AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“That is such complete bullshit. You mean you want to have Vorian swoop in and do all your fighting for you. You want him to steal the throne from people who might actually make Thorzan better, and give it to you. Because you’re not strong enough to take it on your own, and you never were.”
“Silence,” Crux hissed.
He narrowed his eyes at me, but all that accomplished was to make Vorian stand taller.
Me, he would defend. But Crux knew that already.
Instead, he turned his ire on his son.
“There would be no strength in you without me,” Crux purred, stalking forward. “Without me, you would be nothing. A small, pale, pinprick in your mother’s eye, doomed to failure.”
I swallowed hard, glancing at Vorian from the corners of my eyes. His jaw was clenched. His face hard.
But there was doubt there that I knew too well. All his life, his father had told him how worthless he was, and even when Vorian knew better, those words were etched into his marrow. Fear grew there. It spread out over everything.
And I hated Crux for putting that inside my Vorian. Hated my father—all shitty fucking fathers, really—for hurting the people who relied on them most.
“Small and helpless,” Crux crooned. “Half a warrior. Half a Thorzi. Half a son. But you could help me now. Prove your worth. I’ll even let you keep your pet.”
Crux stalked closer, as if he truly weren’t afraid of what Vorian would do to him. Like he really thought Vorian wasn’t capable.
And—
And Vorian stood there, hardly breathing. When he did, I felt the shaking in his chest ripple down his arm.
The look that crossed Vorian’s face then was pained, but I didn’t know if it was something Crux was doing to him with his mark, or if it all boiled down to one thing—no matter how shit your parents were, it was hard as fuck to stand up to them.
Crux was too close. Vorian was letting him nearer, edging back with me behind him.
I knew Vorian could fight, that he’d been trained for this, and Crux wasn’t a warrior. Vipha sure as hell didn’t look like one. And if Vorian acted against him, he would win. He could win.
He’d kill his own father.
A man with a smirk on his face that I hated, who’d spent years making sure that Vorian, the most dangerous warrior on the planet, and Crux couldn’t stand up for himself.
I stared at him, horrified that he’d brought Vorian this low. Put his own son in this position, to choose his own future or his abuser. And while Vorian’s breath caught, while his muscles pulled taught straining against the awfulness before him, I caught a shine in Crux’s hand. A blade.
Crux drew it out from behind his back at the very last second. He was close enough to Vorian to—
I shoved in front of him, willing to put myself between Vorian and the knife his father had meant for him. Because—because Vorian was tall. And if I were lucky, that blade would hit my shoulder.
Crux would attack me, and Vorian would finally see his father for what he was. He would do what needed doing.
But that wasn’t what happened.
I shoved in front of Vorian, and the smooth, loose silk of my vest shifted out of the way. Vorian’s chest was there, warm and firm against my back. And—oh...
Heat flooded every inch of my body.
Instinctively, I threw my hands out to try and stop Crux, and there, pulsing like a sun in the center of my palm, was a purple plasma spike.
I stared, wide eyed, horrified.
It cut a hole through Crux’s chest, the smell of burning flesh and singed rib bones filling the air like a sick barbecue.
Crux stared back at me, just as shocked. When I pushed, he stumbled back. The knife he held dropped from his slack grip, clattering on the floor ominously. The proof of what he’d meant to do.
Vorian was the only one of us not trapped in wondrous horror. His breath caught when he saw the knife, and then he was gone. He phased from behind me, to behind his father.
