Life Is But A Dream

Home, Sweet Home

     I froze when he entered the room, but it only lasts a few minutes before I remember how to speak.

"What the hell am I doing here??" I almost yell at him, jumping to my feet despite the painful protest of my aching body.

"Now, now. Is that any way to speak to your father?" He replies, with a small, smug smile.

"You stopped being my father when you abandoned me and my mother. The only family I have now are the people that took me in after my mother died. Not that you cared what happened to either of us." I sneer back at him.

"Come on Shadow, isn't it worth something that I brought you here and want to be in your life now?"

"So now you want to be a part of my life, fifteen years after you abandoned me and my family gets attacked?!" I can feel the familiar heat of anger growing in my chest. "There is nothing that you can say or do that will make me forgive you for what you did and let you be anything more than a stranger to me!"

"If I'm nothing more than a stranger to you, then how did you know it was me?" He asks calmly. "If it weren't for me having a bit of fun with your mother, you wouldn't even be here to hate me."

"I only know it's you because of the unwanted family bond I still have with you. You were never a part of my life and you never will be. Although, yes, I suppose I should be somewhat grateful you decided to have one night of lust with my mother. But you didn't care what happened to her afterwards, what her family thought of her after you took her innocence. Hell, you left the second she told you I was going to be born and wanted nothing more from her than the tryst that you got. You don't care about anything or anyone but yourself and what you'll gain." I state calmly, though I'm fuming inside.

     I'm furious that I'm here, in his "home". I'm pissed off that I'm even talking to him, but I can't see any other way around it. There's only one way into, and out of, this room, and he's blocking it intentionally. The only way I see myself getting out of this alive, is to play along with his game until I have my chance to escape. I have a feeling he isn't going to let me go without a fight, even if not right away.

     I take a steadying breath and put on a mask of indifference. I can't let him know how much he's affecting my ability to think, anymore than I already have. I need to keep myself in check so I can find out as much as I can without giving anything away.

"Alright, you obviously wanted to talk to me since you brought me here. What did you want to talk about that was so important?" I ask, tenderly easing myself back on the chaise lounge I previously occupied.

     The man who happens to be my father, takes his time answering me, skeptically looking me over to see what I was trying to do. "Well, Shadow. The reason you're here, involves your future. You're my sole heir. As hard as it may be for you to believe, I had no children with anyone but your mother. There's going to be a time when you have to take over my royal lineage. I've let you run about for long enough without interfering in how those...mutts, were raising you. Now that they're gone, I can raise you like you should've been all these years."

     I looked away from him, staring at the floor, unseeing, once he started talking. I could feel myself getting angrier with every word that came out his mouth. Calling my family mutts, thinking I would just hand over my freedom so easily. The nerve this guy had, astounded me. I couldn't believe what I was hearing, I didn't want to believe any of it. He'd never had any other children? That sounded like absolute shite to me.

     I remember my mother telling me all the times she'd see my father, one women after another hanging off his arm, vying for his attention and affection. So many times she'd seen him take someone else to bed, when he promised they would be together. My mother, a Duke's daughter, royal blood. My father, a long-since forgotten title I had no care for, royal blood. I was, in every sense, a royal outcast. A bastard child.

"What do you say, Shadow? Take over my legacy when the time comes?" His words were barely a whisper to me, so close and so cold.

"What's in it for me besides your "legacy"? I'm an outcast, a bastard child. No amount of royal blood and lineage will make people forget that." I quip back, cold, and emotionless. I've come to accept that no matter where I am or what happens to me, no one will be able to forget that.

"Come now, Shadow. Put that in the past. You are, after all, my daughter, and everyone around here knows what happens when you disturb my peace." He whispered in my ear, with a bone-chilling air of dominance and a sinister smile slowly creeping across his face.

    He said all this in an attempt to scare me. Force me to submit to him. He may have royal blood pumping through his lifeless heart that commands submission and obedience, but I have the same blood running through my veins. I never submit. But I also, never force anyone to submit to me. I am neither my father, nor my mother.
     I am not lifeless and cold, sinister about everything I do. Nor am I sweet and innocent, easily fooled and manipulated. I loved my mother, for the five years I had her. But I learned who I couldn't be by being with her, and I learned who I had to be by being without my father.

     As I sat there, head hanging; trying to regain my indifferent mask of composure, taking slow, deliberate, deep breaths, my vision kept changing. My vision kept fading from red, to black, back to normal and all over again until finally, it stayed normal. Once it wasn't switching because of my uncontrolled rage, fueled by Cadence, I looked up at the man who was worse in person than I thought as a child.

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