Chapter 27
27
Fare T h ee Well, Love
D an found Jacqui standing by the window in their bedroom, staring out at the darkening skies reflecting in the calm ocean. After Asmodeus had lost consciousness, there had been several seconds of undiluted panic.
Eva had screamed in a way that told Dan she hadn’t been kidding when she told the damn demon she loved him, and Belial and Raum had rushed over, hovering about like they were equally concerned. Dan had found himself begrudgingly reassuring them Asmodeus was fine. He’d obviously just been overwhelmed by powerful positive emotions he wasn’t used to experiencing.
Dan couldn’t deny it anymore. If he’d hoped to believe that Asmodeus was lying about loving Eva, the fact that he’d passed out proved otherwise. There was no faking that kind of reaction, as much as Dan wished it weren’t so. As much as he still wanted to stab the bastard.
And speaking of stabbing bastards, Mephistopheles had woken up not long after that and been all wounded puppy, staring at Dan with those big red eyes like he’d been betrayed by his best friend. It hadn’t helped him feel any better about himself for launching the dagger in the first place, especially because Jacqui had proceeded to fuss over the guy like he was her own son.
Belial had carried Asmodeus inside and, after dropping him unceremoniously in the shower to wash off the blood, deposited him in Eva’s bed to sleep off his love hangover. Then the goddamned King of Hell had cooked the rest of them a five-course haute-cuisine meal, and they’d eaten in awkward silence amidst inappropriate comments from Mephistopheles and responding insults from his brothers.
It was one of the most bizarre meals Dan had ever endured, and that said a lot, considering how old he was and some of the situations he’d found himself in over the ages.
Afterward, it was time for him to leave. He knew it was coming, knew his wife needed time and space and a break. Maybe a permanent one, though he couldn’t bear to think about that yet. Or ever. But he knew he owed it to her to give her what she needed.
He also owed it to her to be honest, which meant that before he left, they needed to talk.
Which was how he found himself in their bedroom, watching her as she stood staring at that ocean view they both loved. He came up behind her, longing to touch her, to pull her into his arms, but he knew better. Instead, he sat on the edge of bed and waited.
There was so much to say. Too much. So he said nothing, knowing Jacqui would speak when she was ready.
She did, eventually, though she never turned away from the glass. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“To protect you. And Eva. I was never supposed to—” He stopped, rubbing his temples. He had to say this right, had to make sure he didn’t make it worse. And yet, it seemed there was no right way. “I broke the rules, Jacqui. But I hoped that if you didn’t know, if I was ever caught, it would protect you. You couldn’t be guilty if you didn’t know.”
“And what about Eva? What if she was caught?” Her voice hitched. “Belial said they would execute her, Dan.”
“That was what the binding spell was all about. It was perfect. It even altered her lifespan. There would have been no way anyone, even her, would have ever learned what she was.” He breathed a bitter, regretful laugh. “It was sheer dumb luck that she got mixed up with demons and started giving them her blood.” He rubbed his eyes so hard he saw stars. “Why the hell did she do that?”
“She would have known not to if you’d just told her.”
It was true. There was nothing he could say to excuse that, nothing he could say to justify that colossal mistake. He had fucked up, but his fuck-up had gone beyond just screwing up his own life. He’d put his daughter in danger, whom he loved more than anything in the world. He was pretty sure he could live until the sun exploded and he would never forgive himself for that.
“What do you mean about her lifespan?” Jacqui asked, finally turning away from the window to look at him. There was a crease in her brow, her eyes full of trepidation.
She was right to be concerned.
“She’s half angel. Angels are immortal. Humans aren’t. That means, she’ll live indefinitely, until such a time as she chooses to cross over. Then, her soul will go to Heaven.”
“Angels are immortal,” Jacqui repeated, staring at him.
He nodded, knowing where this was going and dreading it with everything he was.
“Are you... ?”
He nodded again.
Her eyes widened. “Dan...” Her breaths grew shallow. So did his as he waited for her to put it together.
“How old are you?” she finally whispered in horror.
“Old.”
“How old?”
“Really old.”
“How old, Dan?”
He blew out a breath. “I fell thousands of years ago. Before that, I can’t say. Angels don’t experience time the way we do.”
“Thousands...”
He nodded.
Her hands covered her mouth, and she sank slowly to the floor, her back against the glass. “Why... ?”
There were so many questions that could begin with that, and he had no idea which one she was asking in particular. “Why did I fall? Or why don’t angels experience time like we do?”
But she shook her head. “Why did you choose me? Marry me? Live here with me?”
He blinked. “Because I love you.”
She blinked back. They stared at each other. “But...”
“Jacqui, you’ve known me for twenty-seven years. I know our concepts of time are different, but we both know that’s long enough to know someone. You know I love you, and I know you know.”
“But why did you fall in love with me in the first place? I was just a girl. Twenty years old. I barely knew myself!”
