Chapter 39

Tristan

I open my eyes.The ache in my gut is more painful than ever, matched only by the ache in my head. A stark light assaults my vision and everything swoops in and out of focus.

"Tristan," a voice says from very far away.

I try to move but my hands are cuffed behind me and my legs chained to a chair.

"Tristan," the voice says, louder now.

The voice is familiar but no matter how hard I strain, I struggle to place it. I struggle to place anything. Have I been drugged?

I reach for my magic. It's weak, drained and as woozy as the rest of me.

There's an unfamiliar sting on my arm. What the hell have they given me?

A hand grips my face, squeezes my cheeks, forces me to look up, up into a pair of cold sinister eyes.

My father.

"Concentrate," he says.

I speak, but the words are nonsense.

My father shakes my head, my brain crashing against my skull.

"Enough of this nonsense. Time to talk."

Talk? I don't want to talk to him. I don't want to tell him a thing. But I fear the drug circulating in my body is in control of my senses, and I feel it tugging at answers I'm keeping concealed.

"Why did you free the werebeast?" my father says.

I don't answer him and his face comes into focus, and beyond him the room. Dark except for the one interrogation lamp trained my way. I think we're alone.

"I've had enough of your insolence, boy," he says. "Answer my question."

The drug loosens my mind a little more and his magic tugs at me.

I fight it, fight to give him the answer I want.

"He's my friend. My best friend."

My father scoffs, throwing my face to the side and releasing his grip. "There's no room for ‘friends' in this world, Tristan. Friends are weaknesses. You know this as well as I do. What is the real reason?"

"That is the real reason. He's my friend. He doesn't deserve to be locked up. He's done nothing wrong."

"He's a mutt. A curseded. His blood's infected and he's dangerous. In a cell is the only place he deserves to be."

I shake my head even though it costs me more pain.

My father stands to his feet and surveys me, his hands tucked behind his back.

"You disobeyed me. You were told to return to the academy and remain there. Do you know what has happened to others who have disobeyed me?" Again, I don't answer. I can guess. "You think you should be treated any differently just because you are my son?"

"When have you ever treated me any differently," I spit, remembering all those beatings, every single one, some before I could even walk.

"What are you talking about? You think great magicals are created through kindness, by mollycoddling? They are created through discipline and endurance, hard work and pain. I've made you the man you are – top of the academy, aspiring chancellor." He laughs. "Or at least I thought I had. This recent spate of insolence and inkling for weakness is most disappointing. Maybe you are more like your mother than I realized." He pauses. "Or maybe something has changed."

I grit my teeth, forcing my jaw together. I won't tell him. I won't tell him a thing, not even if he beats me senseless, not even if he threatens me with death.

Because if he knows, if he learns the truth, Rhi won't be safe. She'll never be safe. He'll make sure of that.

He has his power now. His limitless dominance, ruling without restraint or boundaries. He won't stand for any kind of threat – perceived or real. He will crush it. And I won't let him crush her.

"What is it, Tristan, tell me?"

The drug swirls through my blood, warm and misleading, making me promises, whispering in my ear.

If I just tell him, if I just explain, utter the words …

No!

I ball my hands into fists and bite down on my own damn tongue.

No!

"Is it that girl?" my father sneers. "There's always some girl. Your uncle was the same – nearly threw away everything for a woman. And as for your cousin! Fools, the two of them!" He narrows his eyes. "Are you a fool too? Fallen for some wisp of a girl? There's nothing special about her, is there?"

I know he's taunting me. He has an idea just how special she is. He wouldn't be hunting her down otherwise. He wouldn't have me in here chained to this chair, pumped full of drugs, attempting to wheedle answers out of me otherwise. He'd have already beaten me to a pulp and sent me back to the academy, perhaps even a prison cell.

There were witnesses that night the academy was attacked. People who saw just how powerful Rhi is, who saw us fighting side by side. And then there's that interesting piece of information Summer gave him. Fucking Summer.

"Some say a girl will come … what I want to know is, is it her?"

My father paces this room as I struggle against the combined effects of the drug and his magic. My mouth is desperate to open and spill everything to him. I clamp it shut, fighting my own jaw.

"We can do this the easy way, or we can do it the hard. You can tell me what you know willingly, or …"

"I don't know anything," I choke out.

My father smiles coldly. "So be it."

He lifts a hand and a needle comes hurtling across the room, I try to swerve out of its path, but I'm chained to my seat and it stabs me deep in my arm, the drug plunging deep under my skin.

The room blurs, my mind loosening as I struggle to hold on, to maintain control of my own goddamn will.

"I've had enough of your disobedience, boy."

The drug pulls me under and for the first time I see it. The truth.

I'd always thought my mom's pills were an escape from her reality, an escape from him. Now I see what they were, what they really were. A leash. A way for him to control her as he now plans to control me.

I close my eyes, struggling, fighting.

"From now on, you will do as you're told. You will be the son the Lord Protector demands. From now on, you're mine."