Page 27

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

D espite everyone’s obvious relief at rescuing me, the mood back at the Fletcher’s place is absolutely fucking dire. Understandably so, given what happened tonight. I let my head fall back into my hands as I sigh, utterly exhausted.

Poor fucking Eli.

I can’t help but feel awful. Torrin thinks it’s his fault for allowing his gentle demon friend to help them, and Rio thinks it’s on him that Paimon was able to take me, but I know the truth.

I burdened them all with my problems. I dragged them so deeply into my mess that they still feel they have to take care of me, despite already fulfilling the request I came to them with. It was me who got out of the car and put the distance between Rio and me, giving Paimon the perfect opportunity to strike. I ran away because I didn’t want to listen to what he had to tell me. I didn’t want to be told how I needed to put distance between myself and his brothers, and I also couldn't accept the possibility I’d hurt them.

Selfishly, I just wanted everything to continue on as it has been. The feelings and familiarity continually growing, ever since that first day when Daion protected me and Torrin offered up baked goods, like he was trying to appease a particularly mercurial god or something.

“You know, typically I’d be offended at this level of demonic warding built into a place, but seeing as you’re graciously making me an exception before you activate it,” Ash says sarcastically, his voice jolting me out of my pity party.

Demon warding?

I lift my head, watching Ash follow Daion and Rio into the room where Torrin and I have been sitting in total silence for the last hour. Honestly, I’d all but forgotten he was in here with me, but a quick glance confirms he’s still lying across the larger couch while staring up at the ceiling. I wonder if they’ll be satisfied to leave me alone in a room once the demon warding has been activated, but I doubt it.

I wasn’t even able to shower by myself when we first got back. Ash followed me right into the bathroom, though his hands massaging shampoo into my scalp had me refraining from making too many objections. It was oddly nice, letting someone take care of me like that. He even had the good sense not to comment on the tears which had been lost to the shower’s spray, simply pressing gentle kisses to my forehead.

“Just make with the bleeding,” Rio snaps at Ash while Daion pulls down one of the large canvases from the wall, revealing a complex-looking sigil painted behind it. I really hope it’s not blood. I think I’ve had enough blood-painted magic for one day.

“It doesn’t look like that much warding,” I comment off-handedly, earning a mock look of betrayal from Ash.

“This is just the activation point. It’s in every room. Behind paintings and bookshelves, even on the inside of the walls in some places,” Daion explains.

“See!” Ash huffs, but he still takes the small, likely ceremonial dagger being offered to him from Rio and steps up to the activation marking.

I guess not dealing with blood-related magic was too much to hope for then…

Ash slices the blade lightly across his index finger, allowing a few drops of blood to swell from the cut. I watch somewhat curiously as he presses it into the centre of an upside-down triangle Daion gestures to, situated just to the left of the centre. The entire sigil glows briefly once he pulls away, accepting his imprint and ensuring that when it’s activated, he won’t be violently tossed out of the building. Or burnt to a crisp, depending on exactly what they’ve set the warding up to do. Demon blocking isn’t exactly one of my skills.

If you need a potion or charm for anything from nausea to a boost in luck, I’m your witch. Demons, however, are definitely way beyond my paygrade. Now I wish someone would have warned me when I was picking which disciplines to learn as a teenager that I should have thrown demonology in there too. Though I’m sure I never would have believed how painfully relevant it would become to my existence.

“We should add Eden too. She might not be an actual demon?—”

“But it’s close enough?” I say with a sigh, finishing Rio’s sentence for him as I pull myself to my feet, already having guessed as much. Someone needs to put out a better guidebook on this having babies with demons thing. One with a big fucking warning, in bold red writing, that says, ‘Warning. Demonic pregnancy may turn you into a partial fucking demon if you’re lucky and kill you if you’re not.’

Standing is just a little more challenging to do while I’m adjusting to the sudden change in the size of my bump. I thought my body was changing quickly before. Hah. What I wouldn’t give to still have until May for this baby to arrive, but now thanks to Lord fucking Piehole, I get even less time to prepare.

