Page 120 of Broken Souls

Maddox laughs and turns for the door. I glance at Khalid again, a silent question asking how he is.

He turns from me without an answer, and for one stupid split second, my fingers itch to shove a knife into his back. Kill him before he tries to kill me.

“Are you okay?” I ask softly as the rest of our brothers step outside, heading for the lake on our property. Rows of white chairs sit in front of it, and they’re already full of people. The sound of chatter whispers on the wind, too far away to make any specific voices out. At the front, between the two columns of chairs, is an archway of flowers Leno weaved together.

The flowers around us blossom as we walk.

“Yes.”

I can’t smell that he’s lying, but I can fucking feel it.

The skin across my shoulders tightens with the knot in my stomach. Glancing at my brother as he walks beside me, I wonder just how long it’s going to be before the man I trust the most, the one I tortured Micha for, is going to turn on me.

A week from now?

A month?

Or will he kill me and Micha tonight while we’re asleep in our bed? Cut out our child in fear that she’s a hybrid too?

Forty-One

HER

When I step out of the house, I see him instantly. He is standing in front of the archway of flowers down by the lake, wearing a dark-red tux. He’s too far for me to see his face, but even at this distance, I can still feel the intensity of his stare. He sees me, and he is waiting.

Down the bond between us comes a flood of love and desire and so much fucking happiness that I am his, that it rips all the air out of my lungs. So I tear my gaze away and try to throw up a block between us. I don’t want to feel his love for me. Not when only a few paces from him is the bitch he slept with only a week ago.

I force myself to look at her as she stands so beautifully behind my sister, holding a bouquet of white flowers. Force myself to feel the pain of her presence. As long as she’s living with us, I’m never going to forgive him. This last week, I’ve been avoiding her so I don’t kill her, and it’s been doing my head in.

I don’t know the other three women behind her, so my eyes sweep forward. Lou, my baby sister, is next, and at the front is Dayne, my maid of honor. He’s dressed in the same red dress the others are wearing. Same heels and make-up too. I wish he was the one walking me down the aisle, but my father is, unfortunately, still alive and he made it in time for the wedding.

“Micha,” the devil himself says as he appears behind me, and Ihatehow I didn’t notice his approach. Despite all the years he trained me, I never got anywhere near his level on any skillset outside of pure magical strength. Even then, he still managed to kick my ass in a magic-only fight. And my magicatemagic. I’d complain it wasn’t fair, but then he’d just beat me for being whiney.

“Stefaan,” I say, my words lacking all the warmth that comes so easily to my lips when I talk to Lou or Dayne.

“Micha.”I can hear my sister whining in my head. She hates it when we fight. To her, Father isn’t warm per say but nor is he the cold bastard I know him as. He isn’t the brutal trainer who left her with fractured bones, ruptured tendons, and internal bleeding as a way to make her tougher.

But Stefaan doesn’t discipline me for my lack of respect. He doesn’t really react to it at all. I am no longer his charge; he sold me, so my actions are no longer a reflection of him.

They are a reflection of Varius though, of how well he can control his woman, and thus a reflection on the entire Shadow Family. I am not dumb enough to let my pride get in the way of a solid alliance between our gangs. So I force my smile to come across as more genuine, for my tongue to have less bite.

“Thank you for coming at such short notice,” I say.

“One does not simply ignore an invite from the Boss of the Shadow Domain,” he says, offering out his arm.

Begrudgingly, I take it.

Of course that’s why he’s here. Not for me. Not because it’s his daughter’s fucking wedding.I hate how much that knowledge hurts, even though that shouldn’t be a shock at all. He died the same time Mom did sixteen years ago; his soul simply didn’t pass over into the Underworld. Instead, it grew cold and dark and empty. My two brothers were old enough to take care of themselves at that point, but Lou was a newborn and I was only eleven. That overnight rejection hurt, but I should’ve learned my lesson by now.

Irritated with myself, I start to stomp across the paving stones leading down to the lake, just wanting to get this over with, but Stefaan’s hand tightens on my arm. Not hard enough to bruise. Just enough to gain my attention. I glance at him, and he leans in close.

“Your mother was sold to me,” he says, and I turn to him fully now. “But she owned me more than I ever did her,” he says softly. “And when she died giving birth to your sister… I lost a large part of myself. Too much. So much I failed you and Lou…” He trails off for a moment. “She would’ve been so disappointed in me.” The words are a mere whisper. Then they strengthen again as he says, “But when I finally started to live again, you wanted to become an assassin, and I was terrified of learning to love you, only to feel that loss all over again. So I was never there for you, Micha. That was selfish of me. To think of only myself and my pain rather than my daughter’s.”

My throat closes, and dammit, I feel tears behind my eyes. I tried to get his attention all throughout my teenage years, having lost my mother when I was eleven, having seemingly lost my father too. Then when I hit sixteen, when I learned he would never love me even if I followed in his footsteps, I convinced myself I didn’t need him anymore.

But fuck, a part of me has always yearned for the father I used to know. The one who tried to teach me how to whistle with a blade of grass, who picked me up and carried me inside whenever I fell asleep in the car, who would sneak into a closet and eat apples with me because he made me believe they were a ‘naughty treat’ like candy.

My throat feeling tight, I snort. “Have you been going to therapy or something?”