The Good Daughter

Fourteen

"Dear one."

For fucks sake. "Not in the mood." All I wanted was some goddamn food, did he have to ruin that too?

"Perhaps you would be asleep had you eaten dinner as I asked." Elijah grabbed a blood bag from the fridge and held it out to me. "Drink."

"I'm not doing meditations right now."

His brow rose.

"I was entirely fine while you were... asleep." It was a wager. Had Marcel ratted me out? "Now if you don't mind, I'll be eating my cheese in peace."

A cheese stick. I hadn't had one in so long.

Elijah shut the door before I could stop it. "You'll not be skipping meals."

"What are you gonna do? Ground me?" I rolled my eyes. "You already killed off your only leverage."

His narrowed. "Drink."

"No." Good god did that feel good.

"Perhaps young Tyler Lockwood won't appreciate your defiance quite as much as you do." Elijah grasped my wrist and deposited the bag in my hand.

"You wouldn't."

"I think we've established what I would and would not do, no?"

Fucker.

"These petty little rebellions will end. We are going to Europe and we are going to pick up where we left off in your schedule. Do you understand me?"

I wanted so badly to talk back. To speak my mind. But he wasn't above killing someone I cared about in order to make me behave.

Tyler was finally happy.

Or so the reports have said.

He didn't deserve to get dragged into Original drama again.

"I expect an answer, Morgan." His voice got lower in that firm tone I fucking hated. "Do you understand me?"

"Yes." I grit out, no matter how much I despised when he did that.

"As I said, drink."

Would it be pushing it to try and drink this in my room?

"Your stubbornness will only harm you in the end."

He wouldn't leave me alone until I did it.

I brought the straw to my lips and fought the urge to turn away from his ever watchful eye. This was stupid. I was fine. The ripper in me should be satisfied, at least for the moment.

Veins immediately slipped down my cheeks like water.

Elijah tutted.

"No. You don't get to do that." I pointed at him. "I was in a box for nearly a decade. It's going to be a minute before I can drink without my expression."

"Seven years." He leaned against the counter. "You were under the dagger for seven years. Five of which I could not have taken the dagger from you, even if I wished it."

"I want to feel bad for," I gestured at him. "That. But you and Nik went and pissed off Marcel. You know, the other adopted one, and he was just petty enough to find a way to try and kill you. You're fucking lucky he didn't. I want you and everyone in this house to remember that Marcel isn't the only one who can get creative."

"If you could, you would have done so."

"Or maybe I was clinging desperately to people who no longer exist, maybe I thought our familial relationship meant something." His jaw clenched and I relished that I was throwing his words back at him. "Perhaps the deaths of my brothers was a good thing. It certainly made me realize that what binds us together is what we make it to be. Family... enemies... it's all quite arbitrary, no?"

Elijah said nothing.

"You dishonored Nik's deal. Ignored my pleas, my warnings of what might happen. Sure I can lose Tyler, but then you would have nothing. The dagger does little to quell the rage I have, the box as well, you cannot restrict my blood as you are afraid of the ripper in me... you will not know a moment of peace so long as I live."

He wasn't even man enough to do the dirty work himself. Nik always daggered me.

I said as much.

"And it will be a very long time that you live."