Chapter 46

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

I leap away from my father, registering his confusion, before I bound onto the table and break into a run toward its central point.

"Gargoyle king!" I shout. "For your crimes against my brother and his mother, you will die first. Now choose: Fight or die!"

It seems he was prepared for the challenge. He's been throwing glares at me ever since I arrived. He will have heard that Lucian formed an alliance with me.

"You are the one who will die," he retorts, jumping to his feet so quickly that he knocks his chair backward.

While the supernaturals around him scatter, he extends his wings and rises into the air, a great brute of a man swooping toward me.

His skin flushes gray as he flies, a coating of stone that he will no doubt believe can repel my claws.

As he storms down on me, I leap up to meet him, the muscles in my legs bunching and pushing me higher while my right hand stretches out.

My claws slice from his neck to his crotch before I land neatly on the table, covered in blood.

His body hits the surface behind me, sliding partway across the table before coming to a stop at its edge.

His wings conceal most of the gore, but not the thick trail of blood he leaves across the table's surface.

I'm aware of a movement on my right—the female gargoyle was lurching toward me—and my right hand has shot out to meet her.

She stops. Right before my claws would have impaled her chest.

Pinpricks of blood form before the droplets slide down her bare clavicle to the top of her shirt.

There's a terrible silence around me and maybe it's only because my ears are so damaged, but the blonde-haired woman backs slowly away from me, removing herself from danger, her hands rising, palms out.

Her lips move, but try as I might, I can't hear what she says. Too hard to read her lips.

She eyes me warily while I rise to my feet with a snarl on my lips.

"Fight or die," I say.

I have no clue if I shouted or whispered my command, which is now directed at my father this time. "Or bow ."

His head snaps up where he stands at the edge of the dais. His focus was on the dead gargoyle king, but now it's firmly on me.

"Bow?" he snaps, a word I make out from the movement of his lips. It's easy enough to read it because he enunciated it with clear disgust. " Never ."

"Very well."

I stride toward him, deliberately stepping through the blood. It's not as if I can avoid it. It's dripping from my hair and my shoulders, sliding down my chest, covering my burned palm. Hopefully distracting from how badly my left arm is shaking.

The leaders and their generals all back away as I pass their locations, and when even one of them stays a little close, the female gargoyle shouts something at them. They snarl and glare at her but quickly step away.

As I walk, I watch my father, knowing that this is the last chance I'll have to say what I need to say to him.

"She died in my arms."

He was already pale, but now he blanches.

"She spent years trying to breathe the stale air and survive on crumbs. But before she died, she taught me everything I needed to know."

Not all the things I wanted to know.

But everything that has kept me alive and brought me here to this moment.

Where I will seize my vengeance or die trying.

"You put her there because of me," I say. "And in so doing, you created the thing you feared." I flick the blood off my claws again. "Behold, Father. A daughter covered in dark blood."

Taiven's golden eyes are full of hate. The animosity in them would have crushed me before, but now it makes my choice easier.

As I draw to the end of the table, I know what he's going to do.

He'll leap for one of the feathers I've tucked into the angel's sash at my waist.

It's the only way he can kill me—by using my own metal against me.

I jump from the table, landing at a crouch, not taking my eyes off him for an instant, rising once again to my full height.

"Choose," I say. Maybe a whisper. Maybe a roar.

He sweeps toward me in a flurry of wings, his right hand outstretched. He's moving fast, a blur, as fast as a dark angel can move, using his wings for speed, but they're his undoing.

Oh, wings.

Always a fucking liability.

I sidestep his lunge and sweep my claws through his outstretched wing, cutting through the bone and sinew, sending feathers floating through the air around me before the lower half of his wing drops to the floor.

His eyes are wide as he whirls to face me. His mouth is moving, but again, bless my ears.

I ignore his mouth and watch his hands.

I leap up onto the dais as he rages at me again, this time with fists swinging.

When I first fought him, I didn't have the combat skills that I have now.

I duck his swing and step inward, my claws ramming upward beneath his ribs and tearing into his chest.

His eyes widen with shock and he gives a strangled gasp.

His legs give way, his weight suddenly dropping onto my hand, which only takes my claws deeper into his chest.

He falls to his knees in front of me.

Both of us are now kneeling, facing each other.

I can tell he's gasping for air, but even now, his focus flies to the feathers at my waist. He's close enough to grab one of them and ram it into my heart.

His right hand moves, but my left hand is quicker. Despite its trembling, my aim is accurate, my claws driving forward through the back of his wrist and pinning his hand to his chest.

At that moment, my ears clear and sounds rush in.

He's gasping for air, just like I thought, but he's also speaking.

"…tell you where The Book of Old Magic is. Let me live…"

I narrow my eyes at him. "Why would the location of that book matter to me?"

"It can save… your keeper…" Black blood bubbles between his teeth. "Let me live… I'll tell you… where it is…"

I exhale a quiet breath. "Like The Book of Dark Magic was supposed to save my mother? No, thank you."

With a terrible snarl, I rip my claws in opposite directions, cutting across my father's chest and arms, tearing his body open before I let him fall to the floor.

The life fades from his golden eyes, the light in them becoming dull until they turn a washed-out yellow color. No longer golden. No longer powerful.

Just like that. He's gone.

I rise to my feet, standing over him, conscious of the gore on my chest and arms and… well, it's pretty much all over me.

"Anyone else?" I ask.

The room is silent.

I turn to cast my gaze across each of them, taking note of their faces. Strange seeing these faces for the first time today, and yet they are the faces of my future. Supernaturals who form this empire I came to claim.

I wait another moment, but nobody moves.

"The Nostra Empire is mine," I say to them, my voice level and calm.

Still, nobody moves or speaks.

"I will not rule the empire like my father did. I have new rules." I pin each of them with my gaze. "You may not like my rules, but if you follow them, you will have my protection. If you contravene them, I will mete out punishment in the form of death."

I point at my father and then at the gargoyle king. They are my examples and I'm certain the images of them will be burned into the memories of these leaders for years to come.

"Do not challenge me. I will kill you," I continue. "Do not come for my pack or my family. I will kill you." I lift my chin and allow a smile to touch my lips. "Obey me and you will thrive."

I extend my claws and growl at them. "Now choose: Fight and die. Or bow and live."

The thick silence around me quietly breaks.

Whispered footfalls sound as the leaders and their generals step forward, forming lines on each side of the table.

In unison, they all take a knee.

The gargoyle woman raises her head first. "Ultima Nostra," she says, her voice clear and strong. "Long may you reign."