“Eden hasn’t already added herself?” Ash asks curiously, eyes darting between the wall and me, as if something isn’t adding up.

“There wasn’t a need to,” Daion answers quickly. “We haven’t activated the warding till now, as we were expecting threats from witches. We didn’t realise Paimon was stalking her, and we didn’t know of any reason to worry about other demons knowing about her situation apart from you.”

“So who’s this?” Ash questions, gesturing at a small smudged line in another upside-down triangle similar to the one he’s added with his own blood.

“Nobody, it’s just a part of the marking.” The hunter shrugs. “Eden, you ready?”

“To bleed all over your wall? Sure!” I say, mockingly cheerful as I take the dagger. I wipe the tiny bit of blood off on Ash’s clothes before sanitising it with a quick spell. He frowns at the small stain I’ve given his shirt but doesn’t comment. Honestly, if he didn’t want to be used as a rag, he should have cleaned it off himself.

I lightly slice across my fingertip, hissing quietly at the faint sting, just like an annoying papercut. After adding my blood to another triangle that Dai points out, I find my free hand drifting to my stomach. “What about the baby?”

“They should be fine as they’re inside of you, but just in case, drag your finger and make a connection between the two imprints. It will recognise any shared descendants of yours too.”

I follow Daion’s instructions, connecting mine and Ash’s markings, watching the sigil glow once more as I pull my hand away. “All done?”

“Almost,” he replies, gesturing for me to step out of the way. He cuts himself with another blade, though he swipes directly across his palm rather than a finger, then presses his bleeding hand over the centremost point. With a quiet murmur of an incantation, I feel a wave of energy pass through the entire building as the wards activate.

It’s done.

I feel some of the tension drain out of my body, my shoulders relaxing and my hands unclenching. It undeniably feels safer here now I know Paimon can’t just waltz into the building and abduct me again. Even if he found a way to break through the warding, we would have the warning of it being broken. Time to prepare or run.

“Well,” Ash drawls to catch our attention. “Now I know I’m not about to explode and that Eden’s safe from that iracaedi bastard, I’m going out for a little bit. I trust you can make sure she doesn’t leave the building till I return?” He directs the question to Daion, who nods in answer.

“I’m right here, you know,” I point out, resisting the urge to pout.

“As if I could ever miss your presence,” he replies, turning the charm on while dragging me into his arms. He holds me tightly to his chest for a moment before pulling back for a kiss. It’s just as gentle as the ones to my forehead were. “I’ll be back soon, little witch.”

Then he’s leaving before I can ask where he’s going.

Torrin must look away from the ceiling for long enough to notice the unhappy way I stare after Ash once he’s left the room, as he finally pulls himself up off the couch. “I’ll go with him.”

“I’ll go too, if you’re good holding down the fort?” Rio questions Daion.

“We’ll be fine. Just…try not to get into any trouble,” he orders while wrapping his hand with a bandage. Did he really have to give himself such a big cut? Or was he just being dramatic for the sake of it?

“Never do.”

“Liar,” Daion accuses his youngest brother. It’s said with good humour, though, and Rio doesn’t argue it, just slaps him lightly on the shoulder as he walks past him to the door.

“And then there were two,” I mutter a few moments after Torrin and Rio have left to follow Ash.

“Are you hungry?” Daion asks, and I’m about to say no when my stomach chooses then that exact moment to growl, apparently deigning to answer for me. He smirks. “Come on, I’ll make you something to eat.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Daion asks once we’ve finished eating, setting our empty plates onto the table before joining me on the sofa.

“Talk about what?” I reply, shuffling the cushions around and repositioning them to make myself more comfortable now I’m no longer worried about getting crumbs everywhere.

“What happened with the demon,” he clarifies, then gestures to my stomach. “I know he’s sped things up there, but he didn’t do anything else, did he? You seem…quieter than usual.”

