Page 14

14

CALLIOPE

T he air itself seemed to tighten, drawn taut by something I couldn’t see yet. But I could feel it. My skin prickled as the sconce by the door blinked out with a soft puff of darkness.

Adan stepped in front of me like a shield. “Abaddon.”

My breath caught. His father.

I hadn’t expected him to look quite so normal. With how Adan had spoken of him, I assumed he would always appear more monstrous than man, twisted and snarling. But the figure who stepped into view was worse because he didn’t need to roar or bare teeth to be terrifying.

He was even taller than Adan when he was in demon form. Broad and encased in black armor that looked forged in smoke and shadow. There was no color in his eyes. No flame. Only void.

Adan didn’t move. He just stood between us, tall and braced.

Abaddon’s gaze slid past him. Landed on me and stayed there.

“So this is the girl,” he said, voice as smooth as it was brutal. “You’ve already told her who I am?”

Adan nodded once, sharp and tense. “She knows. And she’s mine.”

“I’m aware, son.” Abaddon’s mouth curled faintly at the corners. It wasn’t quite a smile but something more dangerous. “And she should know. Especially since it wasn’t you who woke the blade. Or made the gate you protect sing like a blood-borne heir had finally come home.”

My pulse stuttered. I didn’t understand everything he said, but one point was clear…he somehow knew that my father was a demon.

“Gate?” I echoed.

“My son can explain.” His obsidian gaze didn’t leave mine. “What he can’t share because he doesn’t know is that it remembers what your blood forgot. You are something in between, Calliope Ash. Half-wrought. Half-lost. But that won’t last forever.”

Adan growled low in his throat, but Abaddon didn’t flinch.

“Let what slumbers in your blood awake.” He tilted his head. “Old things are stirring, and my son will need what lives inside you to survive what’s coming.”

The air thickened again, and I felt it—deep in my chest. A thrum I hadn’t noticed before.

As suddenly as Abaddon appeared, he stepped back into the shadows. His voice came one last time, cold and certain. “The girl will be fine.”

Then he was gone.

The silence left in his wake almost felt heavier than his presence had. Like the room itself had been holding its breath. Or maybe that was just me.

I stared at the now empty doorway, every nerve in my body on high alert.

“That was your father?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.

Adan didn’t move. “Yes.”

That one word landed like a stone in my chest.

Abaddon hadn’t spoken loudly. He hadn’t raised a hand. But it hadn’t been necessary. He was something ancient and unshakable. The pressure he carried lingered in the air, like the room needed a moment to return to itself.

My throat felt dry. “With how you described him, I thought I would be terrified if I ever met him. But I wasn’t.”

Adan’s gaze flicked to mine, searching.

I wrapped my arms around myself and admitted, “It’s more that I’m scared of what he saw in me.”

His brows drew together, and he stepped closer. “Don’t be afraid of what lies in your blood, baby. He saw potential, and so do I.”

The way Abaddon had looked at me as though he could already see something forming in my blood that I didn’t understand had shaken something loose in me.

“My mom never really talked about my father,” I explained. “Whenever I asked, she changed the subject. But she always got nervous during storms. Even when it was barely raining.”

Adan listened without interrupting, just rubbed his palm down my arm in a comforting gesture.

“I used to think she was just being dramatic,” I went on, my voice thick with the tears that always came when I talked about her. “But maybe she knew that something inside me wasn’t normal. Or at least suspected.”

A strange warmth stirred low in my belly, curling outward like the slow spread of embers.

I pressed my palm over my stomach with a gasp, and Adan tugged me close, covering mine with his, firm and steady. “What’s wrong?”

The warmth inside me didn’t fade. It intensified. Not painfully but heavy, as though something old was stirring in my blood, yawning awake after too long in the dark.

I turned slowly, my eyes drawn to the wall across from us. One of the protective glyphs shimmered faintly. It was no brighter than the others, but somehow called to me. Not with sound or even a touching sensation. Just a magnetic tug…like gravity.

Before I could second-guess the impulse, I stepped away from Adan and reached out. My fingertips brushed the center of the symbol, and it flared to life beneath my touch, glowing with the same violet hue I’d seen react to him.

But this time, the color didn’t dim. It pulsed.

Beneath my feet, the stone warmed while the air thickened. The room seemed to lean toward me the way it had bowed for Abaddon. An acknowledgment without submission.

My breath caught in my throat as the space around me shifted, folding inward. The air darkened. And just for a moment, I wasn’t in Adan’s quarters anymore.

I stood before a throne made of jagged and sharp obsidian. Instead of being elegant, it was violent. Primal. Ancient.

Flames coiled at its base, flickering in unnatural colors—deep indigo, shiny gold, and the same magenta I’d seen shimmer at the tip of Adan’s demon tail. The heat should have burned, but it didn’t. The air felt charged with electricity. Similar to the moment before a lightning strike.

I couldn’t see the figure seated on the throne, but I felt him.

A pressure built behind my eyes, and a distant rumble echoed in my ears, like thunder muffled by miles of stone. Then a voice whispered my name, low and cold.

“Calliope.”

I stumbled back with a gasp, yanking my hand away from the glyph. The light vanished, and the room snapped back into place like a string pulled taut.

My knees buckled, but Adan caught me before I hit the ground, his arms strong around my waist.

“What in the world was that?” I whispered, twisting in his hold to wrap my arms around his muscular frame.

“I don’t think it was from this world.” He tugged me close and stroked his palm down my spine. “I think the demon who sired you just made himself known.”

“My father?”

I blinked up at him and shook my head. I’d spent the past two years without a single living relative, feeling like I’d been set adrift by my mother’s death. But the man who’d gotten her pregnant might be out there somewhere. A demon.

The air around me slowly settled, but the buzzing inside didn’t. It was like my blood had turned into a current I couldn’t shut off. I’d felt something ancient reach for me, and I hadn’t recoiled. An instinct deep inside me had responded.

I drew in a shaky breath, only half steady on my feet. “I don’t know what’s happening to me.”

Adan guided me into the bedroom and over to the edge of the bed. He sat beside me, his hand never leaving mine. “With how the glyph responded to you, it must be the power my father mentioned, already starting to awaken.”

The words should’ve scared me, but they didn’t. Nothing did with Adan beside me.

I glanced down at our joined hands. “I know I chose not to continue my education, but I think I need a crash course in ‘Demon 101.’ Maybe a syllabus. Class schedule. Office hours.”

That earned a small smile from him, the kind that chased away the shadows. “We’ll figure it out together.”

I knew we had more pressing matters to discuss, but I couldn’t help but ask, “Do you think we’ll be able to find out who he is? My father?”

His thumb brushed over my knuckles. “I think we already have part of the answer. The throne you saw wasn’t just demonic. It was primordial. My guess? He’s one of the old ones whose name the underworld still whispers.”

A chill spread over my skin, but I nodded. “At least that’s a step in the right direction, I suppose. I guess we should focus on how to use whatever’s inside me. Your father said we’d need it soon.”

Adan’s smile faded. “We’ll start slow. Glyph exposure, then layered enchantments. Maybe even guided channeling if the energy continues to surface.” He paused. “I have allies who specialize in awakening latent power. Trusted ones.”

“What if I can’t control it?” I asked, giving voice to my biggest fear.

He pulled me onto his lap. “Then I’ll stand between you and whatever your power does. Every time. Until you can.”

My throat tightened with emotion. “You’re not afraid?”

“Losing you would be a fuck of a lot worse than dealing with a power surge. We’ll make sure it doesn’t come to that.”

He said we, not you. And somehow, that made all the difference.

I nodded slowly. “We’d better get started.”