Breed Me, Daddy Alpha-Chapter 299

Damon

And then he leaned close, close enough that I could see the blood dried on his lip, close enough that the knife in my chest felt like part of him, part of his hand, part of the hate holding me down.

"I killed Father."

Do you know what happens to a man when he hears those words for the first time? When his brother says it like he is talking about the weather, like he is telling you what he had for breakfast instead of confessing to killing the man who raised you both?

I will tell you what happens.

The world goes quiet.

So quiet that I could hear the blood dripping from the blade buried in my chest. So quiet that I could hear my own heartbeat slamming like it was trying to break out of me before the next word fell.

So quiet that even my wolf, raging and snarling and clawing to take control, stopped moving for one single breath because he could not believe what he had just heard.

"You heard me," Darren whispered. His smile curled like it had been waiting years to be unleashed. "I killed him. Our great, wise, perfect father. Your role model. Your king. The man you worshiped while he looked at me like I was nothing but the second son he never wanted. I ended him, Damon. Slit his throat myself while he slept."

He twisted the knife again, while my whole body jerked against the ground, while the heat of my own blood spread under my back like fire running through dry grass.

"Do you want to know why?" Darren asked softly, like he was offering me a bedtime story while I choked on the air stuck in my own lungs. "Because even dying, you need to understand. You need to know how much I hated him. How much I hated both of you. How much I hated living my whole life in the shadows you cast."

"Father always thought you were perfect."

"The perfect Damon," he said again, louder this time. "What about me? What about me!" His hand shoved the knife deeper as if the blade was supposed to make his words hurt more.

"I look exactly like you! I walk into a room and people see your face on my face. I breathe and they call me by your name. I laugh and they say I sound like you. And do you know what that does to a man? Do you have any idea what it feels like to be a shadow of someone you hate every time you look in the mirror?"

The words kept coming, louder now, like he had been waiting for years to throw them into the world.

"I was always left behind," Darren yelled. "Always second. Always almost enough but never quite there. And why? Because I had just a little flaw? Because I was not your perfect Alpha Damon? Because I did not have Father’s perfect blessing dripping off my skin like oil from the day I was born?"

His hand shoved the blade again, hard enough that my lungs felt like they were tearing inside my chest.

"The night the old man made you Alpha..." He stopped and laughed, a horrible laugh that was too wild to belong to anyone sane. "I killed him. Did you know that, brother? Did you ever wonder how he died? Did you believe the lies they told you about thieves in the night, about rogues crawling through windows?"

He leaned closer.

"I sent a dagger straight into his throat," Darren said, and his voice dripped with the pleasure of it.

"I watched the blood gush out of his oesophagus. I watched it spray the floor, the walls, the bed. It poured out of him in waves while he made that awful noise, the kind a man makes when his body realizes it is already dead but his mind has not caught up yet."

His grin spread wider as his eyes locked on mine.

"Do you want to know what I did that day?" His voice dropped lower, heavier, each word slow like he wanted it to crawl under my skin. "I bent over his body and I drank it."

Yes. That was what he said.

"I drank our father’s blood right from the slit I carved. It was hot and thick and it ran down my throat like I was swallowing fire itself. And do you know what it felt like, brother? It felt like power. It felt like the world itself shifted under my feet. It felt like immortality itself sank its teeth into my veins."

He shoved the knife again and laughed louder and harsher.

"You might be wondering why I drank it," he said, smiling like this was the first real conversation we had ever had in our lives.

"Well, there is a myth, brother. A myth older than this pack, older than our father, older than the crown they put on your head like you were born for it. They say if you drink an Alpha’s blood, you become immortal. That the strength of his life seeps into yours and carries you beyond the reach of death itself."

His grin spread sharp and wide when I said nothing, when I only lay there with my own blood bubbling in my chest like lava waiting to spill.

"I know you never heard of it," Darren said, twisting the blade again.

"Because you have always been the foolish one. The good son. The perfect Alpha Damon who believed every law, every story, every line they ever fed you while I was crawling through the shadows learning what they did not want us to know."