Page 107 of House of Malice
Alecto nodded, biting her lip so she wouldn’t start crying again.
“Blaze, does your father know you’re together?” The voice came from behind Blaze, and they both froze.
Alecto stepped away from Blaze, and he turned, keeping her behind his back.
“He does not,” he said to Alatar, who eyed them with amusement in his gaze.
“I don’t think he will be pleased,” Alatar said and smiled. “My daughter is a wonderful young woman. I can understand why you are attracted to her. But she isn’t for you, son.”
Suddenly, anger bubbled inside Alecto, and she stepped to the side so she could face her father, who stood close to the edge of the cliff with his hands in his pockets.
“It’s none of your business who I choose to date,” she told him. “You don’t control my life. I’m an adult.”
“Oh, my sweet pumpkin, but I am your father,” he said gently. “And you are mine. Forever.”
The way he looked at her wasn’t normal. Something about him wasn’t quite right… A realization dawned on Alecto.
“You killed her, didn’t you?” she asked, taking a step closer to him. “It wasn’t suicide. You fucking killed her.”
“I loved her. I still do, to this day,” he said, and a wicked smile grew on his face. “She gave me you, my sweet little pumpkin. How could I not love her for that?”
Alatar was a sick man. Alecto wanted to scream at him, to claw his eyes out with her nails until there were only two bloody holes left instead of his eyes.
“Why?” Alecto asked instead, swallowing her fury. Alatar didn’t answer. So she cleared her throat and asked again, her voice cracking at the end: “WHY?”
Alatar’s eyes gleamed, focused on Alecto with such a dreamy expression on his face, it only made Alecto hate him more. “Because I saw you the day you were born, and you were everything I ever wanted,” he finally said. “You were a beauty from the first moment, so soft and small. So weak and frail, relying on me to keep you alive. I fell in love the moment your little fingers wrapped around mine when I first held you in my arms.”
The way his eyes turned glazed as he sank deeper into the memories, surely reliving that day over in his mind, was the last nail in the coffin.
Anger and pain surged to the surface, and Alecto couldn’t hold the scream inside. “You’re not supposed to fall in love with a child like that! You fucking monster!”
Alatar snapped out from his daze, flinching at the unexpected outbreak of Alecto’s usually perfectly controlled emotions. He blinked, looking at her as if he didn’t recognize the woman standing in front of him.
Of course, how could she, his little well-mannered, controlled girl snap like this, allowing the rage she had been bottling up for years spill over the sides. Alecto felt Blaze shift behind her, but she didn’t dare look back.
Instead, she took a step closer to her father.
“Alecto,” Alatar said, his voice soft, but there was a warning. He was still expecting to tame her. “Your behavior is unacceptable.”
“And yours is? You are a fucking disgrace,” Alecto sneered at him. Her chest was rising and falling with rage-filled breaths, her muscles trembling. “A father is not supposed to hold his daughter for the first time in his hands and see her as someone he wants to love that way.” Her eyes were burning, her throat closing up. But Alecto didn’t stop. She was only two steps away from Alatar, who was still standing on the edge of the cliff. “A father is supposed to hold his child and want to protect her, watch her grow up and live her life. Not come into her room at night and do things like—” Alecto’s voice broke. Tears spilled over, streaming down her cheeks. “You’re an abomination. And I’m done with you.”
Alecto shook her head, having made the decision that freed something inside her chest. She took a ragged breath, laughter suddenly bubbling.
She was done living in fear of seeing him, of hearing his voice, of being anywhere close to Alatar. She was done with him.
“Alecto,” he tried again—reasoning or coaxing her, Alecto wasn’t sure.
She didn’t care.
With a steady heart, Alecto reached her arms towards him, as if for a hug. Alatar hesitated, before smiling and reaching towards her. But Alecto wasn’t going to hug him.
No.
It all happened in a matter of seconds. One moment, Alatar was there, Alecto’s hands finding his chest.
And then he was falling.
It shouldn’t have been this easy to kill someone. To simply push them and watch them fall from the cliff into the dark water.