“He didn’t really do anything else, other than talk a lot,” I answer, perhaps a little flippantly given the seriousness in Daion’s tone.

Ignoring my feelings might not be the healthiest coping method, but I don’t want to go into all of the gritty details right now. Like how helpless I’d felt, unable to protect myself or my baby, and the way his disturbing threats made my skin crawl. I hold myself still as a shudder tries to rattle through me.

“Honestly, I’m a thousand percent sure he’s in love with the sound of his own voice, the way he just droned on and on,” I add, trying to keep it light.

“Not what I meant.”

“He really did mostly just talk,” I protest, not meeting his eyes.

“What about?” Daion asks calmly, clearly not about to give up on the topic.

“You know…insane demon lord stuff. Insults to lesser species, some bullshit about how he was protecting my child, not only trying to steal them, the usual nonsense.”

“Eden.”

“He tried to make me feel fucking sorry for him,” I quickly blurt, finding I’m unable to stop the rest of the words tumbling out now I’ve begun. My emotions are swinging wildly between anger and distress. “He abducted me, then he had the audacity to try and gain my sympathy!”

“He wanted your sympathy?” Daion sounds surprised at that, though I hardly blame him. It had dumbfounded me too. He’d already been the one in control, so what did he have to gain from the manipulation?

“Obviously, he denied it, but why else would he have told me his sob story? He must have thought if I empathised with him, I’d be easier to manipulate or something. It was horrible.”

I try not to cringe at my abject failure to keep the whole experience nicely tucked away in its designated box. The one I’m picturing hiding somewhere, way in the back of my mind. At least I didn’t let the allusions Paimon had made towards using me to create more hybrid children slip out. I have a strong feeling none of the guys would take that information very well.

“Did it work? I can’t imagine you feeling bad for that bastard.”

“It didn't make me feel bad for him. There’s no excuse or justifiable reason for the fucked-up shit he’s done. I wouldn’t forgive anyone for trying to steal my child and risking their life by putting me in that…that thing. It was just awful in general, what he said. If it is true, it’s probably one of the worst things I’ve ever heard. It feels that way to me right now, anyway.”

“You don’t have to tell me.”

“But you want to know,” I reply, surmising as much from his tone.

“It might be useful. Whether he’s lying or not, everything we know about him could help in our understanding of him, and that could help us protect you. Still, you don’t have to repeat it if you don’t want to.”

“It’s fine. I can say it. He said…he said he’d had a hybrid child before, but that the mother killed them,” I explain hesitantly. I place a hand over my stomach and mentally will the unborn baby inside of me to understand what I’m saying will never happen to them. “It was the implication that I'd do it, that I’d hurt my child if he wasn’t there to stop it. I couldn’t— I wouldn’t —but I just kept thinking about how bad it must have been for her to think there wasn’t another choice. I still can’t get my head around it.”

Daion is silent for a long moment before quietly asking, “Did he give any details?”

“None that I can be sure are true. All of it was pretty terrible.”

It had sounded like he believed what he told me, but evil people can sometimes truly buy into their own bullshit narratives. So maybe the same goes for evil demons too?

“Tell me anyway?” he prompts, and I only half notice it’s hardly louder than a whisper this time.

“Well, he said she killed her son because she hated him, and that she rubbed it in basically. She was apparently repulsed by him being half-demon, and how it changed her too, but also that she waited until he was five to do it. The idea of her killing her newborn was awful enough, but how could you end the life of a child you’ve already raised for five years? It doesn’t make sense. Why would she have tried to raise the kid for so long if she truly hated them?” I pause, letting myself think over some of the things I considered about his story while trapped in the cell. The search for a better answer, one to stop me from feeling entirely cold. “I can imagine a world in which she’d have done it to protect them. Maybe she didn’t hate her child but thought that being taken by Paimon would be worse than death for him.”

“She didn’t.”

