Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 65167 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 326(@200wpm)___ 261(@250wpm)___ 217(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65167 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 326(@200wpm)___ 261(@250wpm)___ 217(@300wpm)
“I don’t need you to teach me that,” I tell him. “I’ve proved it. I could have ended Richard.”
“But now you don’t have to. Your mother can blame me, for the fault of everything she’s borne lies with me.” He meets my gaze. “I’m asking for your forgiveness. For your mother. For Larissa. For you, Hannah.”
“Forgive you? For killing Richard? Hell, I should be laying a wreath at your feet.”
“Not for killing Richard. He earned his destiny. No.” My father shakes his head. “Forgive me for all the years of emotional abuse. For the years I mistreated your mother. For enslaving you to your vampire blood, making you come when called, making you do my dirty work.” He breathes in, exhales. “And for deceiving you. For deceiving you about Victor Rogan.”
I regard my father.
He looks…
Damn.
He still looks old.
His silver hair no longer looks vital, no longer reflects the light like polished steel. Instead it’s dull gray and carries the weight of his life lived. The lines around his eyes seem carved by years of silence and decisions he never let me question.
His presence used to fill an entire room. Now it just lingers in the ether.
“I was wrong to deceive you, Hannah,” he says. “I was wrong to underestimate you. I had my reasons, as you’ve know doubt guessed. But love won out over fate. Together, you and Rogan have achieved what should have been impossible.”
I swallow, listening to my father’s words.
There’s an honesty to them I’m not sure I’ve ever heard from him.
“You managed something I never could,” he continues. “You have singlehandedly united the worlds of the vampires, the lycans, and the humans,” he continues, lowering his gaze to my belly. “Your son is special. He will be a great—”
His voice breaks off.
Not in emotion.
In pain.
A staggering wince ripples through his face. He reaches for his chest.
“Daddy?” I step toward him.
He blinks once—slow, deliberate—but doesn’t respond.
The scent hits me before anything else. Iron and smoke. Something burning from the inside out.
Blood.
And not just any blood. His.
He falls to his knees.
“Daddy!”
I drop to his side, cradling him. His heartbeat is faint, but I hear it. Each thud is a hollow echo of a man whose body is giving up long before his mind is ready.
“I knew it was coming,” he breathes. “Ending Richard would…end me.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I whisper.
“Because I needed you to hear the truth first. To see me as something other than a monster.”
I hold him tighter. “I never wanted this. I never wanted you to die.”
“You didn’t,” he says. “But I did.”
His eyes flicker open again, just for a moment. Clear. Focused. On me.
“I deserved to be feared,” he says. “And I struggled for decades to prolong my life. But I always hoped that one day…you’d see the man I could have been.”
I press my forehead to his. My voice cracks. “I forgive you.”
He exhales, sharp and shaky, as if those words carry weight no spell could ever match. His body softens in my arms.
“I forgive you,” I repeat, firmer now. “For the lies. The control. The pain. I forgive you, Daddy. Now, please forgive yourself.”
He smiles then.
A real one. Small. Tired. But real.
“So much I should have told you,” he says.
“Yes, please. Alara said you had to tell my why the blood gene—”
He winces but manages to raise a hand to stop me. “Reach into my inside chest pocket.”
I want to question him but think better of it. He’s fading quickly. I reach underneath his duster and grasp something cold and hard. I pull out—
“Oh my God…” It’s a bottle of root beer. Just like we shared at the matinee that day so far in the past. Tears well in my eyes. “Daddy…”
He holds his hand up again. “This is what I should have told you long ago. I never appreciated what I am. I ran from it. But know this about your heritage. The blood lust doesn’t define you. It toughens you. You are not immortal, but you are formidable—your strength greater, your senses keener, your presence heavier than any human could endure. Every heartbeat is a weapon, every breath a promise. It is a gift carved in darkness, not to free you from death, but to make life burn brighter, fiercer. Freer, Hannah. I’m finally free.” He raises his arm, barely touches my cheek. “And you. You’re free now, Hannah. You’re free.”
Then his body goes still.
No final words. No dramatic gasp. Just stillness.
The kind that’s absolute.
I sit there for a long time, my arms still wrapped around him, my cheek resting against his shoulder. Richard’s body lies in the distance, and the ether is still.
So still.
I look down at my father’s lifeless form.
He was cruel.
He was manipulative.
But he was still my father. I wouldn't exist but for him.
And in the end, he chose to die to free me from the burden of ending my mother’s husband.