Page 11 of Demon Daddy’s Hidden Son (Demon Daddies #7)
KALEEN
B y Braylon's first spring, Lake has worn a path between his family's cottage and mine.
What began as occasional visits to help with a fussy baby evolves into something more permanent, more necessary.
He appears at my door with firewood when the nights are cold, stays to help with evening feedings when Braylon's teething makes him inconsolable, and somehow never quite leaves.
I don't ask him to stay. But I don't ask him to go, either.
Lake moves through our small space with the careful consideration of someone who knows he's a guest pretending to be family.
He keeps his few belongings in a neat pile by the door, never presuming to claim drawer space or a permanent spot for his boots.
When he sleeps beside me—which happens more often as the months blur together—he maintains a respectful distance, never reaching across the invisible line that divides the narrow bed.
Braylon adores him. My son's first real smile blooms across his face when Lake enters the room, his tiny hands grasping for those calloused fingers with determined focus.
Lake teaches him to stack wooden blocks, makes silly faces that send Braylon into fits of delighted giggling, and carries him around the village on broad shoulders like a conquering prince surveying his domain.
"Look at those eyes," Marnai comments one afternoon as she watches Lake bounce Braylon on his knee. "Like captured starlight. He'll be a heartbreaker when he grows up."
Braylon's silver-blue gaze is extraordinary, growing more pronounced as he ages.
The gold flecks spark in sunlight, creating an otherworldly beauty that draws stares wherever we go.
But it's the intelligence behind those eyes that unsettles me.
He watches the world with ancient wisdom, as if he's remembering rather than learning.
The wing buds develop slowly, tiny protrusions that most villagers mistake for birth marks or unusual shoulder blades.
Only the women who attended his birth know their true nature, and they keep that knowledge carefully guarded.
Lake discovers them during a bath when Braylon is eight months old, his fingers tracing the small bumps with scientific curiosity.
"His father was xaphan," I tell him quietly, waiting for judgment or questions I can't answer.
Lake simply nods, continuing to wash Braylon's back with gentle efficiency. "Figured as much. Explains the eyes. And why he's so damn smart for someone who can't even walk yet."
That easy acceptance becomes typical of Lake.
He doesn't pry into my past or demand explanations I can't provide.
When villagers ask pointed questions about Braylon's parentage, Lake deflects with the smooth skill of someone protecting something precious.
He becomes our shield against curiosity, our anchor in a world that feels perpetually unstable.
By Braylon's first birthday, Lake has essentially moved in.
His clothes hang beside mine on the wooden pegs near the door.
His tools occupy a corner of the cottage where he repairs broken household items with methodical patience.
His presence fills the spaces between Braylon's laughter and my evening tea, creating something that resembles domestic contentment.
I convince myself this is enough. This careful affection, this comfortable routine.
Lake is good—genuinely, thoroughly good in ways that make me feel selfish for wanting more.
He brings me flowers from the meadow, fixes the leaky roof without complaint, and never mentions the times that I wake from dreams of someone else that leave me rattled.
When he kisses me for the first time—gentle, questioning, hopeful—I kiss him back because it feels like the right thing to do. Because he deserves someone who can love him completely, even if I can only offer fractured pieces of myself.
Our physical relationship develops with the same careful progression as everything else between us.
Lake never pushes, never demands more than I freely give.
But when Lake holds me, his heartbeat steady against my cheek, and I feel like I'm playacting at intimacy.
Going through motions perfected by someone else, someone who existed before the accident stole my memories and left me grasping for meaning in a life that never quite fits.
But in my dreams, I burn.
In sleep, faceless hands map my skin with possessive reverence.
A voice whispers my name like a prayer, like a claim, like something sacred and profane.
Wings—powerful, ethereal wings—shelter me in darkness while lips trace paths of fire along my throat.
I wake gasping, my body thrumming with desire and loss so acute it feels like physical pain.
The dream man has no face, no name I can remember upon waking. But his presence feels more real than anything in my conscious world. More real than Lake's gentle touches or even Braylon's sweet laughter or the cottage walls that supposedly contain my entire existence.
Some mornings I catch myself staring out the window toward the eastern mountains, searching for something I can't identify. A figure in the distance. Wings against the sky. Answers to questions that lodge in my throat like swallowed screams.
Braylon grows tall and curious, his dark hair catching gold in sunlight and his remarkable eyes missing nothing. And he is far too in tune with emotions—especially mine. No eighteen month old should be.
"Mama sad," he announces one morning, his small hand patting my cheek with devastating accuracy.
I am sad. Despite Lake's devotion and Braylon's joy and the life we've built in Veylowe, I carry a grief I can't name or heal. A persistent ache that no amount of present happiness can cure.
Lake pretends not to notice my morning tears, the way I sometimes stop mid-conversation to stare at nothing, how I flinch when he touches me unexpectedly. He loves me with patient determination, waiting for the day I might love him back with the same intensity.
That day never comes.
Two years pass since I first came to Veylowe. Seasons blur together in a cycle of small joys and persistent emptiness. Lake spends almost every night with us, mostly moving in. He tells me he loves me. He definitely loves Braylon.
But at night, as Lake sleeps beside me, I stare at the ceiling and wonder who I'm betraying each time I let him close—him, or the phantom in my dreams who still feels like the other half of my soul.