“Didn’t what? Hate them or think being taken by Lord Piehole would be worse than dying? Because trust me, I think the second really has—” My words cut off as I look back at him, seeing the tense way he’s now sitting and how his dark eyes look almost unfocused. Concern floods my emotions despite my confusion. I rest a hand on his shoulder, trying to bring him back into the moment from wherever it is he’s gone. “Daion?”

“She didn’t kill them.”

It’s said absolutely, without a shadow of doubt.

How could he…?

“She didn’t kill me,” he amends, and I feel like a bus slams into me at the reveal. “I also like to think she didn’t hate me. Though she did hate the demon powers I inadvertently gave her. That much is true.”

“You—but he said he felt the child’s death,” I argue, not wanting to believe it. I rack my brain for more evidence, only puzzling myself further as the points stack up on both sides of the argument. “You can’t…you’re a witch. Your little crystal detector thing would be going off all of the time if you were half-demon!”

“What he felt was likely the result of her sealing off my abilities before they could fully develop. It’s also what stops the detector from flagging my presence; there’s no demonic energy for it to pick up on when it’s shut off.”

“I don’t—” I cut off, falling silent. Everything I know about Daion, every memory and moment we’ve shared, it all flashes through my head. How we met, the way he helped far beyond any expectation I had, and all the things he’s told me. Some of it, a lot of it, seems to take on an entirely new meaning now I know his secret. “The witch you told me about, the one who accidentally drained her family while pregnant…” I trail off, unable to finish voicing the question.

If I can’t bring myself to ask the first question, how am I supposed to get through all of the others I now have?

“She was my mother,” he confirms after a moment, his voice unnaturally flat. “Her name was Althea.”

“Have you always known what you are?” I force myself to continue with the questions, knowing this isn’t something that can be set down for another time. It’s too important and has too much of a potential butterfly effect on the rest of our interactions, both the ones before now and onto our future.

“For most of my life,” he answers, still just as flat. “It wasn’t fully explained at first. I was just told I was different and that we had to be careful because of it. After she died and the Fletchers took me in, they explained more and told me what I was…that I was half-demon. I don’t think I really grasped the full depth of the situation until I was a teenager, though.”

I nod, accepting the answer and mentally switching tracks to ask some of the more tense questions. Well, the ones that could possibly change how I see him, anyway. “Did you know who Paimon was this whole time?”

“You mean, did I know he was the fucking monster who killed my mother and provided half of my DNA? No, I didn’t.” Daion pauses to take a deep breath in and out, seeming to release some of the anger this has brought up for him with an ease I can’t help but envy. That level of emotional control is beyond me, especially while under the influence of all these insane hormones. “I just knew they were a powerful iracae. Everything you said, though, all of the details line up with my own life. It also feels like the truth now I’m saying it.”

“Who else knows?”

“My adoptive parents are the only ones who are supposed to know. I also think maybe Torrin suspects something, but he’s never asked about it. Pretty sure that Ash has somehow clocked it, too.”

“And Rio?”

“Has no idea, which is probably for the best,” he answers, and I have to stomp down on the urge to comfort him at the obvious sadness he feels about that. At the pain he feels simply thinking about the reaction his brother would have if he knew the truth about him.

Because now it’s time for the things I really don’t want to ask but absolutely need to know…

“Did you only help me because of what you are? Is that the real reason you slept with me, since you felt some kind of…link to my situation?”

“No, of course not.” He grabs my hands in his and meets my eyes, something almost scarily intense in the way he looks at me. “I told you I wanted you, Eden, and I do. It wasn’t a lie then, and it still isn’t one.”

“So you’re really saying the fact you’re half-demon had nothing to do with any of it?” I ask, still not fully believing it couldn’t have affected his willingness to help. How could it not have an effect?

“I…” Daion trails off and then sighs. “I’ll admit, it was why I stepped between you and Rio on the day we met. The second I realised what the cause of the energy was, I knew I had to protect you. The way I wished someone would have protected her.”

I try to pull my hands back, feeling my heart sinking into my stomach, but he doesn’t let go.

