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I find myself softening, but I struggle not to. “Are you sure? You just about bit my head off earlier.”
“People in relationships get angry with each other sometimes, don’t they?” He looks at me questioningly. It’s like he really wants the answer to that question.
“Yes,” I say. “But I meant what I said back there. You have to realize that the way your father treated you is influencing how you’re treating Fletcher.”
It’s true, but it’s also the wrong thing to say. He goes rigid with anger and suddenly he’s a million miles away from me. He takes a couple of steps back, and his eyes have gone stormy again. “Don’t mention my father to me again.” His voice snaps like a whip, stinging me.
I swallow my frustration. Joshua’s father is like a lead anchor dragging him down, and he won’t acknowledge it or try to deal with it. But the more I push, the more he’ll close himself off to me. “All right. Please just go easier on Fletcher tomorrow, and don’t hold a twelve-year-old boy from the suburbs to your standards. Or stop having him spar.”
His forehead creases, and he looks away. “I should go back inside now.” And he turns and walks off without another word, shoulders hunched, and I sit down in the bright, warm sun, feeling cold and lonely.
CHAPTERFIFTEEN
JOSHUA
I fight sleep for days on end, but even a beast like me can only deny biology for so long. I’m sitting at my desk with my eyes fluttering shut when I lose the battle, sinking into the dark, sticky tar of my unconscious mind.
I come to with a start, my heart in my throat. What’s that sound?
Tamara. She’s screaming.
She’s facing a wall, hands tied over her head. She’s naked, her back raw and bleeding, and I can smell the blood. I cansmellit, which must mean that this is real.
I shake my head to clear it.
We’re back at the old property on our cabin.
How did we get here? Was it Charlemagne? Did he slither his way through all my defenses?
I’m struggling to cry out. My tongue is thick in my mouth, and I can’t force out so much as a weak little snivel. We’re in the room where my father used to take his little girl prisoners. My stomach convulses when I hear thudding footsteps, then my father strides through the door, stripped to the waist, carrying a curled-up bullwhip.
He pushes past me, and I try to lunge at him, but I’m too weak to move. Always too weak.
“You like that, girl?” he roars at Tamara, and he slashes with his whip, tearing a long red wound into her back.
Her answer is a shrill scream of agony that tears my heart in two.
This can’t be happening.I killed my father.
And how did he get us here? How did he get past my men?
The old terror of my childhood days comes roaring back.My father is all-powerful. He can’t be defeated. He can’t be killed. Obey him or die.
My legs are weak. I struggle to move toward him, and fall to my hands and knees.
My father turns to look at me, scorn on his face. He hasn’t aged a day in fifteen years.
He’s a god. He’s immortal. I’m nothing.
He turns his back to me and whips Tamara again, not even paying attention to me. I’m beneath his notice. Her wails hammer into my heart.
No! I’ve let him take too much from me. I won’t let him have Tamara.
I’ll fucking kill him, as many times as it takes until he stays dead.
I struggle to my feet at last, but then Charlemagne strides into the room and launches himself at me, knocking me to the ground with a painful thud. I lie underneath him, helpless.
“You left me,” he says. His eyes are blue whirlpools of madness, his lips skinned back from his teeth.
