Page 18 of House of Darkness
Leonidas held my mother aloft by the fabric of her tattered gown. That once-bright face now hung like a limp doll. Her flesh was a patchwork of swollen purple bruises, blood trickling between them and pooling at her jaw, spilling over her neck.
“Thank your disobedient son for this,” he sneered.
“Stop!” My voice came out ragged and sharp, but it soaked into the stone, dissolving into meaningless dust.
Leonidas tossed her to the floor just as I lunged. She smacked into the stone, emitting a soft groan that twisted every part of me into knots. I tried to position myself between them, but he seized the back of my shirt and hurled me into the wall as if I were nothing. I hit the stone with a sickening crunch, but I ignored the dull echo of pain.
My mother lay on the floor in a creeping pool of her own blood,her body stiff and unmoving. Her once-lively eyes fluttered, then remained closed. I struggled to cling to her fading consciousness as if it were a lifeline, but the tether turned to dust in my grasp.
Darkness swelled within me, consuming everything. Someone was screaming—it might have been me—but it didn’t matter. The space she once occupied in my heart was now a gaping hole, jagged and raw. I don’t remember when I collapsed beside her, but suddenly, she was in my arms.
Her body was cold and stiff beneath my touch. Her meek existence had been snuffed out simply because I disobeyed. I refused to hurt another, yet in the end, my actions only caused pain at the hands of a monster.
I looked up at Leonidas.
His thoughts were cold and empty. There was no remorse, no empathy for the woman who had borne his children, or for the children he had orphaned. No trace of the guilt that now raged within me like a wildfire, ready to consume everything in its path. I don’t know what I expected. He had never been a kind man. Other acolytes had died at his hand, and my mother was no different. My nails dug into the soft fabric of her dress, the only sensation I could feel, as my face tightened with fury.
“You killed her,” I snarled, as if saying it aloud could make him feel some kind of fucking something.
“You were always too attached to that human. If you’d done as I asked, she’d still be alive.”
His words hardened the aching wound inside me into stone. I should’ve dealt with him a long time ago. If I had, she would still be alive. Killing him now wouldn’t erase the blood sprayed across my soul from my sins and failures, but it might bring me some semblance of relief. I gently laid her frozen body on the floor and stood. My power spread through the room like a pool of darkness. I stepped toward him, and the windowbeside us shattered. The stone walls cracked under the weight of my rage.
“HOW DARE YOU!” My scream echoed off the blackness, rebounding in my mind, filling it with a violent ringing.
His eyes widened, and a twisted satisfaction flickered within me. Good, at least he felt something. Even if it was fear of me. I hoped it was all he felt as he took his final breaths, just like my mother had.
“Roman, listen to me. She was nothing?—”
“She was EVERYTHING, you fucking monster!”
Realizing that the dark power he had twisted within me would now be directed at him, he took a hesitant step backward. It was a small movement, but it was everything—an acknowledgment that I held the upper hand. I reveled in that power, feeling a semblance of control for the first time in my life, even as everything around me fell apart.
I plunged into his mind with as much violence, hatred, and cruelty as I could muster. The black talons of my mind gripped his and began to squeeze. He crumpled to the floor, hands clawing at his head as if he could force my talons out by sheer will.
“Stop, stop, STOP! You fucking freak!”
I laughed, the sound harsh and cold. I continued my relentless march toward the man who had sired me. His face twisted with pain, and that made me smile. He deserved to suffer.
“I’m just the freak you made me.”
Watching blood trickle from the edges of his lips was like a pressure release. I found as much pleasure in knowing it was Leonidas’ screams that filled the room as I did imagining it was me writhing in pain on the floor. But I couldn’t do that to myself—not after my mother died for me.
I squeezed harder. A sickening crunch silenced his whimpers. Blood poured from his orifices, pooling on thefloor beneath him.
I turned and collapsed beside my mother. My tears traced her battered face. I ran a hand through her hair as ragged screams tore from my throat. But when I opened my eyes, it wasn’t her hair in my hands. Instead, it was starlight blonde.
Across from us, wild curls spilled from my father’s head. I stared in horror at my own face, my blank expression staring back as my screams threatened to consume me.
I woke with a jolt, the horror of my dreams chasing me into the waking world. Sweat coated my brow, and I jumped to my feet in a confused panic, searching for the threat that wasn’t there. Then reality broke through my emotions. I was at Estrella’s bedside, having somehow fallen asleep. How pathetic. I was supposed to be watching her in case she woke up.
I looked at her. There was a gash across her delicate heart-shaped face, cutting through her faint brows and ending in a split through her champagne lips. Yet she looked peaceful in her sleep, as though the nightmares of her waking hours didn’t follow her. Her hair glowed in the soft light of the waning moon like a halo, and I couldn’t help but brush it from her face. It felt like silk on my dead fingers.
In the weeks after I claimed her, I questioned whether I had made the right choice. Usually, when I tried to make things better, I only made them worse—just like with my mother. I was trying so hard to make the right choices, but with every step, it felt as though Leonidas was right. I was just a freak with the power of evil, doomed to hurt everything I touched. Doomed to hurt her.
She was hurt because of me. She had jumped into that river because she feared me, and my hands had broken her rib. Like they could so easily break all of her. I couldn’t let that happen—I couldn’t hurt her more than I already had. I owed it to my mother and all the others who had suffered from my failures to protect her and give her the opportunities she wouldn’t have elsewhere. I couldn’t fail her again.
Chapter 12
