Page 108 of Thunder with a Chance of Lovestruck

Robin glared at him. “You’re who got Nile and Henry released!”

“Guilty,” said Gil with another laugh. “But I didn’t act alone.”

I pushed through the last of the monsters and ran toward the dome.

Drest caught me around the waist, and I dropped the sword. “No, hon. That’s Fae power mixed in with what the Frankensteins can do. I don’t know what the hell Nile is now, but it’s not what he was before. I sense death magik pouring off him in waves.”

“Demi!” I shouted.

Her head was bent, and she was straining, her knees buckling slightly. It was evident she was in pain. When she lifted her head, I saw blood running from her nose. “M-Mom?”

I tried to get free from Drest’s hold. “Let go of me. Our daughter needs me!”

Demi’s brows drew together, and she tipped her head, staring past me at Drest. Her eyes widened. “Dad?”

Drest’s entire body tightened.

My gaze swept to my uncle’s. He’d somehow managed to become an even bigger monster than I remembered, and he wasn’t even stitched together. He was just an asshole.

He glanced up at the night sky, grinning as more lightning came at the dome top. It was then I knew it was his doing. “Nile, stop this, please!”

He licked his lips in a hungry manner, his gaze narrowing on me in a way that was as sick and twisted as he was. “How are you even more beautiful now, nearly forty years later? Look at you, niece. You’re stunning.”

Drest growled.

“Nile, please,” I begged, desperate for him to see reason. “Let her go. You’re hurting her.”

“I know,” he said, never taking his eyes off me. “You have the power to end this, Rachael. Agree to be mine and I’ll release the stain on our family name.”

“My daughter is not a stain and you’re not setting foot near my wife!” shouted Drest. “I’m going to skin you alive, you sick bastard. I’m going to cut every one of those symbols you’re using to draw power off your flesh and cram them down your…”

I clutched his arm that was around my waist. “Nile, I’ll do it. Whatever you want.”

“Mom, no!” shouted Demi. “He’s been spouting crazy talk…about…about killing you and bringing you back as one of those things.”

Nile’s attention went to Astria. He noticed her arms as well and I saw a flicker of concern flash through his eyes. “You must be Amice’s brat. All grown up I see. Another stain on our family name.”

“She’s from the first blueprint,” snapped Stratton. “Adam’s biological daughter.”

That left me looking over at him. “What?”

Adam, who was Victor’s crowning glory, the monster everyone is so familiar with from Shelley’s book, had been created with parts from a Frankenstein family member who had died. That meant he truly was a Frankenstein. Not only that, but Victor had breathed life into him—therefore, Victor was his father. I’d known all of that. It had been ingrained in me from an early age, taught to all Frankensteins when we were young. What I hadn’t known was that Amice and Adam had been an item at some point.

Instantly, I thought back to the times at the manor when someone would allude to Astria not being Henry’s biological daughter and how my brother would cut them off, stopping the conversation. Well, right up until he jumped off the deep end of sanity and started swimming in shark-infested Nile waters. Then he too had claimed she wasn’t his daughter.

My gaze whipped to her.

She stared at me with pain in her eyes, as if I might reject her.

“You are my niece, period,” I said loudly. I swallowed hard. “I love you. You’re like a daughter to me. Just like your mother wanted. And honestly, I’m a little jealous. It means you’re further away from Nile on the relative tree. Wish I had that many degrees of separation from him and my brother.”

She nodded rapidly, clearly choked up. “I love you too.”

I still couldn’t believe Amice and Adam had been romantically linked. She’d never told me, and I’d thought she’d told me everything. “I’m just stunned still.”

“It’s true,” said a familiar voice from behind me. “Adam fathered Astria. And Amice was Fae.”

Drest loosened his hold on me slightly as a middle-aged man in a Hawaiian shirt, shorts, and flip-flops strolled up alongside us. He folded his arms over his chest, staring intensely in at Gil and Nile.

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