Page 43 of Kiss of Death
I’d faced Barbarians and vampires head on, but the idea of facing my father over this…fucking terrified me. I wasn’t ready for the conversation, not when I hadn’t seen Callum in weeks, not when doubt had started to fester in my heart.Thank you for letting me know.
Good luck,Zunieth.
The guards eventually found me on the lawn outside the villa. Like I was an enemy of the Southern Isles, I was escorted into the castle like a prisoner. I wore a long, sleeveless dress, relieved not to wear my heavy armor anymore. I got to feel the breeze on my skin, let my hair down instead of keeping it back in a tight braid.
But my shoulders felt heavy from the invisible weight I carried. The dread made my lungs stiffen, made it hard to draw in breath and let it out again. When my mother knew the truth, she trusted me to see it through on my own. But my father was not rational or calm, not the way she was.
I’d just gotten him back, but now the distance between us would return.
It was normally a long journey to the royal chambers on the top floor, at least ten minutes, but when I dreaded the conversation, it passed in a second. I didn’t knock before I let myself inside, and I flinched when I saw him standing there.
It was clear he’d been pacing the second before I’d turned the door handle. Now he stood there, arms crossed over his chest, his dark eyes as violent as the flames in the hearth. There was no love in his gaze now, just vicious accusation.
It was so quiet in the room I could hear every crackle and pop of the flames from the fire. Without checking the other rooms, I knew my mother wasn’t there. That he wanted to have this confrontation in private.
I’d never been scared of my father, but I was scared of him now.
He was so mad he didn’t even say anything, like there were no words.
I remembered him lying on the grass below me, the enormous sword sticking out of his chest, his face so angry when he realized what I’d done. When he thought I’d made a deal with his greatest enemy.
He showed the same look now.
I stayed behind the armchair while he was on the other side of one of the couches, but the space between us wasn’t enough to stop the heat that burned from his flames.
“You. Promised. Me.” That was all he could get out, so angry that only the simplest words came to mind. The cords in his neck popped like rivers in his flesh. He was in a black shirt and the trousers he wore when he had retired after a long day, but he might as well be an assassin in his full armor and cape. “It was the one thing I asked of you, Lily Lena Rothschild. I let you live your own life the way you wanted. Let you sail across the world on a galleon with a crew. Never pressured you to take the crown if you didn’t want it. Did everything for you—and you couldn’t give me this one thing?”
“If you let me explain?—”
“How much time do we have?”
“What?”
“How much time do we have before he collects payment?” He stepped close to me, moving past the couch but stopping before the coffee table.
“There is no payment.”
“There is always a debt. Evil does not work for free.”
I did my best to sound calm, to know that my father was livid in both anger…and fear. Fear that he was about to lose me forever. “Please let me explain.”
His arms were already crossed over his chest, but he noticeably tightened them. His chin was so rigid, it looked like it was about to split through the skin. Flames from the hearth danced in his eyes.
“We got blown off course because of the storm. That was how we ended up on that island. It was not intentional. I didn’t realize where I was until…I felt it. Then he revealed himself to me, Wrath, God of the Underworld and King of the Dead.” And the man I loved.
My father started to breathe harder, like he was on the verge of a scream.
“He told me you hadn’t paid your debt. That you cheated the system. Other words were said… I basically told him to fuck off. I returned to the ship, and we prepared to disembark as quickly as possible. But he told me not to go because the Barbarians would come upon us if we left. I didn’t believe him, and I wish I had. That was how I lost my whole crew and how I ended up in a cell under the deck.”
He swallowed, his throat shifting.
“He raised a kraken from the depths and had the dead unlock the cell. Told me there was a boat in the back…and helped me escape. Then I made the long journey back home to you.”
He didn’t interrupt me, probably because the story had taken a different trajectory than he’d expected.
The rest of the story would be awkward for him to hear, so I tried to choose my words carefully. “He continued to visit me…and we fell in love.” That was all I said, shared no details or explanation. I didn’t tell my dad that I’d fucked Wrath for his freedom, because that seemed so irrelevant now.
He sucked in a hard breath when he heard that declaration. His eyes watered, but I suspected it was from the raw rage pumping through him, an anger so aggressive he couldn’t keep it in his body.
