Page 110 of Her Dark Promise

Their father laughed. “Did you really think that I would allow my own flesh and blood to be sacrificed to the beast? No. I was going to switch her out with a girl that looked similar. No one would be able to tell the difference from a distance.”

Evil incarnate. That’s what this man was.

“What are you going to do with them?” He pointed to Callum and Emilia. Was he stalling? Or did he truly care about their fates?

“They will die, of course.”

I snarled at him.

“It’s a small price to pay for his silence; can’t have him coming to the town and spilling all of our secrets.”

Bastian kept staring at him, and then Emilia. Their eyes locked for a long few moments before he asked the question I’d known the answer to the moment we’d met. “She was one of the children. Her name is Emilia. She said she was raped before she was thrown into the forest. She was thirteen, the same age as Joséphine. Did you…?”

His father scoffed, not even sparing Emilia a glance. “Did Iwhat,son?”

“Did you partake in it?”

“I don’t fancy little girls,” he said simply, but Bastian looked like he was going to be sick. Something about the response told him everything.

“You’re lying,” he said.

He breathed deeply, growing frustrated with the delay.

“You’re a monster.”

His father pointed at me. “No, she is a monster…and if you don’t kill her, I will.”

Before I knew what was happening, Bastian had run toward us and rammed his body into his father, knocking me over. Then, they were nothing but a blur of grunts, fists, and kicks. I sucked in a shallow breath when it felt like hot pokers stabbing me everywhere. I wasn’t going to make it. Fuck.

I felt the blood pool in my mouth until I was coughing it up. Gods wait! Don’t take me yet. I needed to make sure he died. That Emilia got the revenge she rightfully deserved.

The man got Bastian under his feet and kicked him off his body. I looked over to find Bastian had been cut a few times. The poison would work its way through his body much faster than mine.

I dove into the well of my power to find even a flicker, but nothing still. Fine. I would fight him until my last breath. He was looking at his son when I pulled myself up and lunged at his side, catching him off guard.

I dug my nails into him wherever I could grip. I would rip him apart with my bare hands if I had to. I couldn’t fight him properly from the belladonna and loss of blood. Useless body.

His hands gripped my shoulders as he kneed my stomach and I doubled over, coughing up more blood. I looked up at their father as he reared back his fist and slammed it into the side of my face.

I could hear screaming around me as my body twisted and I landed on my side. I didn’t even have enough strength to move my head to see who was screaming my name.

Would they mourn?

They will all be dead soon enough.

I opened my eyes to find the man had straddled my stomach, put his hand around my throat, and raised his other hand high in the air that held the blade laced with belladonna.

This was it.

I could see my family.

I closed my eyes, welcoming the darkness, but I felt nothing happen. Was it over? Then I felt something drop onto my face. I barely opened my eyes to find Emilia was on the man’s back and was driving her blade into his neck over and over again. She was so quick that not even he could swing her off of him in time to save himself. His blood poured out of him, bathing me, intermingling in the dirt around us.

I couldn’t stop staring at her as she screamed things that I couldn’t hear. Letting all of her aggression, pain and suffering go with each strike of the blade. I felt a stinging in my eyes as his blood dropped down the side of my face.

No. Emilia. I didn’t want this for you. I was supposed to take on this burden. Not you.

His body slowed, and the damned blade dropped from his hand as she gripped her tighter and drove it straight through the side of his head.

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