“I’m meeting another demon today to see if he’ll support me,” Luc said as Dex finished the last of his coffee. “Would you like to come with me?”
Dex set his cup aside. “Now?”
Luc pulled out his phone. “Yes. Onyx confirmed he’s ready to see us.”
Dex hesitated, readjusting the positioning of his cup. “You want me to come?”
“More than anything.” Luc captured Dex’s nervous hand. “Your support means the world, but if you don’t want to meet more demons, especially ones who hate me, then I understand.”
“You’re going to ask someone who hates you to help?”
Luc shrugged. “If I didn’t, I’d have no potential allies.”
Dex’s face fell. “Doesn’t being hated bother you?”
Luc opened his mouth to deny it, but his mate deserved the more complicated truth. “Yes, it bothers me deeply, but I can’t think about the love I lost or how I turned everyone against me without getting sucked into a very dark place. I can’t dwell on it if I want to do anything about it, and if I don’t do anything, it will always be this way.”
Dex’s hand tightened in his. “I’ll come with you.”
Luc raised Dex’s hand and kissed his knuckles, taking great pleasure in the flush darkening Dex’s cheeks.
He led Dex back to his loft, where they could take off from the roof.
Luc hadn’t dared hope he’d have not one, but two people on his side, supporting him after everything. Onyx might grumble every step of the way, but Luc wasn’t as afraid he would change his mind anymore. Onyx’s fierce affection hadn’t gone anywhere, even when Luc had trampled all over it.
And his mate. Dex’s belief that he was redeemable pushed him to new heights. He wanted to be everything Dex saw in him. He could be good and loving, a positive force like he’d envisioned himself to be when he first had the idea to fall. An idea that hadn’t been as horribly flawed as he’d believed for the past thousand years.
He hadn’t been wrong to flee a controlling society.
Luc had questioned many things in his life. Challenging authority had always been a point of pride. But he’d never questioned the fundamental facts defining his world.
Dex’s fresh eyes had opened Luc to new truths. Pulled back blinders that Luc’s mind hadn’t even conceived of. Luc would change the realms for Dex, but he couldn’t have done it without him.
Magic had always existed on Earth. Mortality and mystical forces had always been combined. The fabric of the universe had never been binary. It wasn’t some delicate balance that needed to be guarded. Something that Luc could ruin. Why couldn’t beings exist in many forms on a spectrum of life?
“Thank you.” Luc cupped Dex’s cheeks. Wind swirled around them on the exposed rooftop, wrapping them in scents of earth and fire.
Dex’s brow quirked. “For coming with you? No problem.”
“Not only that.” Luc’s fingers tightened. His fire swelled, chest tightening and eyes burning, but not with flame. Luc blinked, and a tear fell hot down his cheek. “For showing me the truth.”
Dex gripped Luc’s sweater, tugging him closer. “What truth? That magic was always here?”
“Yes.” The tension in Luc’s chest released, and a lightness radiated outward, filling him with intense relief. “For millennia, I believed I’d led the way to destroying the sacred balance of the universe. It was one of my greatest mistakes. The one that triggered all my other deepest regrets. The one that proved I was wrong to fall. That I was wrong at my core. But it wasn’t a mistake. I couldn’t have destroyed a sacred balance that doesn’t exist. Coming to Earth wasn’t inherently wrong. The rise of witches wasn’t a blight on humanity. You called this a richer, more diverse world.”
“It is.” Dex’s determination could have taken Luc to his knees.
He stood strong for his mate. “That’s the truth you showed me. The explanation of the realms I was raised with is just that, an explanation, not an inherent or irrefutable fact. I didn’t ruin something that can never be fixed. I’m not worthless.”
A heavy weight lifted from Luc and crumbled into dust. He wasn’t suddenly perfect, all his actions excused, but the guilt that had poisoned so much was gone, and without it, Luc could see a path to redemption.
He could make up for all of his real mistakes. Atone and humble himself to the people he’d wronged. And one day, he might be free of it all. Nothing had been so deeply destroyed that he couldn’t try to undo it.
Dex embraced him, and he buried his face in Dex’s hair. “You’re not worthless, Luc. You never should have believed that breaking the Eternal Realm’s rules made you less than.”
“No,” he agreed. He shouldn’t have.
Luc had still done bad things and gone against his own morals. But he would never act like that again. Nothing was ever so ruined that you should stop trying to be better. And it was never too late.