“Let me finish,” he pleads, continuing on before I can object. “I may have initially felt drawn to help you due to the parallels between our situation, but I swear, nothing else was down to that. If I wasn't attracted to you, I’d have let Torrin help you with your vitav instead. I care about you, not about the species of the child you’re carrying.”

“Look, it doesn’t really matter, anyway,” I say, and this time, he lets me pull my hands away. “Whether you did it all out of some misguided sense of obligation or not. I know that nothing about this situation is fair to you or Torrin. Especially now that Ash is back.”

“You’re right that him being back changes things, but it doesn’t have to end them.”

“How can it not mean that? Rio said I was?—”

“Screw whatever Rio said to you,” Daion interrupts me before I can keep spiralling. “Torrin and I are grown fucking adults. We can make our own choices, and I think it goes without saying that we choose you. Despite all of the complications that come with it, whether it’s figuring out how to share your attention with each other or putting up with your incubus baby daddy. We both still want you.”

“How can you say that? Are you crazy? All I’ve done is cause trouble and eat all of your food. And now there’s Ash involved?—”

“We invited you and Ash to stay, didn’t we?” he demands.

“I guess, but I thought you were just…being nice by giving in?”

“Nice?” Daion chokes on a laugh. “If I was being nice , I wouldn’t be so selfish by making this more confusing for you. You’ve got enough to deal with already between the danger, a baby, and a clearly still-interested incubus, but I don't care. I want to keep being around you—being with you.”

“Yeah, you’re definitely crazy,” I inform him, a small smile curling my lips despite my words. I lean closer and tilt my head up, pressing my lips to his in a gentle kiss, which he returns.

“You’re not still upset that I didn't tell you?” he asks when I pull away, his knuckles brushing down the side of my face before resting under my chin to keep me looking into his eyes.

“I wasn’t ever upset that you didn’t tell me your secret, Dai. I understand possibly more than anyone else why you’d keep something like that to yourself. I did have to confirm a few things, but honestly, I was only really upset at the idea you only cared because of it. That you’d lied about wanting me.”

“I wouldn’t lie about it. I thought I already convinced you of that,” he says, an almost teasing edge to his voice as he says the latter part.

“I mean, a girl can never get enough convincing of how wanted she is,” I reply playfully, grinning as he slides his hand up and into my hair, pulling me into another kiss.

It’s deeper this time, his soft lips pressing harder, but it’s also unrushed. Neither of us is in a hurry to get to a goal, just enjoying the moment and the closeness of each other. When we finally pull apart, I find myself resting up against his chest as we settle back onto the couch.

“Are you okay?” I ask quietly after a few moments.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” he questions back, arms tightening just a little bit where they encircle me.

“Figuring out who your demonic asshole of a sperm donor is can’t be easy.”

“It’s not,” he agrees, then presses another kiss to the top of my head, hand stroking across my back like I’m the one who needs comforting over this. “It’s given me one more reason to want the bastard dead, though. I promise I won’t let him hurt either of you. He won’t take you again.”

“He won’t hurt you again, either, Daion. You’re not fighting him alone. You have your family, and now you have me.” I reach over and lace our fingers together, holding him tightly. “We’ll protect each other.”

“Okay, Eden. We’ll protect each other,” Daion agrees with a kiss to the top of my head.

The thought of Daion losing anyone else he loves because of that shit-eating fuckhead sperm donor makes rage bubble up inside my chest. Paimon won’t ever get his creepy fingers on my baby, of that I’m positive, but he’ll have a hard fucking time laying those fingers on any of the rest of them, either. If I have anything to say about it, anyway.

If he so much as tries, I’ll chop them off and feed them to my pet alligator. I’ll need to work on the pet alligator part, but the point stands. I’ll chop them off and feed them to…something. I’ll figure it out.

I suck in a ragged breath as I realise just how deeply that feeling runs within me for all of them, even for Rio. Fuck. These protective instincts are beginning to get a little out of hand…