Page 79 of Kiss of Death
I drew close then placed my hand on her round belly, feeling the life we’d created together.
Her hand moved over mine, her touch as warm as her gaze.
My hand went to her cheek, tucking the loose hair away, and I looked into the green eyes of the woman I loved with all my heart. She knew I didn’t abandon her. She believed in me—always. I never told her how I’d become a servant of theunderworld, but she believed in my goodness anyway. Her faith in me was so ironclad that she even took my place in the underworld just for the chance we might be together.
And with that thought, the scene changed.
Instead of touching her soft cheek, I felt the hard exoskeleton of an eight-foot demon who opened his mouth and showed all of his teeth before he laughed at me. Laughed like a scream, the flames visible inside his throat.
I jerked awake in my tent, but I still saw Levithan there with me, looming over me and taunting me. Drenched in a cold sweat and panting breathlessly, I kicked out of the bedroll then crawled to the entrance, making it out of the small tent and stumbling to the ground, desperate to get away from the confined space that made me suffocate.
The fire was nearly out, and the sky had shifted from black to a dark blue, dawn in the near distance. I finally came to a stop in the grass, continuing to gasp for the air that wouldn’t reach my lungs, one knee against the ground while the other was propped up. My arm rested there, and I stared at the ground as I tried to dispel the vision that still haunted me.
I heard the sound of Talon’s tent a moment later as he climbed out. I couldn’t see him, but I could hear him approach my side, probably alerted to my behavior by the dragons. He slowly approached but didn’t invade my space.
“I haven’t dreamed in four hundred years.” My eyes were on the dying fire, remembering Lily’s beautiful face…before she turned into a monster. I could feel the tears in my lids before they pooled and flowed down my cheeks. I’d seen my sons for the firsttime in many long years. Saw my wife despise me despite all the time that had passed. She still felt no forgiveness toward me.
Talon didn’t come any closer to me. “Was it a nightmare?”
“A dream and a nightmare. I saw my wife and kids…and I saw Lily.”
He turned quiet.
“I’m alright. You can go back to your tent.” I got to my feet and approached the fire as I wiped my tears away, keeping my back turned to him. I wasn’t sure why I did it, but I grabbed several more logs and added them to the fire, just for something to do. The fire rekindled, and the flames started to grow.
Talon hesitated behind me for a long time before he joined me at the fire, taking a seat on one of the logs, shirtless with the platinum shiny on his shoulder.
I sat there and felt my body slowly return to calm, let the adrenaline pump out of my system.
“I still dream about Lena, even though I never saw her.”
My eyes flicked to his.
“I want to tell you that it gets better, but it never really does.” He stared at the fire, his elbows resting on his knees. “It’s different with Vivian because she gave me her blessing to be with Calista, so she feels more like a friend now. Our time together was very brief, and I’ve been with Calista for almost thirty years now.”
“She gave you her blessing?”
He nodded. “Riviana gave me the chance to speak with her.”
My eyes shifted back to the flames, a heaviness growing in my heart.
“I’m really fortunate that I got another chance to be a father with Lily. I’ve always been hard on her, always suffocated her with my constant presence, always expected the world out of her…paranoid that I’ll lose her.” He stared down at his hands as he rubbed them together. “And that ended up happening anyway.”
“We’ll get her back, Talon.”
He gave a slight nod. “Lily doesn’t know I was married before. Doesn’t know I had a daughter. I’d appreciate it if you kept this to yourself.”
All I could do was give a slight nod because I’d already shared this with her, and now I wished I hadn’t. Didn’t seem like the right time to tell him that she knew his darkest secret.
“I never worried about the man she would bring home someday. Always knew she was too smart to squander her heart carelessly. Assumed he would be like me, a soldier or a general, an honorable man. But she brings me vampire generals and a god of the underworld.”
My eyes were on the fire, but they quickly flicked back to him. The only time I’d witnessed Lily interact with the vampire was when I’d taken her to his lands far away. So how did Talon know who he was? “Do you refer to General Viper?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve met him?”
Talon turned his gaze on me. “He sailed across the world to fight for Lily in the great battle. With three hundred ships, he defeated the Barbarians by land and sea—and did so in directdisobedience to his king. He also found the platinum that cured me, and he helped Lily retrieve it. When I was well enough to thank him in person, he looked me dead in the eye and told me he loved my daughter.”
