Chapter 11 #2
“Very well. I can understand your curiosity. I met your mother while I was hunting down a fugitive from our realm. A demon named Kāsel murdered my brother. Duels are common, but he didn’t even give Zayel a chance.
Kāsel stabbed him in the back, like the coward he was.
So I avenged Zayel. I traced Kāsel to Seattle, and found him in a bar.
He was bothering a woman—she was extremely beautiful, and she obviously didn’t want his attention.
I waited till she left, but Kasel started to follow her. ”
I caught my breath, but said nothing. But, inside, I kept thinking of Jace.
“I followed them, and when they came to a park, he dragged her into the bushes. I dispatched him before he could do more than scare her. She was terrified—rightly so, since she saw me in my truest form and she watched me kill him. Kāsel vanished when he died, so she knew she wasn’t dealing with humans. ”
“So she knew, from the beginning? That you were a demon?”
He nodded. “I escorted her home. We talked half the night. She suggested I stay with her. And that night, you were conceived. But I couldn’t stay for long. After a couple weeks, I had to return home.”
“Did she want you to go?” I asked, suddenly hungry to everything I could about this man who had won my mother over. I wanted to ask if he had loved her, but I had a feeling that was asking for disappointment.
He shook his head. “No. I offered to take her back to my realm, but I was honest with her. She could never be my wife there—only a concubine. And I was expected to take another wife at some point. Vaurice’s mother had died years before.
Erin needed more than that and I understood.
So she chose her world, and I returned home to mine. ”
I thought about this for a moment. “I think she was afraid that you would find out about me and take me away. She changed her last name and her backstory. She never told me about her relatives, and I think it was because she was afraid you might come back and hurt them. Or, at least, I thought it was because of that.”
He seemed to understand what I was asking, between the lines. “I think she feared for you, more than for herself or her family. Demons aren’t readily accepted. Maybe she wanted to spare you rejection. Perhaps she feared her family would deny you.”
“That could be,” I said, thinking. I had been bullied a lot during school, and while I always knew that I was half demon, she had cautioned me about speaking out about it.
Given what I’d remembered about her boyfriend, it made sense.
“To be honest, I think she was afraid I’d get angry and hurt someone, if they laughed at me or turned me away. That did happen, you know.”
And just like that, I found myself telling him about the man who tried to kidnap me.
Ezerian remained stoic, but he blinked—just once—and in that blink, I could see the regret.
“I think, perhaps, I did you and your mother a disservice by staying away. But I didn’t know about you.
Perhaps, if I had known, I could have made life easier for you both, even though I couldn’t take you home. ”
“How did you find out about me?” I asked.
“About a year ago, a friend of mine came over here on an assignment. He caught sight of you, and—well—he saw the resemblance. He knew that I’d been here at one time.
So, he took a photograph. When he returned to our realm, he showed me the picture.
Right then I knew that Erin had gotten pregnant.
There’s absolutely no mistaking that you’re my daughter.
I could feel my blood beating in your heart through the photograph.
So I began to search, and a few months back, I found out what happened to your mother.
And that she had a daughter whose age matched the time period when I knew her.
So I sent Vaurice over and…here we are.”
“Here we are,” I echoed. After a moment, I cleared my throat. “I need to think about all of this for awhile.”
Vaurice reached out and gently patted my shoulder. He sounded almost empathetic when he said, “This must be a shock.”
“It is,” I said, and I didn’t even slap his hand away.
“Take your time,” my father said. “Meanwhile, when should we come to the office to meet your employees?”
I was going to have to go along with this front for now. And—given what I now knew about the Elder Gallara—there were so many questions to answer.
Sighing, I said, “Friday morning. Ten o’clock.” That would give me time to warm the others up to the idea, and to plan out what to do next. I also needed to talk to Seton and Devon about what I’d learned.
“We’ll be there. On time. And make sure your roommate’s there. I want to meet the woman who’s caught my son’s attention.”
Before I could say a word, Ezerian motioned for Vaurice to slide out of the booth.
Both were taller than me, by quite a bit, and together we made for an intimidating trio.
Right then, I realized that I believed my father.
I believed him about Brim Fire and what they were trying to do, and I wanted to help them.
* * *
All the way home, I tried to sort through my feelings.
In the space of two hours, I’d gone from suspecting Ezerian of trying to disrupt our world, to believing that—as unlikely as it seemed—he was trying to protect it.
My father was supposed to be the bad guy.
In many ways he was—in no way did I trust that he was a good person. But now, he was fighting on our side.
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” I whispered, clutching the wheel.
As I pulled into the driveway and turned off the ignition, I thought about what I was going to tell the others. I didn’t have the faintest idea of where to begin, but before I headed inside, I put in an emergency text to Devon, Seton.
we need to talk immediately. can you both come to the office tomorrow morning? it has to be tomorrow, before friday.
And with that, I headed inside, wondering how to tell Penn everything that had happened.