“I don’t know you,” I shoot back. “And what I’ve seen doesn’t paint you as a victim.”
“I’m not a victim,” he says, simply. “I knew exactly what I was getting into when I asked your mother to marry me. She was terrified of the questions that would be asked if anyone discovered her pregnancy. I volunteered to help her cover it up.”
“Then you did use it to your advantage.”
“Absolutely. I was in love with your mother, Bronywyn. Head over heels, stupid in love. And if tying her to me through marriage was the only way I could get her to see just how much she meant to me, I was going to take it. Eventually, she did love me. We had your sister, and everything was perfect.”
“Until you ratted her out to the council.”
He swallows hard. “A vampire came to the house and threatened her. Said he’d discovered your true parentage and that he was going to the council if she didn’t help him destroy Joaquín.”
“Why?”
“The hunter had killed his clan.”
“How did he find out?”
“Apparently, Joaquín was overheard talking about a witch he’d fathered a child with. He was an arrogant bastard,” Clarance spits out. “Believed himself to be indestructible, as most hunters do.”
I briefly consider Rainey and her ‘don’t give a shit attitude’, but comparing her to the man who sired and abandoned me leaves a bad taste in my mouth, so I shove the thought away. “Why the hell would he talk so openly about something that broke The Accords?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. Though, I’m guessing his arrogance.”
“That makes no sense.”
“Joaquín was not a good man,” he says. “As I said, he was arrogant and believed himself to be above The Accords. As far as Astors go, he was a stain on their otherwise good name.”
I consider what he’s saying, even as I try like hell to find the inconsistency that points to the lie. “Did she help? The vampire?”
“No. Of course not. Your mother was loyal. Even after Joaquín’s betrayal, she refused. She tried to kill the vampire, but he was faster. I came home and found her in tears on the floor. When she’d told me—” He closes his eyes and tightens his hands into fists. An orange glow radiates up his arms. “I tried to leave, to track the son of a bitch down myself, but your mother made me promise not to. She told me that I had to pretend I didn’t know about the affair—that my only job was to protect you and your sister.”
“Why didn’t she run?”
“Doing so would have put you and your sister at risk. It would have been an admission of guilt, and she knew good and damn well I wouldn’t have been left behind.”
I consider his words and recall my argument against running from our Council summons. Apparently, I’m a lot more like my mother than I thought. I just don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing. “And then you would have been on the chopping block, too.”
“And no one could have protected you or your sister.”
“You let them kill her.” Fresh grief at the re-opened wound consumes me.
“I had no choice. It killed me, Bronywyn. You have no idea how I felt being forced to sit there and pretend I wasn’t dying right alongside her.”
“Then why the hell wouldn’t you tell me this before? Why let me believe you had her killed?”
A tear slips down his cheek. “You were young. If you’d said anything resembling the truth to anyone, we would have been discovered, and they would have come for all of us. It was easier for you to paint me as a monster, than for me to try and shield you and your sister from a Council determined to see you dead.”
“What about the potions that you made me drink?”
“Tonics to enhance your magic. I couldn’t risk losing you, so I made sure you came into your magic. I taught you to fight as a backup, but as it turns out, it wasn’t necessary since your hunter gene is dormant, anyway.”
“So everything you did was for my own good? That’s what you’re telling me? Treating me like garbage—like I was worthless? Pushing me away constantly and letting me grieve my mother alone?”
“I didn’t have a choice,” he insists. “If I’d shown you any mercy, at all, any display of love or affection, the council would have taken it upon themselves to kill you. Keeping you at arm’s length…it was the only way. You have to believe me.” He reaches forward and takes my hands in his, but I pull away, unwilling to feel the embrace of a man I’ve hated nearly my entire life.
“And what about Payton’s death? Huh?” I choke out, the memory of my sister’s murder pushing my mother’s death to the side momentarily. “She died when I was already an adult. You didn’t feel the need to come to me then? To help me bury your daughter?” I growl the words, so fucking angry to be reliving the worst moments of my life.
He shuts his eyes tightly, and tears slip down his cheeks. “You have no idea the weight of the guilt I carry with me over her death.” When his voice answers, barely above a whisper, a piece of the wall I’ve erected around my heart in defense of the man I knew as my father cracks. “I tried so hard to get her to come stay with me. To let me keep her safe, but she hated me.” His shoulders shake as he tries to hold in his sobs.