Page 1 of Midnight Secrets

Chapter One

Ash (Ten years ago)

His fist connected with my jaw and my head snapped back. My balance teetered before I fell back and landed on my ass on the floor.

“You put your guard down.” Dad sneered in my face, his spittle hitting my cheek. “You should never let your opponent close enough to you to strike.”

He was my dad, not an opponent. I arrived back from school yesterday, and after glaring at me for what felt like an eternity, he claimed that I’d gotten fat and lazy and that I’d spend my summer becoming worthy of being his heir. Right now, he could shove the keys to his kingdom right up his sanctimonious ass.

“Get up!” Dad snapped and I scrambled back onto my feet.

My two closest friends at school were Xavier and Jordan. There was no way I was either fat or lazy because that asshole Jordan dragged our asses out of bed at the crack of dawn for a run before we trained for an hour. If he saw me right now, he’d go mental, but how was I supposed to hit my own father?

I stumbled back into the post at the corner of the boxing ring when Dad kicked me in the chest. Raw fury bubbled free and my hand clenched into a fist.

Fuck this.

I dodged his next kick, grabbing his ankle and bringing his leg down on my knee as I brought us to the floor. The crack echoed around the room and my brother’s chatter stopped to leave an eerie silence.

Dad glared up at me, his teeth biting into his bottom lip and his jaw set. We spent hours training at school, and the top of our list was how to immobilise an enemy. Instinct had taken over. If your enemy had a broken leg, they couldn’t track you.

I slowly moved back and held my hand out to him. A feral smile curved his lips up and his eyes filled with dark emotions that terrified me. He grasped my hand and allowed me to pull him to his feet, wincing as he leaned his weight on the ropes around the ring.

“It looks like you might have the killer instinct to be my heir after all,” he muttered. “To be on the Council, you need to be able to stare into the face of your enemy or your closest friend and vote to end their life. We are not ruled by emotion, but by the duty we owe our families and the legacy they leave.”

I wanted to feel pride, but instead, nausea swam around inside me. My father was the last person in the world I wanted to become. He was a monster in a black fancy suit and silk tie; a tyrant who played God. His butler raced forward to take care of the situation, Ivan already talking into a device in his ear to arrange the private doctor to attend the house.

Father chuckled darkly while Ivan helped him slip under the bottom rope to avoid him having to climb through. “I knew we could make a Blackwood out of him.”

My gaze moved to my three brothers standing watching me. Oliver and Aaron looked pale and worried, but Michael watched with a devious glee in his eyes. He was the youngest of us but the most bloodthirsty. Dad took him hunting and shooting with him to our family estate in the highlands of Scotland and boasted of the way he controlled a gun. He was the Blackwood Father was searching for. The rest of us preferred to avoid those bonding weekends.

I silently climbed out of the ring, casting a look over my shoulder at the scene behind me. Jordan always said to never show weakness, even when you were shitting yourself. His presence walked beside me as my back straightened and I left the room. I refused to show fear to the man who sired me. He scented it in the air the same way an animal did.

Inside my room, I slid to the ground with my back to the door as if I could keep all the demons outside by my will alone. When I went to boarding school, I’d been terrified of being away from home. Now I dreaded coming home at holidays. Inside those freezing, crumbling walls I had finally found the family I’d always craved. Three lonely boys who found each other and formed an alliance. Xavier was the son of Father’s friend Hugh. Jordan was the renegade grandson of a man who he frequently compared to the emperor from Star Wars. If he raised a badass like Jordan, then he had to be a demon ascended from Hell and living here in the mortal realm.

I rolled my eyes at myself. Maybe I played too much Dungeons & Dragons at school.

My heartbeat sounded in my ears as I replayed what had happened in my head. I’d let him beat me to a pulp in the past, rarely trying to defend myself. Today, something had snapped inside me and there wasn’t a doubt in my head that Father would seek his revenge since it happened in front of his precious son Michael.

Shit.

My arms wrapped around my knees and I set my head on top of them. Minutes ticked by as I awaited my fate. A rap at the door made my stomach churn.

“Ashton?” Mum said from the other side. “Open the door, sweetie.”

I crawled forward and stood to open the door to her. She held her arms out to me and crushed me in a hug that was designed to break bones.

“Aaron told me what happened,” she whispered. “I phoned the housekeeper at Hugh’s house. She’s arranging for you to go and stay there for a while.”

Mum was the one person in this whole twisted mess who knew what Father was like. She protected us as best possible, but every time I’d returned home from school, her eyes were more haunted and her pallor paler than before. He drained the life and soul from those he touched like a demonic vampire.

“I can’t hide from him forever,” I said.

“I know, sweetie, but you can today. He’ll forget his pride and, in its place, will come his vengeance. We both know it’s better that you’re gone when that happens.”

I sank onto the side of the bed and Mum sat beside me. “Helga said that Xavier is going to visit his Uncle Lucas for the summer. She said she’ll organise Jordan to go as well so you can all have a holiday together.”

Xavier talked about his Uncle Lucas as if the man were a movie star. He was the stuff of myths and legends. Both Jordan and I had wanted to meet Lucas Black for a long time.

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