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“And then my granddaughter, Lizzy, came into the room at the noise. She just turned eighteen. Fucking eighteen.”
My heart dropped to my toes and I lost balance, leaning forward, my hand landing onto the wooden plank door for support.
“Then they did the same fucking thing to Lizzy.”
I sucked in a gasp, my heart instantly shredded. “No.”
“Yes.” The one word tortured, and then he paused again, breathing hard. He continued on, his voice in control once more. “We have it all on surveillance. Leo brought it all to me a few days ago after he sorted what happened.”
That’s why Damen had been walking around for days like a death shroud had landed on his shoulders.
My eyes squeezed tight, tears slipping out past my lids. Damen may never cry, so these were tears I would shed for him. My breath hitched and I choked out words. “You didn’t tell me.”
“I didn’t want to—I didn’t want you sad. And now you’re sad.”
“Yes. But it happened and you were sad—you need to tell me these things.”
“Ada…I’ll try…I’ll try. You know I’m not accustomed to letting anyone know what’s going on in my mind.”
“Except I’m not anyone.”
“No. No, you’re not.” I could picture him pinching the bridge of his nose as he shook his head. Still working hard to place me into his life.
I gave myself the smallest smile. “You’re getting better.”
“But not on the hard stuff.”
“This is a good step.” I looked at the door in front of me where my fingernails had curled into the ancient pockmarked wood. “So why am I down here?”
“Leo got the bastard. Delivered him to me.”
“Well done on Leo.”
“Yes, and as I was torturing the vile creature—because a simple death will not do in this instance—something occurred to me.”
No. A simple death wouldn’t do. That much I understood about Damen—he needed his pound of flesh before he executed a death sentence. It was how he exorcised his own demons so they didn’t come out to play when he couldn’t control them.
“What occurred to you?” I prodded him.
“It occurred to me that I want you to kill him.”
My head snapped upward, my eyes big. “What?”
“I want you to kill him.” His voice dipped into hardened intensity. “Not by any normal means. I want you to use your power and kill him.”
“You want me to…what?” I stilled. He couldn’t be serious. No. He couldn’t be. “Damen. No. I cannot. You know I cannot—I will kill everyone.”
“Except there isn’t a soul there. Not within a ten-mile radius of the castle. I’ve made sure of it.”
Shock rolled through me, turning my limbs to jelly. My head dropped, my chin going to the side, resting on my shoulder as my hand holding the phone to my opposite ear started to tremble. “What?”
“Everyone is gone. It is just you and this bastard that needs to be put to death. That is the only person you’re going to kill. I want you to do this, but try to do it controlled, whatever that may feel like. You have learned everything about control in your lifetime, but you’ve never had a chance to learn to control the one thing that has always haunted you. This is your chance. Your chance to know yourself, to know what you are and are not capable of.”
He paused with a long breath, his voice dipping, and I could feel the intensity vibrating in his words. “And I am betting you are far more capable with controlling your power than you can even imagine. It isn’t a wild thing. It isn’t death rolling out into the land indiscriminately. You were under Cletus’s hands again, and you held it in because you refused to hurt children. Cletus. His hands on you. And you held it in. So I believe with everything I am that you can damn well learn to control death going out.”
“I…” My voice trailed off. The argument dying on my lips. This was lunacy. Pure lunacy.
But if Damen was right? If there was a chance I could learn to control my power instead of it controlling me…was I stupid not to take the chance to learn?
