Adrienne winced in sympathy when her father yanked the knife from Gabriel’s shoulder.
He wished he could tell her to save her sympathy for someone who deserved it. Someone whose own brother wasn’t going to try to kill her just to get to him.
Riddick dropped the bloody knife into a waiting basin and pressed an alcohol-soaked pad against the wound, none too gently. “Now,” he said, “Talk. Tell us everything—and I do mean everything—about this brother of yours.”
Gabriel frowned and leaned back on his cot in the infirmary. Judging by the way Riddick was looking at him right now, his first impulse had been to take him to a holding cell for questioning. It was probably only Adrienne’s presence that softened his resolve in any way.
Harper didn’t look especially friendly, either, as she crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him. “And know that if you keep anything from us again, I won’t be as forgiving as I’ve been so far. I’ll happily turn you over to Mischa, who will promptly throw your ass into the deepest, darkest pit Midvale has to offer.”
Gabriel had no doubt the Vampire Council’s brutal enforcer would love nothing more than to lock him up forever. She’d never been a fan of his, especially since he’d told her that Lane was…different.
Different meaning an aberration of some sort. Not even Gabriel knew what the child really was. She wasn’t human, and she wasn’t demon. She was something else entirely.
And Mischa did not like to think about that.
So Gabriel figured it was time to tell Harper, Riddick, and Adrianne the whole story.
“Where I’m from,” he began, “the higher-level demons—like me and my brother—are of the ruling class. It’s our job to police and control the population of lesser demons—by whatever means necessary.”
Harper blinked at him. “So, you’re like, what, a prince?”
“Well, sort of, I guess.”
“You’re shitting me. A demon prince?”
He shrugged. “We don’t really have titles like that, but no, I’m not shitting you.”
“So, why’d you leave?” Riddick asked. “If you were next in line for the throne, why give it all up to come here?”
Gabriel swallowed the dislodge the lump that had settled in his throat. It didn’t work. “I didn’t want anything to do with my father’s plans. Ruling one small hell dimension wasn’t good enough for him. He wanted them all. He had a group of demons who could open rifts, and he was building armies to come through and conquer every realm.”
Harper snorted. “Every realm? Pretty fucking ambitious, wasn’t he?”
She had no idea. “He would’ve done it. The vampires and shifters here might’ve put up a good fight, but his armies would’ve burned every human off the face of this planet.”
He felt Adrianne’s eyes on him. She was sitting on the end of his cot, but he refused to return her gaze. He wasn’t sure if she was looking on him with pity or disgust, and he really didn’t want to know.
His past was ugly, and he’d never wanted that ugliness to touch her as it had tonight.
But now, there was no going back.
Harper cleared her throat. “So, your dad was a bad dude. Got it. That’s why you came through the rift? Because you didn’t want to be part of the conquering army?”
If only it were that simple…
“To say my father was displeased with my decision to not participate in his multi-dimensional war would be an understatement,” Gabriel said wryly. “He locked me up so that I could think about my insubordination—and he gave me incentives to change my mind.”
And in his case, locked up meant being chained—by the neck—to a wall in the darkest pits of his father’s dungeon and tortured nearly to death.
The good thing about being a demon was his incredibly fast healing ability. He could recover (and had recovered) from everything from being flayed alive, to being drawn and quartered in a relatively short amount of time.
The bad thing about being a demon was that he’d live for eons and never forget what it felt like to be flayed alive or drawn and quartered.
He felt a wave of warm empathy and outrage on his behalf roll over him.
Adrianne.
He glanced up and when his eyes met hers, in that moment, he knew she understood what he was leaving out of the story. What his existence was like during that time. The empathic ability in her bloodline hadn’t skipped her generation entirely, it would seem.
So, once again, he’d let the ugliness of his life sully her. Perfect. He was on a roll today.
“How’d you escape?” Riddick asked quietly.
He tore his gaze away from Adrianne’s and glanced down at his clenched hands. “The bloody way.”
Gabriel had played dead one day. In the state he’d been in, it hadn’t been difficult to convince one of his father’s guards that he’d died after a particularly creative round of torture.
It had taken every last bit of his strength to get ahold of that guard and drain him of all his energy. That infusion of power made it easier for Gabriel to kill the next five guards he encountered.
“One of the guards had mentioned seeing the beginnings of a rift on the outskirts of our lands. I knew my only shot at survival was getting through that rift. But I couldn’t go knowing my father’s plans. And I couldn’t leave my little brother. So, I…eliminated the demons I knew could open rifts for my father, grabbed my brother, and ran as fast as I could to that rift.”
When he paused, Harper said, “And you made it through, but your brother didn’t.”
Gabriel nodded, memories of the worst day of his life threatening to overtake him. His father had been there at the rift, waiting for them.
He could still feel the heat from the ball of white-hot fire his father had leveled on him—the fire that had shoved him through the rift.
The fire that had been so powerful, it’d forced him to let go of his brother’s hand.
The last thing he heard when he fell through the rift was his little brother screaming his name.
I let go. I lost him.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Adrianne whispered.
Oh, if only that were true. “I’m guessing he doesn’t feel that way, seeing as he wants me dead.”
And I can’t say I blame him.
“So, if your brother can open rifts, why hasn’t dear old dad made his bid to take over the world yet?” Harper asked.
“Roan was young when I left—at least a decade of your human years younger than me,” Gabriel said. “His ability was just barely manifesting at that time. It would’ve taken a long time—if ever—for him to become strong enough to open rifts and control them.”
And his father would’ve made sure Roan spent every second of the time Gabriel had been gone to perfect his powers. His entire life would’ve been training, endurance exercises, and pain.
“His name is Roan?” Adrianne asked.
Gabriel nodded, but from the doorway, Benny asked, “Like in The Lord of the Rings?”
“No, you’re thinking of Rohan,” Harper said with an eye roll. “Roan.”
“Like the guy in that comic book movie you made me watch?” Riddick asked, looking confused.
Harper pursed her lips. “That was Ronan the Accuser. He said his brother’s name was Roan, for fuck’s sake. I swear, I’m making pop culture a part of the training program around here. You guys are seriously slipping.”
Adrianne’s snort of laughter was enough to break the grim mood the room had taken on since he started spilling his guts about his past.
Until Riddick spoke up again, that is.
“So, I assume now that Roan has found you, your father—and his army—aren’t too far behind, huh?”
He nodded. “That’s probably a safe assumption.”
Harper sighed. “Oh, balls.”
Yep. That pretty much summed it all up.