He winced. “I know. It sounds bad, I know. But there was something about you that drew me. There always has been. Your light, your energy, your ability to find the good in all things... And I was right to fall in love with you—every day I’ve known you, I’ve only grown to love you more. But even then, despite all that, I never intended to stay, but...”
“But then we had Eva.”
He nodded. Evangeline, his beautiful, accidental daughter. “Eva changed everything. When she was born, I took one look at her tiny face, and I knew I wasn’t going anywhere. Maybe if it was just us, I might have had the courage to leave, but you and Eva together... I didn’t stand a chance.”
It was his turn to stare blankly out the window from his seat on the bed. He would move heaven and earth to protect his family. He would break any rule, take any chance, risk any repercussion if it meant they would be safe.
“You’re not going to age.” Jacqui breathed a bitter laugh. “I had this talk with Eva the other day. I told her that even if Ash was the perfect man, she had to consider the fact that he was immortal. I told her she could never fully commit to him because one day, someone would ask her if she was his mother, and then his grandmother, and that it would torture her. Guess it wasn’t Eva who needed that advice after all.”
Her eyes were haunted as she stared ahead at nothing. “At least I’ll never have to worry about outliving my child. Both my husband and my daughter are going to live forever.”
Damn, his heart ached. It felt like someone had punched a fist through his chest and gripped the thing in cold, clammy fingers. “I’m sorry, Jacqui.”
“What were you going to do, Dan? Keep lying and hope I never noticed? I’d already begun to notice. In fact, I remember thinking recently how uncanny it was that you never seemed to age. You looked too old for me when we met, and now you’re starting to look too young. My friends are always telling me how great you look for your age, asking me what your secret is. I tell them good diet and exercise.” Again with that bitter laugh. “Maybe that’ll fly for now, but what happens in another ten years? Another twenty?”
“I don’t know.” It was the god’s honest truth. “I never planned for this.” He stared at his palms in his lap, open to the heavens as if begging for a miracle. “I never wanted to put you in this position, but I couldn’t leave. I love you and Eva too much. I couldn’t make myself leave.”
Jacqui hunched forward and buried her face in her hands. “How could you do this to me, Dan?”
His eyes stung with tears, and the aching in his chest was so intense, it was hard to breathe around it. He could say nothing, do nothing to make this better.
His beautiful, vibrant wife was mortal, and she was aging, and he was going to walk the earth until the day the world ended or some demon finally succeeded in killing him. It had never bothered him before, but now, he was certain he would rather die than go on without her. Honestly, he felt like he could die right now, knowing she might never forgive him for this. Not that he expected her to.
What had he been thinking all these years? That if he waited long enough, somehow, his problems would sort themselves out? That wasn’t how the world worked. Problems ignored built until they gathered tsunami-like force and crashed onto the shores of carefully laid plans and destroyed them all.
Dan wanted to blame everything on Asmodeus for dragging Eva into this hidden, dangerous world, but he knew the blame fell squarely on his shoulders. A demon fresh from Hell had been more honest with his daughter than Dan had been with his wife of twenty-seven years. And there were no words he could say to make it right, nothing he could do to fix it. He could only sit there and know that he deserved every little bit of misery he was enduring now.
But Jacqui deserved none of it.
“I’m so sorry,” was all he could think to say. He wanted to tell her he loved her, but he knew she knew it already. And unfortunately, in this instance, his love wasn’t enough.
“I don’t know what you want me to tell you,” she replied in that tiny, broken voice that flayed him alive. “That I forgive you? That I can accept this, and things can go back to how they were? Because I can’t, and I don’t know if they can. If they ever will.”
“I don’t expect you to forgive me,” he said, trying not to gasp at the pain in his chest. “And I know things can’t go back to how they were. Honestly, I’m just grateful we had what we did for this long. Twenty-seven years isn’t much when you’ve lived as long as I have, but it’s damn well better than nothing. I’m not sorry I stayed and raised our daughter with you. I’m only sorry for the pain it’s causing you now.”
She lifted her head from her arms and stared at him. He stared right back. She was so familiar. The sight of her warm face with those deep, dark eyes felt like coming home. But right now, there were oceans of distance between them. Oceans he might never be able to cross.
“I need time to think,” she said softly. “And even then, I’m not sure... I don’t know if I can ever...” She couldn’t seem to find the words to finish. He was glad. He didn’t need to hear the rest of the sentence to know what she was trying to say.
All of a sudden, he couldn’t take it anymore. He stood quickly. “I understand. It’s for the best. It was bound to come to this anyway.” He walked around the edge of the bed and headed to the door, his eyes stinging.
Hand on the doorknob, he turned back to his wife one last time, drinking in the sight of her beautiful face and knowing that even if he never saw her again, he would love her until the world ended just the same. “If you ever want to talk, I’ll have my phone.”
