrapped up in her arms, as if I was a motherless little boy and not a ruthless demon. “She killed herself to stop the cycle. I believe she also did it to protect me from herself.”
“Why from herself?”
“Because berserkers are notorious for losing their temper and destroying everything around them, friend or foe.”
“Who told you she killed herself?”
“My father.”
“And you believe him?”
I shrugged. “I’ve never really thought of it. I just know that was the day I vowed to feel nothing ever again.”
Her gaze softened, but it wasn’t with pity, which I despised, but with understanding. She cupped my face, and I let her, enjoying her warmth and the softness of her skin.
“No child deserves what happened to you, just like she didn’t deserve being used and kept away from her baby.”
The blackness in my chest tore wide open, a gaping hole revealing my innermost feelings to this magnificent creature. She saw it all, and I let her, drowning in her beauty and the depth of her soul, which I could see clear as day, luminous and magnetic and loveable.
Grabbing her wrists, I pulled her hands from my face, bringing mine up to cup her soft pink cheeks. The little gasp that escaped her pouty mouth made me harden under her ass. With our gazes affixed to each other, we communicated in a way I never had with anyone else.
With one look, I told her who I was under my cold and deviant exterior.
