Chapter 46. Diana

Part of me, the sane, rational part, wish I could go to Cadmus and tell him the truth, beg for his forgiveness, and plead with him to protect us any way he can.

But that other side, the side that still holds deep fear of the enemy who'd tormented me since childhood, knew that it was no use. I've seen them destroy everything good in my life. When dad was still alive, things had been different, at least in the beginning.

I was too young when he died to remember it all, but I know that that's when it had all started. When their seeming intense hatred of me had begun to grow and fester, I can still hear the words of accusation, still, feel the sting of the whip the day of the funeral as soon as we returned home. It's the first time she'd ever been physical with me.

I'd lived believing that I'd killed my own father for years because of her words, until I was old enough to realize that I had no part in killing him, no part in him taking his own life like she'd said. I still don't and will probably never know why he'd chosen to take his own life. But the therapist I'd finally got myself after years of being denied because mother didn't agree with me having one, had worked hard at convincing me that my six-year-old self wasn't the one responsible for daddy's death.

I am pretty much proud that I looked up for therapy for myself and it helped me move my dad's death as something that had cost me my whole sanity and changed my perception about it and caused me to see that I had bigger enemies to fight. Some serious issues and secrets to hide from the rest of the world. So I turned my life in a way that I became a recluse and wasn't even involved in any way to others.

But then there was Cadmus who came to my life as a stranger and then became my whole world.