Page 22 of Demon Daddy’s Hidden Son (Demon Daddies #7)
DOMIEL
I watch Braylon's face scrunch in concentration as he tries to coax another wisp of light from his fingertips.
His silver eyes—so much like mine, yet warmed by the amber rings he inherited from his mother—narrow with the particular intensity only an eighteen-month-old can muster when the world refuses to bend to his will.
"Like this, little one." I cup my hands and let silver light pool between my palms, steady and bright. "Feel it first, then shape it."
He mimics my posture with the serious dedication that never fails to make my chest tight with pride. A few sparks dance across his small fingers before flickering out, and he huffs in frustration.
"Again," he demands, the word clear despite his age. Everything about Braylon develops faster than it should—his speech, his magic, his understanding. Half-xaphan children always do, but watching it happen to my son fills me with wonder and protective fear in equal measure.
I can feel Kaleen before I see her. It's something I've never been able to explain, this awareness of her presence that settles into my bones like warmth from a hearthfire.
When I turn, she's walking toward us with that careful grace I remember from before—back when she used to move through my estate like she belonged there, which she did.
Which she always will, even if she doesn't remember yet.
The evening light catches the gold in her chestnut hair, and I have to force myself not to stare too openly.
She still hasn't regained the confident boldness she used to wear like armor, but there's something different lately.
The way she looks at me has shifted from wary confusion to something softer.
Something that makes hope twist dangerous and sharp beneath my ribs.
I know she's still afraid. Still uncertain about all the things she can't remember but somehow feels echoing in the spaces between her thoughts.
But I can feel her reaching for me—even if she doesn't realize it yet.
In the way she unconsciously steps closer when we talk.
How her breathing changes when our hands accidentally brush.
The small moments when her guard drops and I catch glimpses of the woman who used to challenge me with sharp wit and kiss me breathless against my workroom door.
Lake's been scarce lately. I rarely see him around anymore, and when I do, he keeps his distance with the particular tension of a man who knows he's losing something but doesn't know how to fight for it.
Good. I won't pretend to feel sorry for him when what's happening here is as inevitable as sunrise.
Kaleen was never his, even when she thought she was.
"Mama!" Braylon's delighted shriek cuts through my thoughts as he launches himself toward Kaleen. She scoops him up with practiced ease, and the picture they make together—her warm brown skin against his lighter bronze, both of them laughing—hits me like a physical blow.
This is my family. Has always been my family, even when half of it was stolen from me.
"How was your lesson?" she asks, settling onto the grass beside us. Close enough that I can smell the faint scent of the flowers she tends in her garden, mixed with something uniquely her that makes my pulse quicken.
"Magic, Mama!" Braylon announces proudly, then immediately tries to demonstrate. The resulting sparks are unsteady but bright enough to make Kaleen's eyes widen with genuine amazement.
"That's incredible," she breathes, and the wonder in her voice makes something warm unfurl in my chest. She's never been impressed by displays of power—wealth, status, magical ability—but watching our son discover his gifts through my teaching moves her in a way that tells me more than words ever could.
We spend the next hour like this, the three of us together as the sun begins its descent.
I keep things light, safe, slow. No pushing, no demands for memories she can't access.
Just presence. Just being here, proving that this version of us works too.
That even without her past, we fit together like pieces of the same complicated puzzle.
When Braylon starts rubbing his eyes with small fists, signaling the approach of bedtime, Kaleen glances at the darkening sky with something that looks almost like reluctance.
"We should head back," she says, but doesn't move to gather him immediately.
I nod, already mentally preparing for another night of watching them walk away. Another evening of returning to the small room I've rented in the village, staring at the ceiling and fighting the urge to pace the distance to her cottage just to be closer to the two people who mean everything to me.
But then she turns to look at me directly, and something in her expression makes my breath catch.
"Would you..." she starts, then stops. Takes a breath like she's gathering courage. "Would you like to join us for dinner?"
The words hit me with more force than any complex magical working. This is the first time—the first real invitation to step inside her life instead of hovering at its edges. To sit at her table, in her space, like I have a right to be there.
"I'd like that very much," I manage, proud of how steady my voice sounds when my pulse is hammering against my throat.
The walk to her cottage feels different this time.
Not the careful distance of recent weeks, but something easier.
More natural. Braylon chatters between us as we navigate the village paths, and when Kaleen laughs at something he says, she doesn't pull away when I brush her arm to point out where he's dropped his small wooden zarryn toy.
Inside her home—modest but warm, filled with the quiet signs of a life carefully built from nothing—she moves with efficient grace while I settle Braylon at the small wooden table.
The domesticity of it shouldn't affect me this much, but watching her ladle stew into simple bowls while our son babbles about his day makes my chest tight with longing.
"It's nothing fancy," she says, setting a bowl in front of me with movements that seem almost shy.
"It's perfect." The words come out rougher than I intend, weighted with meaning I hope she can hear beneath the surface.
Dinner unfolds like something from the life I lost two years ago, except softer somehow.
More precious for being freely given instead of expected.
Kaleen doesn't pull away when I reach across the small table to steady Braylon's cup.
Doesn't flinch when our knees bump in the tight space.
And when I catch her watching me with those amber-brown eyes—really watching, like she's trying to solve a puzzle she didn't know existed—she doesn't look away.
The fire in the simple hearth casts warm light across her face, highlighting the strong line of her jaw and the way her lips curve when Braylon says something particularly endearing.
This close, I can see the faint scar near her collarbone that I remember tracing with my lips in the quiet hours before dawn.
The calluses on her hands from work that shaped her long before I knew her name.
She's still my Kaleen, even changed. Still the woman who made me believe I could be more than just precise angles and carefully controlled power. Who taught me that love doesn't weaken—it transforms, makes everything sharper and more vital and impossibly bright.
After Kaleen clears the dishes, I settle into the worn wooden chair near the fire with Braylon curled against my chest. The weight of him—solid and warm and mine —still catches me off guard sometimes.
Two years of searching, of imagining this exact moment, and the reality somehow exceeds every desperate fantasy.
"Story," he mumbles against my shirt, tiny fist curling into the fabric like an anchor.
I reach for the small leather-bound book Kaleen keeps on the side table—tales of brave knights and distant lands that bear no resemblance to the complex realities of our world.
Simple stories for a child who won't stay simple much longer.
Half-xaphan children grow fast, and already I can see the sharp intelligence in his silver-amber eyes that will make him dangerous if he's not careful.
"Once upon a time," I begin, letting my voice drop to the cadence that always settles him, "there was a knight who could command the very stars..."
From the corner of my eye, I watch Kaleen move about the small cottage.
She's putting things away with the quiet efficiency I remember—every motion precise and purposeful, nothing wasted.
But there's something different tonight.
A softness in the way she glances over at us that makes my pulse quicken.
Before, in the life she can't remember, she used to watch me like this when I'd work late into the night—not worried, exactly, but attentive.
Like she was cataloging the small details of my presence for some collection she kept locked away in her heart.
The memory of that focused attention, that choosing to see me fully, had sustained me through months of fruitless searching.
Braylon's breathing grows deeper as I turn another page.
His head grows heavier against my shoulder, and I adjust my hold to keep him comfortable while continuing the story in increasingly softer tones.
This is something I never had—bedtime stories, a father's voice weaving safe worlds from simple words.
My own childhood had been lessons in control and duty, preparation for a life measured in architectural precision and divine service.
But here, with my son's small body relaxed completely in my trust, something fundamental shifts in my understanding of what strength actually means.
It's not just the ability to bend light and stone to your will.
It's this—being steady enough that someone small and vulnerable can fall asleep against you without fear.