He winced. “I know. It sounds bad, I know. But there was something about you that drew me. There always has been. Your light, your energy, your ability to find the good in all things... And I was right to fall in love with you—every day I’ve known you, I’ve only grown to love you more. But even then, despite all that, I never intended to stay, but...”
“But then we had Eva.”
He nodded. Evangeline, his beautiful, accidental daughter. “Eva changed everything. When she was born, I took one look at her tiny face, and I knew I wasn’t going anywhere. Maybe if it was just us, I might have had the courage to leave, but you and Eva together... I didn’t stand a chance.”
It was his turn to stare blankly out the window from his seat on the bed. He would move heaven and earth to protect his family. He would break any rule, take any chance, risk any repercussion if it meant they would be safe.
“You’re not going to age.” Jacqui breathed a bitter laugh. “I had this talk with Eva the other day. I told her that even if Ash was the perfect man, she had to consider the fact that he was immortal. I told her she could never fully commit to him because one day, someone would ask her if she was his mother, and then his grandmother, and that it would torture her. Guess it wasn’t Eva who needed that advice after all.”
Her eyes were haunted as she stared ahead at nothing. “At least I’ll never have to worry about outliving my child. Both my husband and my daughter are going to live forever.”
Damn, his heart ached. It felt like someone had punched a fist through his chest and gripped the thing in cold, clammy fingers. “I’m sorry, Jacqui.”
“What were you going to do, Dan? Keep lying and hope I never noticed? I’d already begun to notice. In fact, I remember thinking recently how uncanny it was that you never seemed to age. You looked too old for me when we met, and now you’re starting to look too young. My friends are always telling me how great you look for your age, asking me what your secret is. I tell them good diet and exercise.” Again with that bitter laugh. “Maybe that’ll fly for now, but what happens in another ten years? Another twenty?”
“I don’t know.” It was the god’s honest truth. “I never planned for this.” He stared at his palms in his lap, open to the heavens as if begging for a miracle. “I never wanted to put you in this position, but I couldn’t leave. I love you and Eva too much. I couldn’t make myself leave.”
Jacqui hunched forward and buried her face in her hands. “How could you do this to me, Dan?”
His eyes stung with tears, and the aching in his chest was so intense, it was hard to breathe around it. He could say nothing, do nothing to make this better.
His beautiful, vibrant wife was mortal, and she was aging, and he was going to walk the earth until the day the world ended or some demon finally succeeded in killing him. It had never bothered him before, but now, he was certain he would rather die than go on without her. Honestly, he felt like he could die right now, knowing she might never forgive him for this. Not that he expected her to.
What had he been thinking all these years? That if he waited long enough, somehow, his problems would sort themselves out? That wasn’t how the world worked. Problems ignored built until they gathered tsunami-like force and crashed onto the shores of carefully laid plans and destroyed them all.
Dan wanted to blame everything on Asmodeus for dragging Eva into this hidden, dangerous world, but he knew the blame fell squarely on his shoulders. A demon fresh from Hell had been more honest with his daughter than Dan had been with his wife of twenty-seven years. And there were no words he could say to make it right, nothing he could do to fix it. He could only sit there and know that he deserved every little bit of misery he was enduring now.
But Jacqui deserved none of it.
“I’m so sorry,” was all he could think to say. He wanted to tell her he loved her, but he knew she knew it already. And unfortunately, in this instance, his love wasn’t enough.
“I don’t know what you want me to tell you,” she replied in that tiny, broken voice that flayed him alive. “That I forgive you? That I can accept this, and things can go back to how they were? Because I can’t, and I don’t know if they can. If they ever will.”
“I don’t expect you to forgive me,” he said, trying not to gasp at the pain in his chest. “And I know things can’t go back to how they were. Honestly, I’m just grateful we had what we did for this long. Twenty-seven years isn’t much when you’ve lived as long as I have, but it’s damn well better than nothing. I’m not sorry I stayed and raised our daughter with you. I’m only sorry for the pain it’s causing you now.”
She lifted her head from her arms and stared at him. He stared right back. She was so familiar. The sight of her warm face with those deep, dark eyes felt like coming home. But right now, there were oceans of distance between them. Oceans he might never be able to cross.
“I need time to think,” she said softly. “And even then, I’m not sure... I don’t know if I can ever...” She couldn’t seem to find the words to finish. He was glad. He didn’t need to hear the rest of the sentence to know what she was trying to say.
All of a sudden, he couldn’t take it anymore. He stood quickly. “I understand. It’s for the best. It was bound to come to this anyway.” He walked around the edge of the bed and headed to the door, his eyes stinging.
Hand on the doorknob, he turned back to his wife one last time, drinking in the sight of her beautiful face and knowing that even if he never saw her again, he would love her until the world ended just the same. “If you ever want to talk, I’ll have my phone.”
She nodded, frowning slightly, and then opened her mouth, probably to ask him where he was going to go.
He didn’t give her the chance, because frankly, he wasn’t sure himself. Wherever it was, he’d still be keeping an eye on both Eva and Jacqui, whether they knew it or not. Instead, he said, “I love you,” and then left, closing the door behind him. He waited in the hallway in case, by some freak stroke of luck, she decided to chase after him, but she never came.
It was better this way, he told himself. Even if she’d chased after him and forgiven him on the spot, it wouldn’t solve the problem that she was mortal and he was not, and there was nothing they could do to make their relationship any less impossible.
It was time to go.
He walked down the hallway to Eva’s bedroom, pausing outside the door. His senses told him she was in there with Asmodeus, so he took a moment to listen because he really didn’t want to interrupt anything.
Dan rubbed his face and stifled a groan. Asmodeus, Prince of Hell, was in his daughter’s bedroom. That was going to take some getting used to. But the bloody demon loved her. He really, actually loved her, and Dan couldn’t deny it.
Though a large part of him still wanted to impale him on his sword, another part of him accepted that having Asmodeus in Eva’s life was actually for the best. Asmodeus and his “brothers” would protect her, and the protection of four demons of their caliber was no small thing.
He heard nothing from Eva’s room, so he took a chance and opened the door, peeking inside. Eva and Asmodeus were sleeping. She was curled against him, and his arms and legs were wrapped around her like he was holding onto her with everything he had. His face was buried in her neck the same way Dan did to Jacqui, and he had left his big leathery wings out. The bottom one lay stretched out on the bed behind him, but the top wing curved over their bodies like a protective shield.
