Darkness Hunts (Dark Angels 4)

Until he decided it was better for him that they weren’t. Whatever else my father might be, I very much doubted that he’d be a benevolent dictator.

But that was not an argument I was going to get into. “Malin did something to me, but I can’t tell you what. She erased the memory.”

“She more than likely sharpened the frequency of the device so that its call would be more instantaneous. That’s what I would have done in her place.”

“Maybe.” Maybe not. I wasn’t trusting an Aedh to do the expected, my father included.

“Nor should you.” He paused. “I see that you have had a parting of the way with the Aedh. That is unfortunate.”

It was, but why the hell would my father think that? Had I been right in my earlier suspicions? And did I really want to know just how much Lucian had played me for a fool?

No, I thought. But I asked all the same. “What Aedh are we talking about now?”

“You are not stupid, Risa. Please do not act like it.”

“Lucian.” God, I thought, had every single moment with him been filled with nothing more than lies and schemes?

“As you have partially guessed, he and I are adversaries.” There was cool amusement in his voice, and I wasn’t sure why. “But what you do not know is that once we were allies. In fact, he was my chrání—what you would call either a student or protégé.”

Shock coursed through me. “You and Lucian? Allies? Then why in the hell does he hate you so much?”

“Because I never intended to share domination. Once the keys were safely in the possession of my Razan, I betrayed him to make my own escape.”

He was the reason Lucian had been stripped of his powers. Fuck, the hate I’d seen had been aimed at me as much as the Raziq—not only because I was Hieu’s offspring, but because I’d also betrayed him by not using his sorceress’s ward.

“Then how did you get caught? Or was that another lie to get me to do your bidding?”

“The chrání knew more than I thought, hence I was captured. I was stripped of my flesh form during Malin’s attempts to gain the location of the keys, but I could not give what I did not have.”

“Why did they keep you alive? After all, I was born by that time. They didn’t need you to get to me.”

“Yes, but I was the only one who knew the clues. Malin, for all her power, could not take that information from me.”

And then he’d somehow escaped his prison. But thanks to his capture, he’d missed his meeting with his Razan—who had, as he’d ordered, killed themselves to protect the earthly location of the keys. “Why was Lucian left alive?”

“As I said, he was my chrání. I have no doubt that Malin thought I might attempt to contact him again.”

“Well, that’s a stupid thought given how much he appears to hate Raziq.”

“She would not understand such emotion. Few of us do.”

Because they didn’t do emotions. And yet Lucian did. Was it simply a result of being made less than he was, or were there deeper reasons?

My father was obviously following my thoughts, because he said, “For an Aedh, being less than you were is a far worse fate than being dead.”

Which explained the fierceness that drove my father. He wanted domination—particularly over those who had made him less than he was.

“Even as I am, I am far more than Malin and her rabble will ever be.” There was no conceit in my father’s voice, no hint of boasting in his words. He merely stated a fact as he saw it. From the little I’d seen of the two parties, he did seem the stronger. And he was certainly more cunning.

“Why didn’t you warn me that Lucian was an adversary? He’s linked sexually to my thoughts, and no doubt tracking your intentions through me.”

“As I was tracking his movements and thoughts—and therefore the movements of the dark sorceress he plays with—through you.”

I frowned. “Why would you be tracking her movements? She’s not the one who took the keys.”

“You are sure of this? Because I am not.”

“Her energy wasn’t the same.” It was almost stubbornly said. I knew what I’d felt, and Lauren’s energy wasn’t what I’d sensed when the key went missing.