Adam by Jacquelyn Frank Read Free Book Online Page B

well, odds are I might become Enforcer one day,” Leah said quickly. “Shouldn’t I be well versed on the lineage and the methods they were known for using?” She shot Seth a look and he gave her a shielded thumbs-up.
    “This is true,” Gideon said. “But you are young, and time has a way of unfolding in ways we least expect. It could be that Kane and Corrine will have children and one of them will be heir to Kane’s present position.”
    “It isn’t very logical to live my life on groundless supposition. I have to assume the truth of the moment is the truth of the future.”
    Gideon turned to look at her, one of his silvery brows lifting in surprise. Gideon’s silver hair and eyes were often unnerving to Leah, but in that moment she thought he was looking at her with a sense of pride. Suddenly it felt like something very special to her. She glanced at Seth again and knew by the look on his face that he felt it, too. The jealousy in his eyes said it all. He wanted more than anything for his father to look at him in that way.
    “You are your father’s daughter,” Gideon said gently to her. “He was a man of practical logic. It was one of his greatest strengths.”
    Leah very often heard about how she looked, talked, or sounded like one of her parents, but this was something very different. She had never heard Gideon say anything like it before, and there was a peculiar intimacy to the speech that made it exceptional.
    “Your father’s approach to being Enforcer was very different from his predecessor’s. And it changed even more when your mother came on the scene. It was softened, you might say. When your mother became an Enforcer, she made many efforts and changes to see that it became less of a shameful process to be enforced. Your mother was not a part of your father’s life when he enforced me. His approach then was very like a—”
    “Jacob enforced you?” Seth blurted out in utter shock, tacking on a laugh.
    Gideon raised a brow at his son’s outburst, and somehow it was a completely different expression from the one he had given Leah. Seth immediately closed his mouth and lowered his eyes.
    “Very like a parent drawing his wayward child in line,” Gideon finished. “Adam, Jacob’s immediate predecessor as Enforcer, was more like a brutal taskmaster. He was powerful, sometimes tempestuous. Like Kane and Jacob, he was not even an Elder yet when he inherited the mantle of Enforcer. But make no mistake, he was good at what he did. He was a warrior like no other I have seen. Perhaps if Elijah had less of an ego, your Siddah might admit that Adam was a better warrior than he.”
    “Better than Elijah?” Leah breathed. “Wow.” Then she remembered herself. “So what exactly happened to him? And when did it happen?”
    “I think it was about ... well, 1601. Samhain. No, wait ... it was Beltane. He just failed to report in one night and that was the end of it.”
    “Are you sure it was Beltane?” Leah pressed.
    “Yes. Your father refused to step into his brother’s shoes at first, searching high and low for him. Grieving terribly. He did not accept the mantle of Enforcer until Samhain so I mistook the dates, using your father’s ascension to Enforcer as the time of Adam’s disappearance. But I am quite positive it was Beltane.”
    “And no one knows what happened to him?”
    “It was assumed he was Summoned. When a Demon is Summoned by a necromancer, pulled out of his life and held prisoner in a pentagram until he is Transformed into a monster, it is often an unwitnessed event. The unexplained disappearance of a Demon is not uncommon. Though perhaps it is felt more sharply when it is a high-standing member of our society.”
    “I bet an Enforcer like Adam would have caught and destroyed Ruth long ago,” Leah said bitterly, her fists clenching in anger.
    “Actually, that is not an unfair statement,” Gideon mused. “Your father was much distracted by other things while Ruth was growing