The Devil's Masquerade: The Poison (27 page)

“No, I don’t. Not anymore. Have you met my grandson?”

“I guess you think you can simply replace me with Nicholas?”

“Of course not. That would be a step down for him. Galena will be taking over the sixth until I can clear the eighth position for Nicholas,” I say proudly.

“Have you lost your mind?” Gideon stands in a rage. “I refuse to bow down to you. When the High Council hears of your plan, they will force
you
down! You will never regain the ninth again!” he yells as Galena arrives with her men.

“Don’t worry, Gideon. The High Council will never know anything other than that you kindly stepped down to allow someone younger and more capable to handle the position. You will be allowed to come back once I take care of the others. For now, you will be in a private prison I have had designed just for you. Get him out of here. It is nearly my dinner time.” I don’t bother to listen to his huffs or look his way as he glares at me. I wait for him to be gone before sending for Nicholas to have him join me for dinner. He is coming along quite nicely, and I couldn’t be more proud.

When Galena returns, I meet her in the study and send Nicholas to handle some light business for me. “Everything go well?”

“It went as expected. Thank you for the opportunity, Father. I promise I won’t let you down,” Galena says with excitement.

“It is nothing. Just make sure to protect Nicholas. That is your only job right now,” I say to her.

“I don’t think he is going to join you like you think. He is still connected to his previous life and his family. He fears what they may think of him, if they find out what he does for you. He allows Delin to do most of the killing.”

“We are his family now. They are nothing. Outside of young Nicky, the rest mean nothing to me. Although, if we can gain Ryan too, that could assure us pure dominance. You at sixth, Nicholas at eighth, and I could put Ryan at seventh. We already have Keel at first. Marius is of no threat. He is too stupid,” I say, glancing her way to force my point. We can bring back Gideon once the others are in place and give him the third as reward for keeping his mouth shut. Once young Nicky is ready, we push Marius down to first, move Keel up to second, and move Nick into fourth. Having complete control, will force the High Council to back off of me, and to stop sending their watch dog, Kamini, out after me.”

“Clearly, you have a complete plan, but you still have obstacles to overcome, Father,” Galena says, snapping me out of my daydream.

The reality of my world is unsettling. “I want his wife killed and his youngest as soon as it is allowed. I want Nicky placed away from Nicholas until he is able to handle his father.” I look Galena over. “You keep him. It will be your opportunity to be a mother. Just make sure you don’t get too attached – he is not yours. Once Nicholas is placed in his position, I will take Nicky in and train him. In the meantime, we need to find the perfect mate for Nicholas. I need him to produce another. Fagan’s daughter, how she is coming along?”

“She is quite anxious to meet Nicholas from what I understand. Apparently, he has made quite the impression on her,” Galena says, not realizing the position I put Ria in hoping she could help rid Kayla from my worries. So far, she has failed.

“I am afraid that she is too weak. Not sure she will do. Gather some other possibilities just in case. My grandson is quite powerful. I don’t want him killing the woman as he fucks her, at least not until she bares his child.”

“How do you plan to get him to forget his … forget Kayla and the children he already has? He is quite dedicated to them,” she says in confusion.

“With each battle and each kill, he is becoming more and more distant from them. Eventually, he won’t be nearly as concerned. It will take time of course, but it will be well worth the trouble,” I say excitedly.

“Oh really? He seemed quite excited to tell me about the last birthday party they had for young Brayden today. He seemed to recall every detail with no problem at all, even adding in how wonderful of a mother Kayla is,” Galena says with a smile. “He is not forgetting them at all.

Slamming my fists down onto the desk, I stare off, trying to figure out how that could be possible. “He is still seeing her somehow. Get Ria in here!” That woman is not as good of a chameleon as she has led me to believe, and that is grounds for termination.

“I will talk to her, but what can she do to help? Nicholas is not going to accept her unless she is Kayla, and she has already said that he was too powerful for her to be able to hold Kayla’s image on him.”

