Father (Blood Brotherhood 1)

"What is it?” She looks at me with a frown, sensing my seriousness, understanding that this moment has some weight to it.

“Jonah was found in a London crack den, deceased.”

“No!”

She collapses into predictable misery. I knew she would be sad. I also know that she will get over it. I will distract her from her grief and she will soon realize that being free of her nasty genetic handicap has made her life much more pleasant.

“I am sorry,” I say, putting a hand on her shoulder. She leans against me, sobbing and wailing. She is soft and she is supple and she is taut. My cock stiffens inside my pants. She cannot know this, but tears are my ultimate aphrodisiac.

“Why, Jonah!”

Grief is a tedious thing to be around. It cannot be helped; it can only be endured. Time passes, and with it, the sadness. That is the theory, anyway. There are some losses that hurt the same decades after their occurrence. I doubt Jonah will fall into that category. He was a selfish, useless little shit. She will soon forget him. I already have.

I sit beside her on the bed and I let her lean on me, rubbing her back, sliding my hand over her leg, up her thigh.

“What the fuck are you doing!”

“Comforting you.”

“Trying to fuck me, you mean.”

“Nina…”

Her eyes flare at me. “Don't pretend you fucking care. I know you don’t give a fuck!”

Nina

I am so, so sad. And I am so, so angry. This fucking priest is about the sickest person I know.

“Are you capable of caring at all? I know you don’t care about me. I know you only care about my mom. Why don’t we fly back home. You can dig her up and fuck her rotting, mangled…”

I dodge the slap I knew would come. Bryn solves every problem with violence.

“Do not speak that way about her!”

I jump up from the bed and scream at him at the top of my lungs, snot running from my nose, tears coursing down my cheeks. Does he think this is hot? I bet he fucking does.

“You can’t handle she's gone. But she is. She’s gone and she's never coming back.”

He tries to grab me, but I move again. He won’t ever be able to catch me if I don’t want him to. It’s like when I saw him beating Jonah, except this time I am letting him see my abilities without any plausible deniability.

I am not like other girls.

I am not like other boys, for that matter.

I am not like anybody, and I have spent a lifetime hiding it. But not anymore. Not now, with this sick monster parading himself before me. He will not catch me. He will not hurt me. He will not subject me to a cruel and senseless punishment. I am hurt beyond hurt, and I will take no more pain.

“You move with the lightness of the angels,” he says, almost admiring me.

“You lumber like the devil you are,” I reply. “You sick, evil, twisted little man, using me as proxy for my own mother. I know you were behind what must have happened to Jonah. I do not trust you. I do not like you. I loathe you.”

The room is brighter than it was before. It is being lit with a glow that emanates from my skin. I have spent my whole life trying to hide this side of me, the freakish oddity that makes me faster than most and respond to heightened emotional moments with flushes and rushes of golden power. My mother taught me this was dangerous, that if the wrong people saw me like this, I would become prey. I never competed in any sports in case these abilities emerged before a crowd. I kept myself quiet and private and away from the world. I thought I was a freak, and for the last little bit I have allowed myself to imagine that Bryn might be the first person to understand.

He understands too much. He knows more about me than I do, and he is using me.

“I did not love your mother like a lover. I did not sleep with her. I worshipped her. I protected her. And while I may have had some earthly lust for her, that is not why her name left my lips when we last mated. I say her name as a prayer, a wish for salvation. Not just for me. But for you.”

“You’re lying.”

“Rejecting everything I say will make it impossible for you to ever understand the truth.”

“Your lies have made it impossible to trust you. I’m leaving now, Bryn. And if you try to follow me, you will regret it. Take whatever comfort you can in your weird painting room, because this is a face you will never see again.”

I am gone in a blinding flash, my inner power surging with enough intensity to hopefully melt his fucking retinas. I can’t stay to tell if I have done the damage I wanted to do, because I am too busy fleeing this dank little realm of evil.