Page 54 of A Reign of Roses
“With the blade strapped to my body? That would be some trick.”
“That it would.” My lips curled from my teeth in a menacing grin. “Want to see?”
I prowled closer.
Lazarus’s deep laughter halted my movements. My father sank comfortably into a velvet chair. He unsheathed the Blade of the Sun, winding the weapon aimlessly between his hands. “In all your foolishness and impulse, my dragon child…have you not realized what you’ve given me?”
I said nothing. Thought nothing.
“A true Fae heir, my boy. The only one I ever wanted.”
Oh, Gods—
Me.
“I’ll never sit on the Lumerian throne.”
He only smirked. A game—it was all a game to him. “If not you, and not Arwen’s child, then who?”
“Hart Renwick.” The rebel king could have the realm for all I cared. I wanted nothing to do with it. “He’s been building quite the army.”
Lazarus only cackled—genuinely, bafflingly amused. “If you think I’m threatened by the rebel king, you haven’t been paying attention. The boy is little more than a halfling.” His teeth gleamed in the spare moonlight. “When I am gone, the only man who shall sit upon my throne and call himself King of All Realms will be true Fae. If not you, son, then you must understand why Arwen’s womb is my only option.”
I will kill you. I am going to fucking kill you.“You will not touch her. Not ever again.”
“How can you be certain she isn’t already with child?”
I flinched, and hated myself for it. “She would have told me.”
“Perhaps.” He stood and circled over to the bed, smoothing out a crease I couldn’t see. “Or perhaps she was ashamed, son. Perhaps it was painful for her at first, but…All those scars along her back, and burns across her stomach…Women like that.” He shook his head at the memory. “Eventually they start to like it.”
I lunged for him, sword raised, aiming for his cracked, shriveled heart.
Steel met steel with ferocity, and a furious growl ripped from him. The Blade of the Sun rippled with frost in his grip, sending icy sparks splitting where our weapons clashed. My mortal muscles barked with the force of his blow.
My next strike knocked the blade from his hands. We both watched in dismay as it scattered across the room.
I lunged after it, but spears of solid ice shot from my father’s palms.
Narrowly dodging the shards, I dropped down to the ground and scrambled behind the iron bed frame. Glass shattered behind me, raining down in bursts. Books clattered to the floor, a thick paperweight toppled. I could taste my fear. Could feel my hands shaking like they’d never done before. I’d never been so…fragile. One of those spears—just one wrong move—and I’d be dead.
“How long have you wished to do this?” I croaked.
Lazarus launched javelins of solid ice in my direction as I clawed my way across the floor. A single spear shot past my head, and wisps of my own black hair fell to the floor between my hands. But the blade glinted on the thin, gray rug by a leather chair—I just had to wrap my hands around it. Justonce—
Disdain clouded my father’s voice. “You have never understood a single thing, have you, son?”
I dove, one arm outstretched, reaching,strainingto touch—
But a mist of suffocating cold slammed into my chest and sent me flying backward atop crushed glass. My helmet flew from my head, teeth biting into my tongue. Hot blood filled my mouth.
“You think I want to kill you?” Lazarus thundered. “You’re my fucking son.”
For a moment, only our ragged breaths rent through the room.
My voice was so low I could barely hear myself. “You actually want me to rule alongside you?” My throat tightened with some emotion I could only attribute to a far, far younger version of myself.
My father’s silence spoke a hundred years’ worth of words between us.
