My entire life was a lie.
Perhaps that sounded dramatic, but it felt like the truth. Everything I thought I’d known had just been turned on its head. The rug had been yanked from beneath me, and I was falling, knowing it was going to fucking hurt when I hit the bottom.
A part of me wanted to run, to grab Danielle and get the hell out of there. Not that this was the kind of thing I could run from, not unless I could find a way to go back in time to when my life made sense even if it was all a lie.
I stared around the room of people who suddenly seemed like strangers to me.
Most of them weren’t even human, not fully anyway. Including my sister.
Maggie was only my half sister.
My eyes found Dad. He looked pale, even more sothan normal, but not like a man who was learning that his oldest child wasn’t his.
Did he already know?
I thought about the way he’d practically ignored Maggie at family events, how he wasn’t leaving her any of the inheritance despite her being his firstborn. I’d thought he was just a sexist ass, but maybe it had more to do with her not being his than her being a girl.
Had Mom cheated on him? I’d always blamed my father for the state of their marriage—he’d consistently put his company and his social life above my mom—but maybe I’d been wrong. Maybe it was her fault all along.
And then there was the tidbit about Maggie’s real father being a demon. And not just any demon but the one who’d been threatening Danielle. Just a few days ago, I’d fantasized about murdering him for hurting my woman. Only now I didn’t know what to think. He was Maggie’s father. He’d brought me to Danielle the day of my car accident.
I was supposed to die in that crash.
Without him and Danielle, I would have.
I’d heard stories about people who had near-death experiences, people who had seen the afterlife or looked down on their own bodies as their soul left. Realizing I was supposed to be dead right now wasn’t nearly as dramatic, but it shook me to my core.
I should have died. Every day I’d lived in the past two plus years was stolen time. I was only here because a demon and an angel had intervened on my behalf.
How was I supposed to wrap my head around that? Accept it?
I wasn’t sure how to make sense of any of the things I’d learned today. My mother had an affair with a demon. My sister was only half human. My PA’s husband had wings. And my wife…
The first time I’d seen Danielle when I woke up in the hospital bed, I’d thought she was an angel. Yet I’d never really imagined that I could be right. It was too impossible.
How had I not known? We’d been living together for months. We shared a life, a bed, our bodies. But I’d never seen the white wings that were spread from her back before today.
How many times had I touched her back, drawn circles on it, or kissed up and down her spine? How exactly had I missed the fact that she had wings?
This whole room was full of people who were supposed to be my family, and I felt like I didn’t really know any of them at all.
They’d all lied to me. Kept secrets and hid things from me like I wasn’t worthy of knowing the truth.
Was this forever going to be the role I would play? The fool who always missed the signs?
“Hayden?” The sound of my name yanked me out of my spinning thoughts.
Conversation buzzed around me. Everyone seemed to be making plans, discussing options and ideas like this was a normal evening for them. None of them looked lost or like their minds were spinning out of control. They were all just moving forward like they were fine.
I couldn’t focus on anything that was being said. I couldn’t find it in me to care about what happened next.
My eyes found Danielle’s. She was still standing protectively in front of Maggie, and she looked so beautiful with her wings, which were such a pure white they almost seemed to glow. She met my gaze, and her eyes were so painfully the same as they’d always been. They were the kind of eyes I could drown in, the kind Ihaddrowned in many times. I was paralyzed by the sight of her, the wings, those eyes, her body, which I’d traced every inch of. She was an angel, a real, honest-to-God angel.
“Hayden,” the voice to my right said again, and I finally dragged my attention to my younger brother, who was staring at me with his brow furrowed. “Are you okay?”
“Did you know?” I asked.
“About what?” Miles chuckled, but it sounded forced and wrong. “We kind of unpacked a lot tonight.”
