I paused mid-bite, fork hovering.
“Gleeda looked at it. She said it wasn’t healing as fast as it should but didn’t seem overly worried about it. She gave me some cream and bandages,” I replied.
He smiled pleasingly.
“All of the produce here is so good,” I said, changing the subject.
“Volcanic soil… ironic, isn’t it? That from something so deadly, the sweetest fruit can grow,” he stated. I looked into his eyes, so he knew I didn’t miss the hidden innuendo.
“It doesn’t surprise me at all,” I smiled lovingly, knowing all too well we were no longer talking about fruit.
He reached for my hand on the table and held it while stroking his thumb on my fingers.
“Are you ready to talk about what happened in Saraswati’s office?”
I cleared my throat; aware this topic would arise and having prepared for it mentally. It didn’t change the difficulty of actually having to say it aloud. I had secretly wished he might forget.
I took a deep breath.
“Do you remember when I told you my mother was placed in a psychiatric facility?” I asked, selecting my words carefully.
“I do. I have memories of you mentioning it to me as Danny as well, but in both lives you never mentioned why,” he replied curiously.
God, why was this so hard?
“When I got older, I heard rumors around town that my mother claimed that a demon fathered her baby. Everyone thought she was crazy, so my great grandparents had her institutionalized. But after what Saraswati theorized about the fallen archangel being able to cross into the mortal realm and procreate with a mortal, it was just too much to process.” My voice broke. I choked on the words trying to get them out. “My entire life I had always thought she was mentally ill and now I wonder, what if she wasn’t, and what if she had been telling the truth all along. What does that make me?” My voice choked.
Titus stood and walked to my side of the table before dropping to a knee. He took my hand. “It makes you whatever you want to be. I’m convinced my father was the devil himself, and I am not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but I am not him. We are who we choose to be. Your father may have been a fallen archangel, but maybe you didn’t inherit his darkness. Maybe you only inherited the part of him that was still archangel. It would make sense why only you can access the God Dragon; Eloria might have been your father’s dragon.”
“Access but not fly?” I asked.
“According to the prophecy, only immortals can command a God Dragon, but after the blood binding ceremony our souls are tethered through the mate bond, granting me—your immortal mate—the ability to wield the God Dragon,” he explained.
I took a big gulp of Faerie wine, and the heat almost instantly flooded my veins, relaxing me in the most euphoric way. I pondered over his words as he returned to his seat now that I had calmed down. Assuming all of this insanity was true, he may have been on to something about inheriting the part of my father that was archangel and not his darkness, because the Lithovore said I had a “pure soul.”
“Tell me about your father,” I said, and a muscle flinched in his jaw.
“Skip,” he said playfully, referring to the game we played in the enchanted mines. He buried his face in his goblet as if to hide from me, or the question, or both.
“Come on. I just told you my father might be anactual
demon. What could possibly be worse than that?” I begged.
“Nerot,” he answered with an emptiness in his eyes. “Lord Nerot was by far worse than a fallen archangel, because unlike your father he never fell from grace—he was born without it. He beat me, my sister, and my mom regularly. He psychologically tortured us daily.
He slaughtered Fae for amusement. He slept around and undoubtedly fathered several bastards. He raped. He lied. He stole. He traded Prisca’s virginity for cattle. So yeah, I’m glad he’s gone. He’s been dead for decades and I’m still cleaning up his mess.”
I tried to hide my emotions, but my stomach turned in disgust. My heart broke for him and what he went through. I couldn’t imagine growing up like that. The very thought of it made me sick to my stomach, but I was going to be strong for him and keep it together so he knew he could lean on me too—that he was not alone and it was ok to be vulnerable.
I took his hand from across the table and said, “I’m sorry for what you and your family went through. Thank you for opening up to me,” then I raised my wine glass and said, “To the apples that fell far from their trees.”
He looked at me with confusion and said, “What apples?... I could send for some if you like?”
I laughed and shook my head. “No, it’s a saying in the mortal realm. You don’t remember?”
“I can’t say that I do. What does it mean?” he asked with a small grin.
“It means, the child chose a different path from the parent,” I explained.
