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Triaten’s look bit into me, his words seething. “You can stop talking anytime about how that bastard tortured her.”
I glared back at him “Yeah, well, he did, and it was real and it happened. And it fucked her up for a very long time, I think you know that.”
Triaten nodded as he started pacing in front of me, his jaw so tight I thought it would pop out of his skin.
“Cletus’s fascination with Ada wasn’t just because she was an anomaly—one of our species with an unheard-of power he didn’t understand. He’s always needed to understand why everything around him is the way it is. That need drove him mad at an early age—hell, maybe he’s always been bat-shit crazy. I don’t know.” My left hand curled around my right fist, trying to quell the red rage still pulsating through my body. “And when Cletus found Ada during the First World War, discovered her armor skin, I’m pretty sure he fell in love with her.”
Triaten’s eyes narrowed at me. “Why in the hell would that happen?”
I met Triaten’s look. “Because Cletus is the exact same way.”
Chapter26
{ Damen }
“What. The. Fuck.” Triaten stilled, glaring at me.
I nodded, everything in me screaming, itching to explode out of my own skin. “My whole life, and I never knew it about Cletus—never knew about his skin. None of my brothers did. He was never around, would never let any of us near him. Maybe our grandfather knew—I’m not sure. Maybe my eldest brother, Rodo, knew, but he never said a word and was killed long ago.”
Aiden shoved a glass of brandy into my hand and I tilted my head back, swallowing the contents in one quick motion, then turned and hurled the glass into the wall by the bathroom. It shattered, the sound doing nothing to dissipate the tyranny of rage whirling in my limbs.
I tried to still, to breathe, but that wasn’t fucking working so I just rambled on. “The only reason I even know about his skin is that my fucking castle collapsed on him. I oversaw every single brick excavated because I was looking for my daughter, looking for Ada. And eventually, I found Cletus underneath all that rubble. His forehead was bloody, so at first, I didn’t think anything of it. But then I realized the whole rest of his body didn’t have a scratch on it. His clothes were in tatters, most of them falling off of his body.”
I paused, shaking my head. “Not one fucking scratch. And half the castle had been piled on top of him for weeks. He had a damn boulder sitting on top of him from the waist down and he didn’t have one broken bone. Not one scratch.”
Triaten got in my face. “You knew the threat he was to Ada and you had him in your clutches and you didn’t do shit about it?”
“Yeah, I did that—I failed her.” My hand swept over my face. “I turned around for a second and he was gone—I’ve been searching for him ever since. But he turned into a fucking ghost.”
“Yet someone managed to know where he was enough to let him know where Ada was.”
I glared at him. “Yes. Helen—unless you have any other suspects?”
Triaten’s shoulders lifted.
“Is there anyone else that’s been manipulating Ada her whole life? Is there anyone else that wants to get rid of Ada, of me—and make it look like a brother-against-brother war had just broken out in the malefics?” My head angled to the side, my glare slicing into him. “I’m not coming up with a long list of people who even knew where we were. I haven’t had a phone since Victor smashed mine—no contact with my people. You two, on the other hand, weren’t exactly shy about talking with your people.”
Aiden glanced at Triaten. Triaten’s left eye twitched and an indiscernible message passed between them. Something I wasn’t privy to, nor did I want to be. The panthenites needed to get their shit together—who the fuck was running their species?
A problem for another day.
Right now, I needed them focused on Ada.
“And if you think I’m obsessed with Ada—you haven’t met my brother.” My look centered on Triaten. “Hiding her at the Academy saved her life ten times over—he’s been searching for her for a hundred years.”
Aiden’s phone buzzed in his hand. It went to his ear as Triaten and I stared at him with rabid attention. His eyes lifted to us. “They have a location.”
I expelled the breath I’d been holding since I’d walked into the room. A location. A start.
And why in the hell hadn’t Leo already called me with this exact same information?
Aiden listened, nodding, then pulled the phone from his ear and put it on speakerphone. “Repeat it.”
The person on the other end of the line talked quick and high-pitched, like someone was holding a flame to the arch of his foot, either that, or he was hopped up on too many energy drinks. “The van pulled into the underground parking deep in the city. I sent you the coordinates. The building is well wired, but they never came up through the elevators or stairwell. Which they would have had to do. Then we found them parked next to a door on the bottommost level. They got out, pulled out a wiggling body wrapped in white, and went through a door. The door isn’t on any schematics we found on a first go through. We’re rechecking them.”
My eyes lifted to Aiden. “Bunkers from the war?” Hundreds of bunkers and shelters were put in place to protect citizens from bombing before German occupation.
Aiden nodded. “Check the bunkers and catacomb maps from last century. Is there one in the area?”