“Maybe she can be of use in another way. Nicholas is going to need a distraction. I am obviously going to need to inflict him with the poison, and I can’t do that in his sleep. I need him to be awake and strong.”

“Are you sure that is a good idea? What if it kills him? You said yourself only the strongest survive it.”

“Are you questioning me?” I ask, and she instantly cowers. “There needs to be another attack on Nicholas’s home, on his family. They need to go through a terrible tragedy. We will need to be able to show Nicholas his precious Kayla’s lifeless body and convince him that there is nothing to go back to. Once he believes that, he will trust us to help him seek revenge for her death, and then, the dragon can take him.” Galena looks my way with fear. She does not believe he can survive, but I know my grandson, and he can survive the harshest of treatments. This is for his own good, for our family’s own good.

Chapter 33

Galena

“Good morning,” Nicholas says to me with a sweet kiss to my cheek. I hate to have to lie to him, but it is best for him. “Is there something wrong?” he asks, looking at me with concern.

“Nephew, you should sit down.” I comfort him into a seat. “Something happened last night, and I hate to have to tell you this, but your home was attacked.”

“What? Why are you just telling me this now? Why didn’t someone wake me? I have to go,” he says jumping from his chair and racing toward the door.

“Nicholas no, you can’t. The scene is a horrible sight. Father is trying to find out right now if anyone survived.” The heartbreak in his eyes hurts me. “We believe your brother managed to escape with young Nicky.”

“And Kayla? Brayden?” he asks.

I shake my head, unable to say the words. His expression tears me to pieces. “I can take you to her,” I say, wanting to drop to my knees and beg him for forgiveness. He doesn’t speak. He just forces me to take him right away. I have our driver ready to go when we step outside, and we rush straight to the hospital. I glance his way during the ride there, and he makes no movements. He is barely breathing.

Nicholas’s stiff presence does not change. Even as he walks through the hospital, he seems to be in a daze. When we come upon a nurse alongside Father, he perks up enough to look away from the floor. “Where is she?” Nicholas asks them.

Father pats him on the shoulder with a calming approach. “They tried to revive her, but her injuries were too much to overcome. I am sorry, Nicholas. My men were scattered so much trying to protect your brother and Nicky. Kayla must have been scared and ran off with Brayden, giving them the opportunity they were seeking,” Father says to him as he begins to vibrate from fighting the tears filling up in his eyes. “Your friend tried to fight them off for her, but they were too much and were very brutal in their attack. They made sure that she would not be able to recover. The poor young one was taken from her arms and killed in front of her. She refused to run at that point, apparently. She was determined to seek revenge until her last breath. If it is any comfort, she managed to kill several before she died. Your brother and Nicky have been hidden away until we can take care of this. I don’t want either to be in the middle of this. Ryan is not ready, and Nicky is way too young.”

“I want to see her,” Nicholas says to him. I look up in shock, but Father nods and leads him to a room where a body lies with a sheet over it. Nicholas walks up to the side of the bed and breathes in and out several times before taking hold of the sheet and tossing it back to reveal Kayla’s lifeless body underneath.

“No! Kayla! Oh God please!”
His screams force me to run out of the room. Father drags him from the room, trying to comfort him, but I don’t know how he could ever be. His pain is so heartbreaking and disastrous that I think it even surprises Father.

“Where is Brayden?” Nicholas asks through his tears.

“Oh Nicholas, you don’t want to see him. Besides, they took him to the morgue already,” I say quickly.

“He was beaten so badly, Nicholas. It is a terrible sight. You should not see such a thing.” I grab my head and cringe, crying myself at my father’s words. How could he tell him that? Does he not see what he is doing to him? Does he not care how broken he is? All I can hear is his cries and pleas for the nightmare to be over. As muffled as Nicholas’s cries are from his fisted hands that are forced against his face, they still make me want to rip my own body apart, piece by piece, and try and locate the rapidly spreading painful poison taking me over.

