Page 13 of Demon Daddy’s Hidden Son (Demon Daddies #7)

DOMIEL

T he mist clings to everything here like forgotten prayers, threading between ancient trees that tower overhead like silent sentinels. But I keep coming back to this place, between Millhaven and Silverbrook, where zarryn tracks lead from the cliff.

It's been days of me wandering through the forest, off the path. I just know I must be missing something here. She has to be somewhere .

I almost miss the village entirely—just a glimpse of stone and timber through the fog, half-swallowed by the earth itself. But something pulls at me, a recognition I can't name. It's deeper into the forest than I think she would have gone, but I'll leave no stone unturned.

I land at the village edge, my boots touching down on moss-slick stone.

The impact sends a tremor through my exhausted wings, and I fold them tight against my back as I walk deeper into this place that feels older than memory.

Veylowe, according to the weathered sign barely visible through the mist. The air tastes of woodsmoke and winter berries, of secrets kept and stories untold.

Lanterns burn low with rune-glass flames, casting blue and green shadows that dance across buildings carved from dark stone and old timber.

Everything here breathes with the kind of quiet that comes from generations of choosing to remain hidden.

My presence feels like violation, like light thrust into a space that treasures darkness.

Then I see her.

The world stops.

Kaleen. My Kaleen. Walking through the mist with a wicker basket balanced against her hip, her chestnut hair caught in a loose braid that hangs over one shoulder.

She moves with that same graceful confidence I remember, her amber eyes focused on the herbs she's collecting from someone's carefully tended garden.

The gold flecks in her irises catch the strange light, familiar as home and devastating as loss.

She's alive. Whole. Here .

Two years of searching, and she's here. In this forgotten place wrapped in fog and silence, living some life I know nothing about. The relief hits me like a physical force, buckling my knees for a heartbeat before training takes over and locks my muscles in place.

But something's wrong. The way she holds herself—cautious where she was once bold, careful where she was fearless.

Her clothes are simple homespun instead of the fine fabrics I draped her in.

And there's something about her posture that speaks of uncertainty, of someone who's learned to question the ground beneath her feet.

I take a step forward, then another. My boots crunch softly on fallen leaves, and the sound carries in the stillness.

She looks up.

Our eyes meet across twenty feet of mist-drunk air, and her face goes white as fresh snow.

The basket slips from nerveless fingers, herbs scattering across the damp ground in a cascade of green and brown.

Her lips part on a sharp intake of breath, her hand rising instinctively to press against her throat.

For a moment that stretches like eternity, we simply stare. I drink in every detail—the way her skin has gained color from outdoor work, the faint lines around her eyes that speak of laughter I wasn't there to witness. She's beautiful. Changed, but beautiful. Mine .

But her expression—gods, her expression. Not relief. Not joy. Fear. Uncertainty and worry that makes my chest tighten until breathing becomes effort.

Movement at the edges of my vision breaks the spell.

Faces emerge from doorways and around corners, drawn by whatever instinct small communities develop for sensing outsiders.

An elderly woman with iron-gray braids and pale green eyes.

A broad-shouldered man who smells like herbs and pine sap.

A soft-featured woman with ink-stained fingers who clutches a leather-bound book against her chest like armor.

Their expressions shift from curiosity to wariness to something darker as they take in my wings, my height, the unmistakable bearing that marks me as xaphan nobility. This is a human place, I realize. A refuge. The kind of settlement that exists specifically to escape notice from my kind.

"Kaleen." Her name falls from my lips like prayer, like a plea. I take another step forward, ignoring the way the villagers shift closer to her in protective formation. "I've been looking for you. For two years, I've been?—"

"Looking for me?" She shakes her head, the movement sharp and decisive. "I don't—" Her voice catches, clears, tries again. "I don't know who you are."

The words hit harder than any physical blow I've ever taken.

Harder than the time training accident that left the scar at my temple.

Harder than watching my father's wings lose their luster as he aged.

They slice through me with surgical precision, finding every vulnerable place and tearing them wide.

"Kaleen, it's me. It's Domiel." I keep my voice gentle despite the chaos rioting through my chest, the way my hands shake before I clench them into fists. "You know me."

My entire heart begs her to run to me. To shake off whatever this is.

But Kaleen keeps staring at me without recognition and it threatens to break me in half.

She just stares at me, blank, empty. Like she really has no clue who I am. The elderly woman—clearly someone with authority here—moves to flank her, those pale green eyes sharp with suspicion.

"She doesn't remember you," the woman says, her voice carrying decades of command. "Whatever you think you know about our Kaleen, stranger, you're mistaken."

Our Kaleen. The possessive cuts deep, a reminder that while I've spent two years searching, she's been here. Building connections. Making a place in a world that doesn't include me.

"She's not yours," I say, and the words come out rougher than intended. Dangerous. "She's mine."

The shift in atmosphere is immediate. The herb-scented man takes a step forward, his hands curling into fists. The woman with the book moves closer to Kaleen's other side. Even the mist seems to thicken, as if the village itself rejected my claim.

But it's the expression on Kaleen's face that destroys me.

Not recognition. Not even the flicker of familiarity I've been praying for.

Just uncertainty, mixed with a little fear.

She looks at me like I could be a threat—one I've never been to her.

Like I'm exactly the kind of xaphan monster these people have spent generations hiding from.

"I don't know you," she repeats, but her voice wavers. Like she's struggling with it. "I don't remember you."

But as I look into her eyes, I can't accept that. She has to.

She just has to.

I spent two years searching for the woman that owns my soul and now?—

She has to remember me.