Page 35 of Sinless Demons
Without Regret. Without Remorse.
I don’t believe that for a single fucking second.
If I did, he wouldn’t be staring at me with so much pain in his deep blue eyes right now. And I wouldn’t feel sick to my stomach for putting that pain there.
12
To Grandmother’s House We Go
Aries
The enormous leaves hang above like an umbrella, blocking out the warm sunlight as we trail quietly toward the trickling sound of the Iris River. There’s a path here, worn and broken in by many hikes from our busy kingdom to the quiet countryside.
Many have taken this dirty road. But I haven’t.
“I’ve never met my grandmother,” I say, not sure who I’m speaking to but needing to say it all the same.
Damien glances my way, but his attention slips to someone else when they, too, confess something astonishing.
“I have,” Krave whispers, looking at me from the corner of his depthless eyes.
My boots scuff the dirt from how abruptly I stop. “You’ve met my grandmother?” I cock my head at the mysterious incubus and all the secrets he keeps.
Krave’s lips open and then close slowly before he tries once more. “Your father visits her every year on his birthday.”
It’s a secret. He just gave me a secret of his previous handler...
“He forbids his children and his family, everyone, he forbids them to see her. But every year on his birthday, he’d come to spend an hour with her.” Krave’s so serious right now, it just puts me even more on edge.
On his fucking birthday. Not hers. How fucking selfish can my father be?
“Why?” I ask like a command.
The incubus just shakes his head. “I don’t know. He’d never say. I’d accompany him to her cottage, but I was never allowed inside.” He swallows before he seems to remember something. “I met her once. She followed him out into the night air, and she looked at me like she’d seen a ghost. She said she missed me, but we couldn’t meet like this anymore.”
I blink at him, unsure what to do with that information. He shrugs, and I press for more. “Was—was she happy? Cruel? Hurt?” Why would he have kept us away from her?
Why?
Long, glittering black fingers slip over mine, and with a tingling touch, he holds my hand in his. “She—she was confused, Ari. She asked where her crown was. She said she wanted to go home.” His lips stay parted, but no other words come out for several beats of my heart. And then, unfortunately, he says more. “She has memory fleet, love. Her memories have dissolved, and it’s left her with a helpless sense of loss.”
The pounding of my heart is pressing so hard, it’s like I can feel it the moment it breaks.
“Oh,” I whisper.
The four of us stand there as I stare at the dirt between us. I study the divots and the twigs. I consider each little particle of nothingness as this sense of hurt settles in my chest.
I’ve never met her. But even if I did, she wouldn’t remember me anyway.
She doesn’t even remember her own life.
And Isabella sent me to her.
Why?
To help her?
How?
