Daughter of the Devil

Chapter 24

Little did I know that another Ridlandian ship was already on the way to escort my original ride. They found the carnage, found me unconscious, and realized what happened. In the end, my rampage failed in all but destroying a ship and taking the lives of ten people. It did not actually give me anything.

They took me to Bellinor, but didn't torture me again. Not yet, at least. There, I figured out the route that they had taken. They captured me in Estia, then went west instead of north, traveling along the border between Ala and Dolkia, finally meeting the ship at the Meer Ocean. I was unconscious most of the way. They used some kind of potion to keep me asleep. The entire journey took about a month. It was a brilliant plan, and they had covered their tracks incredibly well. Even Solon hadn't seen it coming.

Solon. It was the first time I'd thought about him in a month. I'd been too busy trying to stay alive. Would he find me? Rescue me? It wasn't as if the Onians didn't know where I was. But was I worth the effort to try to save? Every Selten knew that if you got captured, you were on your own unless you were someone important. If Mara were captured, a member of the SGE, they would send a party to come and get her. But me? Was I important enough to risk losing lives over? I doubted it. And there would definitely be questions concerning whether I had actually been captured or let of my own free accord. Some people would believe that I was a spy, and after gathering enough information, I had simply left.

A few days after arriving in Bellinor, they took me out of my cell. Dressed me up like I was a doll going to a party. And I was. They marched me into the ballroom full of people to show off what they had done. How they had captured the Devil. I knew they expected me to cower but I didn't. I held my head high, even if it was hard. I would not bow to these people.

That was until I saw my father. I caught a glimpse of his scarred face out of the corner of my eye and I had to turn and look. And there he was. That same cold expressionless face. The same clothes. The same scar. The same man. Sure, he looked a little different. Older. Thinner. Paler. But mostly he looked the same. It occurred to me that while I had spent all this time growing and changing and was no longer recognizable as the scared seventeen year old girl that lived for her father's approval, Birsha had stayed much the same. I almost felt bad for him. But then I remembered what the kidnapper had called me when he whispered in my ear. Chuck. My father had no small part in the plan. He was the mastermind.

And when that small piece of knowledge hit, I no longer felt bad for him. I strode over to him in anger, intending to yell, wanting to tear him apart, but he spoke first.

"What can I do for you, Chuck?" he asked sarcastically. I was shocked into silence for a moment before I actually looked at his face. .

It was that look on his face that gave him away. The same way he'd looked at me since I was a child. As if this was all in his expectations. That was when the truth hit me.

"You knew." I had meant the words to come out as a ferocious growl, but instead it was a little girl's voice, the one who trusted her father with her life.

"I suspected." There was no mercy in his eyes, no emotion, just a soldier staring into the eyes of his worst enemy.

"You knew before I ever even questioned it." Now he stayed silent, having said all that was needed of him.

And those monsters laughed. Laughed at what an idiot I had been, to not realize it before, to take this long to figure out just the kind of man my father truly was. He had known—suspected—I was Selten from the start. All of his careful observations, distance, manipulation, had all been to keep me from finding out the truth. To stop my powers from ever activating.

"You rushed my marriage to Will, wanted to get me off of your hands." This time the words did come out in a growl, my teeth pulled back in a snarl of the wolf, promising violence. "You never moved us to the city because there would have been too many people, too many expectations, too many eyes to watch as you observed me, your daughter, like an animal locked in a cage."