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A blatant lie because I’m pretty sure I can’t. I’m a chicken when it comes to facing the bad men who’ve victimized me.

But somehow I’m just going to have to deal—both for Des’s sake and for mine.

Chapter 28

That night, I lie in Des’s arms, the stars back in the sky where they belong, my hair spilling around us. A few fairy lights hover in the air above us, giving the room a soft glow.

Des strokes my back, his movements stirring the feathers of my wings. My cheek presses against his warm chest. If ever I had a home, it would be right here.

“Tell me about your father,” I say, my own fingers idly tracing the muscles that run down his torso.

Des lets out a laugh devoid of mirth. “Did I scare you that much earlier?”

I lift my head and give him a quizzical look. “What are you talking about?”

His hand on my back pauses. When it resumes, it’s to draw idle pictures with his finger. I wonder, if he were handed a pencil and paper, what, exactly, those idle drawings would be of.

“They say I get my temper from my father,” he admits.

“Who says this?” I ask quietly.

“It’s known that the Night Kingdom’s royal bloodline is quick to anger,” he says, sidestepping the question. “It’s why my mother made me work so hard to control my anger, and it’s what made me particularly ruthless when I was with the Angels of Small Death.”

I find I want to ask about his brotherhood, but I bite back my questions, afraid they would derail what I really want to know tonight.

“Even now,” he continues, “when I’ve had so much time to work on it, it can still take over.”

Like earlier tonight.

I want to tell him he’s not giving himself the benefit of the doubt. When I think about Des and control, I think about all those months I spent back in high school trying to whittle my mate down to no avail. Or how, when he found me in Karnon’s throne room, bloody and broken, he still kept a leash on his anger up until the very last moment.

But I don’t mention any of this.

Instead, I ask, “Would your father lose control?”

Des’s hand moves to my hair. He runs his fingers through it, letting it slide through them. “Sometimes—from what I’ve heard,” he says. Des’s eyes grow distant. “Usually when something unpleasant surprised him.”

I lay my head back down on his chest. “You still haven’t exactly answered my question.”

There’s so much I don’t know about Des—centuries’ worth of memories he hasn’t bothered to share. And I want to know each and every detail about his life, but this particular detail, his father, is one that seems especially important.

“Then perhaps”—his finger taps my nose—“you should be more precise with your questions.”

“Des.”

I hear the sigh of air that leaves his lungs. “Out of all the fun, wicked little truths you could ask me, you had to choose this one…”

He’s squirming, I realize. It’s so very human, and so very unlike my mate.

“I don’t like talking about him,” he admits.

I get that. God, do I get that.

“He was killing off his children,” Des says out of nowhere.

I tense in his arms.

“When I was conceived,” he continues, “he was killing off all his children. The adults, the kids, even the babies.”