Descend (Awakened Fate Book 2) Read Free Page B

their overly muscled arms crossed in front of them, looking for all the world like the near-identical, sadistic meatheads that they were. Watching me and the ocean beyond our windows alike, they made no secret of their disgust for me, or their anticipation for what they’d try if the dehaians returned.
    “Noah?” my dad called.
    “In here, Peter,” Richard replied.
    Silence followed the words, and then I heard his footsteps coming down the hall.
    Dad walked around the corner, taking in the five of them and me seated in the middle.
    “Are you alright?” he asked me.
    “He’s fine,” Richard answered before I could speak. “Except for having a fling with a scum-sucker, that is.”
    Dad paused. “What happened?”
    “Your son–”
    “I asked Noah.”
    Richard snorted, derision in his dark brown eyes, and then he gestured for me to go ahead.
    “Nothing,” I said, not wanting to get into it in front of the others. “She’s gone.”
    Dad regarded me for a moment.
    “He let her go, he means,” Richard inserted. “Kissed her goodbye and let her swim away.” He rounded on Dad. “This is what I’ve been warning you about. You, and the way you raise these boys. You can’t keep–”
    “This isn’t the time, Richard,” Dad countered.
    His brother scoffed. “You called me, remember? Even you can see how dangerous this is. That thing was staying with your family, for pity’s sake! And now you’ve got scale-skins breaking into your house. What’s next?” He shook his head. “What’s it going to take, Peter? Are you really going to risk your sons, just to hang onto your pathetic principles?”
    Dad paused and then looked over at him, and I could see his anger in the tense muscles of his face.
    “I said this wasn’t the time,” he repeated. “I called you here, yes.” His gaze flicked to me. “And you’ll stay. Keep an eye out for them, in case they come back. But you will leave my sons to me, understand?”
    Richard’s lip twitched with disgust, but he just shook his head. “Fine. You let your pretty boys stay weak. And my sons and I will hold up the true family heritage and keep things safe. Just like always.”
    He motioned to his sons and then headed for the hallway. Shrugging away from the walls, my cousins smirked at me as they followed him out of the room.
    Their footsteps thudded on the steps as they went upstairs.
    A breath left me. “Dad, you can’t–”
    He held up a hand, silencing me with his eyes on the ceiling.
    I grimaced. They’d hear us if we talked, even all the way in the guest rooms. Greliaran hearing could be a bitch sometimes.
    And that didn’t bring into it the other senses we had.
    Doors closed above us. I could feel them moving across the rooms, heading for the windows to keep watch and not even bothering to hide their presences from me anymore.
    I looked back at Dad.
    He switched on the stereo, letting the white noise babble of a local radio station cut through the quiet.
    “Diane told me they shot you and Maddox,” he said, keeping his voice low.
    My words faltered.
    “What the hell were you thinking , Noah?”
    “Dad, I–”
    He crossed the room and put his arms around me. I blinked, taken back by the gesture.
    Releasing a breath, he pushed me away again. “What happened?”
    I struggled for words, still floundering with shock. “I-I went after Chloe, and while I was gone they came to the cabin.”
    “They knew about us?”
    A short scoff escaped me, not quite a laugh since nothing was funny. “Dad, you sent one of them through a window and nearly put the other through the wall. I think they figured out we weren’t human.”
    He gave me a dark look and my sarcasm died.
    “And then you brought her here.”
    “I had to. They’d injected her with something. It was killing her. Forcing her to change into one of them even though she wasn’t in the water. If I hadn’t gotten her to the ocean…”
    Dad sighed, turning away and pacing across the room.