“But you can see better at night?”
I nod. “My mother—the banshee Morgana, as you’ve likely surmised—is a creature of the night. I inherited that from her.”
She turns her head to assess me fully, brows knitted together. “You’re only half fae, which means your father was human.”
“My father was Edwyn Blackwood.” My heart clenches at the wordwas. Six months hasn’t been nearly enough to reconcile the loss of him. “I truly am his son, just like everyone thinks.”
“Yet your mother isn’t Alina Blackwood.”
Another name that tightens my chest. Like my father, she too is no longer amongst the living. It feels like a disservice to answer her question honestly. “No, she was not.” What I don’t say is that while Alina may not have been my mother, she was family. She treated me like a son and claimed me as her own. She held no grudge against her husband for siring me before they met.
“What about the dragon, Morgana’s husband?” Briony asks.
Yet another complicated family relationship, but this one causes me less pain to explain. “Trentas was a father figure to me from birth, but he was never my mother’s husband or mate. I lied when I referred to him as such. He was her ally, nothing more. Their relationship was a front to hide the identity of my true father as well as the sires of my siblings. My mother didn’t want to bring her lovers into our family curse, but she desperately wanted children, especially after the loss of her firstborn.”
I don’t bother mentioning her family’s guilt in that loss, how they orchestrated my brother’s death long before I was born, all to get revenge on my mother for crying at that fateful birthday celebration. After what I confessed about her family and the catacombs, I’m sure she can recall their other crimes on her own.
“If you’re not part dragon, then why does your unseelie form look like this? Your horns, your wings, your…” She flourishes her finger in a swirling pattern. “Your inky scales?”
“Myinky scalesare tattoos to honor Trentas. He may not have been of my blood, but he helped raise me. After my family fell under the sleeping spell, I was turned over to the care of Edwyn Blackwood in secret. When I was a child, I was constantly glamoured to appear to have pointed ears so everyone would assume Trentas was my father. But after I went into hiding with my birth father, I had to do the opposite, to convince the world I was fully human. I was never able to shift into my unseelie form in public. No horns. No wings. I understood why, but it infuriated me that I had to hide my true self. So when I came of age, I got these done to remind me of who I really am.”
She arches a brow. “You still haven’t explained the wings and horns. Unless those are…banshee features?”
“You know not every fae child takes after their parents.”
Her glare returns. “Of course I know that. I’m not an idiot, Mr. Blackwood. I scored high marks in fae biology.”
I suppress my grin, though I’m secretly pleased with the return of her haughty fire. I’d take a shouting match over watching her cry any day. To my relief, the tear I glimpsed earlier has dried.
Shifting my seat on the balustrade, I prop one leg upon it and watch the falling stars. I steel myself, preparing to confess something I never have to anyone. Not even my family talked about it more than a time or two, for our ruse over my parentage required far too much discretion. “I am a type of fae humans have always feared, ever since humans first came to the isle a thousand years ago.”
Briony says nothing, but I can feel her gaze on me.
“I’m a demon.”
More silence.
Then finally, “A demon?”
I nod.
Briony’s tittering laughter has my gaze shooting back to her. Her laughter builds until it catches on a snort. “A demon. You! It’s just so fitting.”
My jaw tightens. “I’m glad you find my heritage so amusing.”
She sobers from her mirth, but her smile remains on her face. “As much as I believe you a devilish creature, what are you really? You can’t be an actual demon. Demons belong in the biblical texts of human religions.”
“That may be true,” I say, “but the name was given to the fae long ago, particularly to one the first children born of human and fae relations. Back then such intimacies were taboo, even more so when a woman gave birth to a baby with horns and wings, resembling neither parent. The child was called a demon, and humans feared all human-fae hybrids would be born as such.”
“But the humans were wrong,” she says. “That child was never truly a demon as they understood the word to mean.”
“And yet the fae kept that name for what I am, as not everyone found it offensive or frightening, particularly the wild unseelie. I may not be the servant to some dark lord of the underworld, but I am the same kind of creature who first earned that name. The humans were right about one thing too: demons are only born from human-fae relations. But only one kind of fae can contribute to such offspring—banshees.”
She tilts her head. “Really? Just banshees? Is that why I’ve never heard of a fae demon before?”
“Yes. The Lemurias are the only banshee clan currently in seelie society. Or they were before the curse put them to sleep. The other banshees are firmly unseelie and prefer relations with their own kind. Morgana is the only banshee who has mated with a human in centuries. That makes demons incredibly rare.”
“But what exactly is a demon? What can you do?”
