He frowned, placing his hands on his hips before lifting his head to stare at me. “You think I wanted this for you? I didn’t have a fucking choice. I had to decide the fate of two children. One was my heir, and born of my true mate. The other was the serving girl’s bastard, which would never be anything more than what I made her to be. I only had one option when they first attacked, looking for my son. It doesn’t change who you are or what you became. You’ve always been this bright light in a dull fucking world. You ignited and accelerated when you began training. I expected you to fail, because your genetic makeup wasn’t half of what Noah has. You outranked him on every test and skill. You showed up to show off since the day you were born. Noah was sickly, but you were this healthy babe that never cried, and just watched him from your crib inside my office.”
“I had to be extra diligent, training day and night because everyone whispered about me. They figured you were playing favorites, and that I was nothing but a spoiled little bitch. I was your daughter, which meant I had to be better and go hard at everything I did. It turns out that it wasn’t me you were going easy on the entire time. It was your precious prince, and I was just thrown to the wolves. And now, I am aware of it all.”
“We need to figure out how to move on from here, Kid.”
I ground my jaw together, watching as his cheek jumped at the sound. Power erupted behind the door, and Eryx, Rhys, Cole, Ezekiel, and Enzo came into the den, sliding curious gazes to where Xavier stood in front of me.
“Rhys, have you or your team found any more unwanted babies in the woods?” Xavier asked.
“You planning to use them as bait, too?” I smiled coldly, and the immortals that had just entered the room went stiff, turning guilt-ridden eyes in my direction.
“No, but they’re not surviving long enough for that purpose, hunter. Put a fucking pin in it, or go home and cool off.” I turned, bumping into Rhys and Cole as I tried to leave. “Sit the fuck down, now. You’re needed for this conversation. Not as bait, but because you work through problems with a skill that no one else can achieve.”
“What’s the matter? Underestimate my willingness to leave here and never look back?” I countered, crossing my arms to lean against the exit. So what if the immortals thought I was being more childish than they already believed?
My entire world had just been ripped apart in less than an hour. Today was officially the worst Monday of my life.
Rhys studied me briefly, then turned his dark, midnight stare back to my father, who’d moved to the center of the room. I looked to the unguarded doorway, but something slithered along my leg, and I peered down at the wispy tendrils of black smoke that had wrapped around it. My attention shifted to Kieran, and he frowned with what appeared to be genuine regret.
Fuck him too. I didn’t need a damn babysitter.
“There were no children or infants that we could find. Conrad sent his pack out, and if anyone were out there, he’d have found them. We haven’t discovered any more corpses, but Bali and Brodie have people looking for anything inside the states that would trigger alarm bells. Kieran ordered more E.V.I.E. agents in the area to be on hand if needed. They’ll appear to be here for the service. We have hundreds of people coming in, each using your untimely demise as their cover. Saint is en route as well.” Rhys completed his report and turned to Cole, who was watching me with an unguarded look. “Cole has ears to the ground, and has been monitoring the traffickers while we direct our skills elsewhere.”
“Did you convince Remington to create more ammo and weapons?” Xavier asked, frowning as Rhys shook his head. “I didn’t think that would work. She’s rather peeved that you kicked her out while she’s pregnant.”
“It isn’t something I’m willing to talk about here, Xavier,” Rhys’s tone was filled with anger. “That woman has turned everything upside down.”
Xavier nodded. “So, what are the fae missing from their process? Why are their changelings dying soon after birth?”
“You got me,” Rhys snorted.
“Maybe they lack a genetic marker,” Enzo offered, leaning against the wall beside Kieran. He shifted, staring at the male before snorting and moving further away from him. “When demons are born, we have certain safeguards that we have to hold within us, or we’d die before breathing air into our lungs. They may be missing something needed to sustain life when the babies are transplanted into the host,” he pointed out.
“Maybe, but half-breeds can birth fae babes. Xariana’s mother was a good example. She was only one-third fae, and she delivered Xari at full term, and she was healthy. Noah’s mother wasn’t, and he was born early and sickly.”
The immortals looked at me before sliding their attention back to Xavier, confused. I turned it over in my mind, tilting my head slightly before my father’s words interrupted my thought process.
“What is it, Xari?” he asked, knowing my brain enjoyed solving puzzles.
“I almost fucked the King of the Shadow Court.” I snorted, watching the anger enter his eyes, and he lowered his stare to where the tendrils of shadows held my leg. It felt good to piss him off, but that wasn’t helping the problem we were facing. “None of this makes sense, but then neither does implanting a growing fetus into another body. They’d have to inseminate pregnancy to have the womb there to accept the embryo. You can’t just shove a fetus into someone and expect it to grow. It doesn’t work like that. They’ve figured that out, but why reject the babes once they are born? Maybe they’re only abandoning the weak ones. We counted the number of children the sheriff found, comparing them to the women in the morgue and the ones in the house where your fucking corpse—your brother was. We had more adult females than we had babies, and those had given birth, albeit violently.”
“I calculated also, but discovered the same amount of bodies as infants.” My father rubbed his chin, leaning over the desk before he stood. “The first group, though, they were off.”
“No shit? Gees, I didn’t think about that,” I snorted. “Are we done? I want to be pretty much anywhere you’re not right now.”
“Go and get your shit together. You need to handle your emotions.”
“Me? I just had everything I thought I knew about myself torn apart. But yeah, I can stick a pin in the fucking grenade. What is it that I can do for you, father?” I asked, but the coldness in my tone said I couldn’t care less if he needed me or not.
“I want you at the mansion,” he ordered. “I need you stable and with your emotions under control for the funeral. We’re being watched.”
“Good, let them fucking come for me. It’s what I’m here for, right?” I laughed, bordering on hysterics, before I exited the door.
“Micah, let’s you and I speak outside, alone.” My father’s tone caught my attention, but I wasn’t staying to hear their conversation.
I would handle my business because that was who I was. Afterward though? I wasn’t sticking around to be fodder for the fae. I hadn’t asked to be born or used as bait. I had spent my life assuming my father loved me, when he’d simply needed me to protect the child that meant the world to him. Fuck them all and everything they expected from me.