“I tried.” He releases the barre, turning to face me fully. His crimson eyes are bright with something I’ve never seen there before—not quite tears, but close. “I sat her down one night and started explaining the things I’d done. The people I’d hurt. I got through maybe a tenth of it before she stopped me.”
“Stopped you?”
“She said she’d heard enough.” A terrible smile crosses his face. “She said she understood now. Understood what I really was. And then she walked out of our home and threw herself off the cliff overlooking the sea.”
The world tilts.
I reach for the barre myself, needing something solid to hold onto as the implications crash over me.
She killed herself. She learned the truth about him and she killed herself.
“Izzie.” Mal’s voice is rough. “Say something.”
What is there to say?
The man I’ve fallen for—the demon I’ve invited into my life, my heart, my body—has a history so terrible that knowledge of it drove a woman to suicide. And now I’m supposed to offer the final invitation with full understanding of that history?
No wonder Azrael called it impossible.
“The other attempts.” I force the words out. “After Elena. Azrael said there were others.”
Mal’s jaw tightens. “Three more. Over the centuries. Each time I thought... maybe this time would be different. Maybe I’d found someone strong enough, accepting enough, to hear the truth and stay anyway.”
“What happened to them?”
“Different outcomes. Same result.” He ticks them off on his fingers like a grocery list, but his voice shakes. “One ran. Simply packed her things and disappeared in the middle of the night. I never saw her again. One tried to have me exorcised, and it nearly worked. It would have been a mercy if it had.”
Children.
My stomach heaves.
“And the third?” My voice sounds very far away.
“Constance. Fifty years ago. She seemed perfect—open-minded, progressive, had even dabbled in the occult herself. I thought surely she could handle the truth.” A hollow laugh. “She tried to bind me instead. To trap me in a summoning circle and use me for her own purposes. Turns out she wasn’t interested in freeing me. She just wanted a demon of her own.”
I don’t realize I’m crying until I taste salt.
Not for myself. Not even for Mal, really. For all of them—Elena and Constance and the others. Four women across three centuries, each one caught up in a demon’s desperate bid for freedom, each one damaged or destroyed when the truth emerged.
And now me.
Number five.
“You should have told me.” The words come out choked. “From the beginning. Before the first lesson, before the first invitation, before any of it. You should have told me what I was getting into.”
“Would you have believed me?”
It’s a fair question. If some strange man had walked into my studio five weeks ago and announced he was a demon bound by an infernal contract, I would have called the police.
“Maybe not,” I admit. “But I deserved the chance to make an informed choice.”
“You’re right.” No argument, no defense. Just simple acknowledgment. “I was a coward. I told myself I was protecting you, that there was no point in burdening you with centuries of horror until it became absolutely necessary. But the truth is, I was afraid.”
“Of what?”
“Of this.” He gestures between us—at the distance I’ve put between us, at the tears on my face, at the way I’m gripping the barre like it’s the only thing keeping me upright. “Of watching you look at me the way you’re looking at me right now. Like I’m a monster.”
Because you are,part of me whispers.You are a monster. You’ve killed people. Destroyed lives. Driven a woman to suicide. And now you want my forgiveness?
