Touch My Daughter, and You Die

Chapter 002

The strength drained out of her body all at once, and she sank to the ground.

The Marshal of the Northern Army had thrown away every shred of glory and honor he'd earned, all for the sake of one woman.

She didn't think it was a waste. She knew how much he cared for Elena. And yet she could not accept it. The Marshal was about to receive his title, and now he meant to leave the military before he had ever enjoyed the honors he had earned. To her, that was unbearable.

Word of it reached Kingsholt, and the Imperial Council erupted in fury.

"Wyatt abandoned his post on the battlefield? Who gave him the nerve? What in the world was Lucian Vane doing while this happened?"

"Wyatt's always been hungry for glory, and now he has defied an imperial order outright. That is beyond pardon. Have Lucian seize him immediately and put him through court-martial."

"The Marshal isn't a reckless man. If he left the North, he must have had a reason. We need to find out what's actually happening before we condemn him."

"The Emperor issued twenty-five separate imperial orders. Wyatt is no fool, he understands the stakes better than anyone, he would never..."

One of the gray-haired senior councilors suddenly went pale, his face twisting with shock.

The others turned and saw it, and the sight chilled their blood, as if the world itself had ended: a dark screen flickering back to life with the signal of the Beacon.

"Wyatt lit the Beacon? Has he lost his mind?"

The gray-haired councilor ran for the Imperial Palace, killing intent rolling off him so fiercely that guards stumbled out of his way. "I must see the Emperor. Anyone who tries to stop me will die."

* * *

"The fighting against the enemy is at its fiercest point, and you light the Beacon? What exactly are you trying to do?"

Lucian Vane, the Emperor's Commissioner overseeing the Northern Army, felt the veins bulge at his temple. Then realization struck, and he barked at the men beside him. "Move, pull every unit of the Imperial Oversight Corps back now!"

"Get a fighter jet ready, immediately!"

If the Marshal had simply fled the battlefield, Lucian might still have been able to stop him.

But lighting the Beacon was different. Even the Emperor would not override that signal. He would stand aside, and he would help the Marshal.

As the Commissioner, he had a duty to learn why.

It was also his duty to stop whatever the Marshal was about to do.

When the Marshal's rage broke loose, blood would run for a thousand miles, and that was no figure of speech.

"Don't let me find out which bastard is behind this."

As Lucian climbed aboard the fighter jet, his jaw clenched so hard it ached, bitterness and dread churning together in his chest.

* * *

"Why would the Marshal light the Beacon?"

"There have always been people who resent how the Marshal's accomplishments overshadow the throne. They've been scheming against him for ages. It has to be those cowards behind this."

"The Northern Army cannot survive without its Marshal. I'm going to write a petition in blood to the Emperor..."

* * *

In Harborcrest, beneath a sprawling estate in Northridge, a basement room lay hidden from the world above.

"Scream. Go on, scream as loud as you want. Call for your mommy to come save you."

A heavyset woman gripped a leather whip in both hands and brought it down hard across the body of Nora Hale, a girl of four and a half.

Beside them, a camera on a tripod was fixed unblinking on the child.

Her thin clothes were torn in a dozen places, her skin crisscrossed with welts and cuts, blood soaking through the fabric.

Her face had swollen from the beating, tears spilling down it without end, tears she had no way left to stop.

Each lash sent a shudder through her entire small frame, yet she clenched her teeth and said nothing. She wouldn't beg. She wouldn't cry out for help.

She understood what the woman wanted: to use her as leverage against her mother. She refused to give her that.

"Deaf, are you, you little bastard? I told you to scream. Scream!"

The heavyset woman's face was a mass of sagging flesh, and the cruelty beneath it ran deeper than the ugliness.

She swung the whip again with all the force she could muster.

A low, muffled sound escaped her, barely more than a breath, as a fresh wound opened across her skin and blood sprayed from it. The pain went to the bone.

Tears mixed with blood ran down her cheeks together.

The woman spat, "You've got some nerve for a bastard child. Just like that shameless mother of yours."

"I'm not a bastard! I have a father! And my mommy isn't a shameless woman, don't you talk about my mommy like that!"

She forced herself to bear the pain, but hearing her mother insulted was worse than any lash.

"I'll say whatever I like! Your mother had noble families lined up, and she spread her legs for some nobody instead. And out you came, a worthless bastard. She's the filthiest, most shameless woman alive!"

"And you, you were born to be nothing but something to be broken!"

The woman's mouth spilled filth after filth as the whip kept falling.

"I'm not a bastard, my mommy isn't..."

The girl couldn't hold back anymore. Sobs tore out of her small chest.

"That's exactly what you are, the two filthiest creatures alive..."

Whipping the child no longer satisfied her. She scooped up a handful of salt and flung it across the open wounds.

A scream ripped out of her, raw enough to break something in anyone who heard it.

The woman's face twisted into a grin of delight, as though nothing brought her more joy than this child's suffering.

"Say it," she hissed. "Say your mother is the most shameless woman alive, and I'll let the pain stop."

Through clenched teeth, the girl said, "My mommy is the best woman in the whole world, the best mommy in the whole world. You're the bad one. You're the worst person in the whole world."

"You dare talk back to me? I'll beat you until you can't move!"

The woman soaked the whip in more blood and salt and brought it down across the girl's face.

"Mommy, I'm not crying, it doesn't hurt, I'm okay..."

"Mommy, you said if anyone ever hurt me I could call Daddy, and Daddy would come save me..."

Her voice had thinned to almost nothing. "Daddy, why haven't you come yet? Nora hurts so much..."

"Daddy, where are you..."

Tears and blood poured down her face like rain as she called for her father and mother, over and over, her voice cracking with each cry.

Those broken cries only thrilled her more, as if she had won the lottery. Her face twisted. "Your daddy was just some wild man, and he's probably dead already. Even if he isn't, he'd never risk his neck for a little bastard like you."

"Daddy's not dead. Mommy said Daddy would come save me. Mommy never lies to me. Daddy would never leave me behind..."

"Daddy, Nora really can't take it anymore. When are you coming..."

Her vision blurred, the world tilting at the edges as she teetered on the brink of losing consciousness.

"Don't you dare fall asleep. If you close your eyes, I'll dig them right out of your skull!"

The woman scooped up a ladle of ice water, malice gleaming in her eyes.

Then the door of the basement exploded inward.

One of the estate's bodyguards slammed into the wall outside, whether alive or dead, no one could tell.

"Who do you think you are, breaking into Trey's house? You looking to die?" the woman screeched.

The girl, already slipping toward unconsciousness, lifted her head and saw a tall, powerful figure standing in the wreckage of the doorway.

Something stirred in her blood, some recognition older than memory, and she murmured, half in a dream, "Daddy... you finally came... Nora missed you so much..."

The woman's pupils contracted, and the cruelty in her face sharpened into something uglier as she rounded on him, snarling, "You're Elena's wild man? This little bastard's..."

The words died in her throat.

A cold radiating off him hit her like a winter wind in October, and her whole body began to shake. Her knees buckled, nearly dropping her to the floor.

Wyatt's eyes held something more terrifying than death itself.

The instant his gaze met Nora's, his blood roared to life like fire, the blood bond snapping taut between them.

He didn't need any test to confirm it. One look was enough. The girl in front of him was his daughter.

"All of you are going to die."

In that moment, Wyatt moved, a dragon unleashed in full fury.