“Jacqui...”
He trailed off.
Dan had lied to her about what he was for twenty-seven years. It was the stupidest plan Jacqui had ever heard of: keep lying, pretending to be human, until it all blew up in his face. Well, it had, and the results had not been favorable.
What had he expected to happen? That a fairy godmother would appear from the sky, sprinkle some fairy dust, and everything would be okay? That was not how the world worked. Jacqui had learned that angels and demons existed, and she still knew better than to believe that.
She was so angry at Dan for his stupidity that she wanted to scream. She wanted to hurl every single thing in the studio at his head, one thing after the next. But she knew it wouldn’t fix anything.
Because at the end of the day, he was still her husband. And at the end of the day, she still loved him.
Meph’s words suddenly ran through her head.You can’t hang onto your anger indefinitely. Eventually, you have to decide—forgive him or don’t. But you can’t expect him to wait forever.
He was right, she knew, except for one thing. She was pretty sure that Danwouldwait forever.
Dan was the most loyal person she’d ever met. It had always been one of things she loved most about him. He had declared that loyalty to her, and she felt it to her bones that it was the kind of loyalty that didn’t die. He would wait for her to decide until the end of her life if that was how long it took.
But she didn’t want to do that to him. As angry as she was, she didn’t want to put him through that. But she didn’t know how to go forward from here either.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she heard herself asking in a small voice. There was no need to explain what she was talking about. The freak out she’d had on the phone last week had explained enough.
Dan ran a hand over the stubble on his jaw and then stuffed his hands into his pockets. It was hard to imagine her handsome, slightly disheveled husband with gigantic angel wings sprouting from his back, but she knew they could be there in a heartbeat. She’d seen them with her own eyes.
“I wasn’t trying to keep anything from you, I swear. It honestly didn’t occur to me to even make that suggestion. When the truth about who I am came out, I thought if I was lucky, you might forgive me eventually, and we would have whatever time we could together. That you’d want to alter your lifespan and turn yourself into something not human, something that is hunted and in constant danger... I could never ask that of you. I wouldn’t even think to suggest it.”
Dan shook his head. “I realize now that maybe that was stupid, but... since the day I fell from Heaven, I’ve been killing vampires without a second thought. The idea of turning you into one is abhorrent.”
“But why? Are they so bad? Does it make you evil?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know.” His mouth twisted. “I honestly don’t. I’ve never spoken to a human before he was turned and seen how his personality changes. I don’t know what it does to you. But demon blood is potent, powerful stuff. Just a sip of it creates fundamental changes on a cellular level that allow humans to travel through hellgates and perform types of Sheolic magic. Replacing all the blood in your body with it...” He visibly shuddered. “I don’t know what would happen, but I do know that all the vampires I ever came across were bloodthirsty, feral creatures.”
Jacqui considered this. “How do you know that if you just killed them right away? Maybe they were just fighting to defend themselves.”
Dan dragged a hand down his face. “I don’t know. But I can say with certainty that most of them weren’t. Most of them were living in nests full of half-drained human slaves in conditions akin to Hell. Some of the things I’ve seen have stayed with me for centuries.”
Jacqui nodded, conceding he had a point. It had taken her months to wrap her head around the fact that her husband was thousands of years old. She could accept that he had experiences she couldn’t comprehend at only forty-seven years of age.
“If demon blood makes vampires, what about angel blood? Does it do something?”
Dan winced. “Angel blood is poison to humansanddemons, though it’s only fatal for humans.”
“Oh.” She suddenly remembered Dan’s almost compulsive need to clean up his blood every time he got a cut. She’d always thought he was just a bit hemophobic, but now she realized he’d probably been trying to protect her from being poisoned.Good lord.
“So if I had to... drink blood, I wouldn’t be able to drink yours.”
Dan’s mouth twisted. “No. Vampires need an infusion of human blood once or twice a week, though most prefer to indulge more than that. They can’t wipe memories like in the movies, but there’s venom in their bites that make their victims woozy and disoriented. When the effects wear off, the human is unlikely to have a clear recollection.”
Jacqui winced. “That sounds awful.”
“But... if they’re drinking demon blood, a vampire only needs to feed about once a month.” If anything, Dan looked more disturbed by this, and Jacqui could guess why.
It was a relief for her, however. She was sure if she asked Meph, he would happily provide. He already helped her out whenever she used the hellgate to visit Eva. She’d nearly thrown up the first time she’d sipped his blood from a glass like wine, but it had become less repulsive over time.
She hoped it would taste better to a vampire than to her, though. Just thinking about the oddly spicy taste made her shudder.
Asmodeus would help her too, even just as a favor to Eva. Jacqui’s daughter already supplied the demons with a dose of her Nephilim blood every month or so—the blood of a fallen angel’s offspring contained magical properties that allowed the demons to remain hidden from the forces hunting them.
But Jacqui knew she couldn’t count on having demon blood all the time. At some point, she’d have to embrace the idea of taking it from a stranger. And she doubted they’d obligingly bleed into a cup for her like Meph did.