She nodded, frowning slightly, and then opened her mouth, probably to ask him where he was going to go.
He didn’t give her the chance, because frankly, he wasn’t sure himself. Wherever it was, he’d still be keeping an eye on both Eva and Jacqui, whether they knew it or not. Instead, he said, “I love you,” and then left, closing the door behind him. He waited in the hallway in case, by some freak stroke of luck, she decided to chase after him, but she never came.
It was better this way, he told himself. Even if she’d chased after him and forgiven him on the spot, it wouldn’t solve the problem that she was mortal and he was not, and there was nothing they could do to make their relationship any less impossible.
It was time to go.
He walked down the hallway to Eva’s bedroom, pausing outside the door. His senses told him she was in there with Asmodeus, so he took a moment to listen because he really didn’t want to interrupt anything.
Dan rubbed his face and stifled a groan. Asmodeus, Prince of Hell, was in his daughter’s bedroom. That was going to take some getting used to. But the bloody demon loved her. He really, actually loved her, and Dan couldn’t deny it.
Though a large part of him still wanted to impale him on his sword, another part of him accepted that having Asmodeus in Eva’s life was actually for the best. Asmodeus and his “brothers” would protect her, and the protection of four demons of their caliber was no small thing.
He heard nothing from Eva’s room, so he took a chance and opened the door, peeking inside. Eva and Asmodeus were sleeping. She was curled against him, and his arms and legs were wrapped around her like he was holding onto her with everything he had. His face was buried in her neck the same way Dan did to Jacqui, and he had left his big leathery wings out. The bottom one lay stretched out on the bed behind him, but the top wing curved over their bodies like a protective shield.
Eva was smiling in her sleep.
Damn it. Dan rubbed his eyes again. Nope, not even that romantic little picture made it any easier to see a demon with his arms around his daughter. But she looked happy, and that was all he’d ever wanted for her.
Tiptoeing across the room to her bedside, he bent and kissed her forehead like he’d done when she was a babe. He remembered the first time he’d ever held her. The newborn had stirred awake and then blinked up at him, so tiny in his arms, and he’d gasped at the unusual silver shade of her eyes that marked her as his forbidden daughter. He’d known right then he would never have the courage to leave.
Now, he stroked her forehead and murmured, “Sleep tight, Evangeline. I love you with all my heart.”
When he straightened, Asmodeus was awake and watching him, his head lifted slightly off the pillow. Their gazes met.
“You’re leaving,” Asmodeus said quietly.
Dan nodded.
He expected some kind of smug reaction. The demon had won. He had turned the family against him, wooed the girl, and scored an unlimited supply of Nephilim blood. Why wouldn’t he be smug? But instead, his brow furrowed, and a solemn expression crossed his noble features. He appeared almost remorseful.
Asmodeus sat up slowly, taking a moment to adjust the blankets over Eva with tender care. Then he fixed his dark blue eyes on Dan, all that long hair falling all over his bare torso. The guy was good looking, even Dan could admit. But then, of course he was. He was a demon.
“You will visit Eva often,” the Prince of Hell declared as if he was still commanding his legions.
“If she wants to see me,” Dan said, “I’ll be there.”
“Visit regardless. She’ll come around. And so will Jacqui.”
He wished it were so simple. But how nice of the demon to try to comfort him. God, this was weird.
“Take care of her,” Dan said, looking at his sleeping daughter’s face. “Make her happy or I will hunt you down and decapitate you.”
Asmodeus grinned into the dark. “I will.”
Maybe Dan had finally lost it, but he actually believed the guy.
“Where will you go?” Asmodeus asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll find some more of my kind and take up hunting again.” Asmodeus cocked a brow and Dan waved a hand. “I want you four idiots guarding my daughter. As long as you don’t start making a scene I’ll leave you to your own devices, and I won’t tell anyone where you are.”
His eyes narrowed, but he nodded. “We won’t be in the clear until we find the Hunter.”
“That’s easy. I left him trapped in a sigil in Eva’s living room. I couldn’t destroy him without attracting attention to myself, but you can. You’re already in enough trouble as it is, and I know you’ve got the tools to dispatch him permanently.”
Asmodeus flashed that wolfish grin again. “You know, you’re not so bad, Grigori.”
“I don’t know whether to be insulted or complimented by your approval.”
“Probably both.”
A snort escaped Dan before he could remind himself that he was supposed to hate the bastard. “Tell Eva if she wants to talk, I have my phone.”
“I will.”
“I know I said it before, but tell her... Tell her I’m sorry.”
“I will.”
The Grigori nodded. The demon nodded back.
Damn it, he was feeling a strange kinship with the guy that was too uncomfortable. He shook his head, not ready to get all buddy-buddy with Asmodeus yet.
With one last look at his daughter, one last deep breath of the house he’d raised her in, one last moment of gratitude for the life he’d had that never should have been his to begin with, Dan concentrated his power and teleported away.