With the help of my father’s men, we manage to get Nicholas home. He is beyond consolable. I am afraid to approach him, afraid to look at him, but he desires nothing but my embrace to help relieve his pain.

“I’m sorry. I am so sorry,” I cry to him, but my words mean something different to me than what he believes them to mean. My father watches me closely, daring me to step beyond his orders. He is not only torturing Nicholas. He is torturing me, forcing me to listen to his cries and screams for his wife and child to be brought to him. The torture continues until Nicholas passes out from exhaustion, but he awakes in confusion and calls out for
her
. I have to explain to him all over again that she is gone.
I hate my very existence.
I am so exhausted and numb by the time Nicholas finally calms that, if he asked me, I would confess everything to him and slit my own throat for him.

When he finally wakes without tears and without a hazy understanding of it all, Nicholas stands and searches the house doggedly until he finds father. “I want to know everything. I want to know who did this. I want them dead,” Father eagerly talks to him about the attack and what they found at the scene before reluctantly confessing that he knows who did this. “Who? Tell me who it is now,” Nicholas pushes.

“I worry about telling this to you, but I understand how your revenge needs to have a face. Amery Luvis did this,” Father says with a wicked smile. “We are already organizing a counter attack on him. I have all the plans laid out in my study. I am going to handle this for you Ma Joie. You should stay here and rest and grieve in peace. I will return once I have avenged our family’s loss,” Father says.

“
No!
He killed
my
wife and
my
son, and I am going to make sure he, and everyone he knows, dies.”

Father waits anxiously as Nicholas storms through the house towards Father’s study, demanding to lead the attack himself. Father doesn’t even bother putting up a fight. He happily steps aside and allows Nicholas to organize. I begin to tense, desperate to leave, but Father won’t let me. The moment the dragon begins to breathe, I hide my eyes. It isn’t the bite that bothers me, it’s the screaming of agony after.

“Ahhh!”
Nicholas screams out as he falls to his knees. His shivering torment vibrates the whole room. His tense eyes look up at us in shock as he tries to fight it.

“Don’t fight it Nicholas. It will be much easier on you to just let it in,” Father says.

I fall to the floor and grab his shoulders, “They aren’t dead Nick. Kayla and Brayden are not dead. They are fine. I’m sorry!” I yell to him repeatedly until he finally collapses into a coma.

“Oh Galena, you are so pathetic sometimes. Why did you do that? He is never going to remember what you said to him.” Father sighs behind me.

“Maybe not, but I will,” I say.

“Now that we have what we need, I am going to see to it that we dispose of Kayla. We can’t have her damaging the poison that is now inside him before it has completed its job. He should be well transformed by the Masquerade and ready to be the son I have always wanted at my side.” Father breathes in with pride before looking at me again. “I am going to leave it to you to continue to search for this other possible child of Dante’s. I assume you can handle that Galena? If she exists, I need her found immediately. I can’t have her out there possibly helping Kayla in any way.”

“I will find her Father,” I say faintly.

“This is a time of celebration, Galena, not sorrow. If you are set on ruining this for me, then stay out of my sight.” Father has Nicholas moved to his bed where I see to him until he begins to recover and stay out of the way of Father’s great mood. I lean down to his side and press a cool cloth to his feverish head. His eyes flutter, and his hands twitch, all of which are good signs, especially this early on. “You survived. You are so strong. It wouldn’t have had to be this way if you hadn’t of continued to see her. You have to forget them, especially her. Otherwise, he will do this to you again. Forget her, and you won’t have to go through this again. I promise, Nick.” I wish I was as strong as him. I wish I was Dante. He would have fought Father for him. He would have fought to the death for his child. He would have expected me to have done the same, but I am not that strong. I am nothing but a coward. A coward who depends on others to save her child. “I will never be a warrior like you, or your father, Nick.”