King's voice was strained. "If you knew?"
"I never would've come with you. I would've stayed away."
Something in King's chest did something visible. The kind of small collapse a man performs when he realizes the child he raised believed the child himself was the problem.
He didn't answer me. Not yet. I had given him too much to hold all at once.
Silence descended, only broken by Blue's soft breathing. King stepped forward but stopped as Blue rose. Turning to Di, he asked, "And you?"
"Long story short, I loved Dagon for a long time. We stayed apart, but distance didn't erase our feelings. Dagon learned I was his mate, but stayed away thanks to you," Di snapped bitterly.
King recoiled, eyes wide with horror. "What?" Why the horror, though? Because his sons were together and mates or because of something else?
"I'm his mate, and he's mine. Accepting our bond made me a demon. I pledged my soul and loyalty to Lucifer when bonding with the bow and arrow."
King's eyes shattered, his breathing ragged. "You pledged loyalty to Lucifer?"
"Yes. Don't worry, he won't force me to do anything."
"How can you be certain?"
"I know because he told me."
"Who?"
"Lucifer."
King shuddered visibly at the name, looking upward as if asking for divine help. Maybe he was. It was the gesture of a being trying to find something familiar to look at while the foundation of his world was being rearranged in front of him.
Through the bond, I felt Di go absolutely still beside me. Bracing.
King's lips moved silently for a long moment.
Then he looked back down at us, at his demon son and his Lucifer-pledged Archer son standing in his living room holding hands, and his shoulders did something I had never seen them do.
They lowered.
They released.
The angel who had walked centuries on this earth and protected seven objects and raised six children was, in front of me, putting down a weight he had carried longer than I had been alive. The weight of certainty. The weight of knowing what was right. He set it down because his children had become things his old certainty could no longer hold.
After a long silence, King finally looked at us. Anger, pain, and betrayal all swam in his eyes. He took a step toward us. Blue got up but only received a glare from King. King didn’t stop advancing, and I tensed. When he was before us, he stopped. Blue was the only thing standing in his way. After a second, Blue stepped away, went to Bren, and lay on his feet. If I hadn’t been busy getting ready for whatever King would do, I would have made fun of Bren and how he froze.
He stopped one breath away from us.
He didn't reach. He didn't speak.
He bowed his head.
Not the small bow of a man hesitating. The full bow of an old being acknowledging a wrong. His chin against his chest. His hands – those terrible, ancient angel hands – open at his sides where we could see them. I have no weapon. I will never raise one against you. I am wrong and I am asking permission to come closer.
He held the bow for three seconds.
Then he raised his head, and his eyes were red-rimmed, and only then did he lift his arms.
He didn’t waste a second. He wrapped his arms around both Di and me. I was paralyzed. It didn’t help that King held us in a death grip like he feared letting go.
“I’m so sorry, sons. I love you. Both of you. It doesn’t matter what you are. You’ll always be my sons.”
