A Legacy of the Damned: Daughter of Astaroth

Chapter 66 - Family Intervention

I had hoped and dreamt that Freyja was my mother when I was a little girl. A few times I even suspected it, but to hear Astaroth confirmed it now is something else. It's devastating. It feels as though the fissure around my heart cracked right open.

The room still looks the same and I'm standing at the very spot I had stood on my birthday more than eleven years ago.

In my mind, I'm back at that very moment when I had just pulled the trigger. Her warm blood splattered all over my face and the front of my dress. I stood dry-eyed and expressionless, watching her twitching on the floor even after a part of her head was already blown.

A while later, she stopped moving and breathing. She's gone. She was truly gone and she's not coming back. I did that.

The seven-year-old me learned that day that the heart could break and there are things that can't be undone. There are some courses of action that you have to live with for the rest of your life.

I snap out of my pain-filled daze when my arms are being yanked up and I hear a sharp click of metal.

My eyes move up to where my arms are dangling from metal chains. He had clamped metal cuffs around my wrists when I wasn't paying attention.

"What are you doing?" I growl, tugging at my hands violently. "Was this how you trap my mother?" I yank, twist, and snarl, trying to get out of the restraining shackles and chains.

"No, my darling. Your mother wasn't quite as feral as you are." Astaroth grips the back of my neck with one hand. He's not being rough but his thumb is pressing on the base of my jugular, a warning for me to behave. "Freyja was softhearted. The only way to trap her was through love."

Freyja was kind and loving and he totally used that against her. I start struggling again and he increases the pressure on my windpipe, stopping my airflow. I have no doubt whatsoever that he'd continue to do so until I pass out or die. So I stop moving.

He eases his thumb off my neck as a reward. It's like training a pet. Then he strokes the spot with the pad of his thumb and flashes me a charming grin, showing a row of straight white teeth.

"I was handsome and charming and she was young, younger than you are now when we met," he continues with a deceptively cordial and calm voice. "I swept her off her feet and before she knew what was happening, she was pregnant with you. By then it was too late. I wouldn't let you go. I claimed you after she gave birth to you and she couldn't leave without you. You see, she loved you too much."

I grit my teeth and shoot him a baleful look. My feelings for Astaroth are complicated. I hate him with the strength of a thousand levels of hell.

I worship him and I think deep down I love him too but I wouldn't hesitate to destroy him and send him to the pits of hell if I had the chance.

I fear him for sure. He's a powerful demon and he had me at his mercy for so long.

"You were a big part of my plan, Danica," he continues. His other hand comes up to lovingly stroke my cheek. "Valkyries were supposed to have a special connection to things they were assigned to guard. Freyja refused to do my bidding even when she was smitten with me.

"But you made up for it. You helped me get the first Grimoire," he announces and I stiffen. I hate that I can't tell whether he's telling me the truth or not. "I don't suppose you were aware of that. You were much too young and you were merely following my orders blindly.

"You're supposed to get me the rest of them. You were supposed to track them down and bring them all back to me."

"Sorry to disappoint you, daddy. I wasn't aware that I had to play fetch," I snap with an insolent smile.