Demons (Darkness #4)

Demons (Darkness #4)
K.F. Breene



Chapter 1

“Um…hi.” I inched into the dimly lit room wearing a black pant suit that denoted my status as the least knowledgeable mage in history. Dominicous and Toa waited for me patiently, Dominicous with his ankle crossed over his knee, and Toa displaying great posture.

This was one of the rooms that needed extensive repairs after the first battle I’d ever experienced. Once the dust had settled, most of the front of the house, and a great portion of the back, lay in tatters from enemy magic blasting. The interior had been rebuilt, as well as updated, and now the room dripped refinement and elegance for which Stefan’s clan—and my clan, too—was known.

The renovation didn’t make this meeting any more comfortable.

“Sasha, yes. Please,” Dominicous pointed to the chair in front of him, “have a seat.”

“Okay.”

I entered the rest of the way into the room, closing the door behind me. Toa had that flat, blue-eyed stare going. It was amazing that I still hadn’t gotten used to it. Although, in my defense, a nonblinking eye rape was rarely the kind of thing you just eased into.

After I was seated, I looked expectantly from one man to the other, waiting to find out why I was summoned.

Dominicous started. “There are a few things I’d like to discuss. The first, and most unusual, concerns our history. I’m sure Stefan has told you the nature of my personal interest in you?”

I gulped, sweat starting under my arms. He was talking about when I was five years old and got in a really bad car accident. My entire family had been killed, along with people in four other cars. I had been the sole survivor. Not only that, but I ended up a mile away, sitting in a park on my own, with little more than second-degree burns and a bad gash to the head.

Apparently Dominicous was the reason I ended up there, having plucked me out of the aftermath of the wreckage and moved me a safe distance away. He’d also given me blood. From his vein. Kind of gross.

“He has, no doubt, also told you,” Dominicous went on, “that it appears I will not be able to have children. I have tried for…” His face fell, briefly, before he composed himself again. “Decades. Which puts us in a unique situation. You have no parents or family to speak of. I have no heir. We both find ourselves in the same world with similar experiences, regardless of which race we were originally born into. The outcome is obvious; I would like to formally adopt you.”

My breath exited my body in a ragged whoosh. While I’d had a foster family since I was seven, they’d never adopted me. They’d taken the state funds for orphans and allowed me to reside within their house until I was old enough to move on. And while I was extremely lucky to have ended up with loving foster parents and their normal, bratty children, I’d always been different. Not outcast, but separate. Soul-wrenchingly alone. That fact had left me unable to thoroughly trust anyone, and nowhere to put down roots.

So to sit in this chair, in a job I didn’t know how to do properly, in a world I hardly fit into, and to have someone ask to adopt me even though I was a pain in the ass… I couldn’t stop the tears from raiding my eyes.

“But, am I too old to adopt? I’m twenty-two.” I gave him a watery grimace. I probably didn’t have to mention that I acted nowhere near my age.

“Being that I don’t exist in the human records, that isn’t a concern of mine. You will be adopted in our way, which is to say, welcomed into my family hearth and signed onto my documents as an heir. I’m sure you realize that with multiple partners, we don’t always know the fathers of children. It is why we set up a hearth with our mate, welcoming any children she has or begets.”

“But—and I’m just trying to understand, here—but can’t you just snag a woman that already has a kid? Rather than open yourself to jokes and snide remarks because I’m human… ”

“I can, yes. I had a mate long ago, but she died. I was working toward that path again when you resurfaced in my life. It seems you are deeply entwined with Fate. And me with you. There is a reason you survived that horrible accident. And a reason I was nearby to pluck you out. While I do not know that reason, I don’t turn my back on the divine, and being that you are more my child than any I would claim through mating, this solves my problem nicely. And yours.

“You would gain a family and a dowry. From me, you would bring status and political influence to your chosen mate. From you…I would finally have the stability only a family can provide. Your magic would disband any naysayers, and Stefan’s mark would further silence them. There will always be prejudice, of course—that can’t be helped, as you know—but it would be lessened with both your magic and my influence. I think this would work out in the best ways for both of us.”

All I could do was blink at him for a few minutes. While it sounded more like a business proposition than anything, his eyes had gone soft and a comforting smile I’d never seen before played around his lips. He wanted me in his family. Me: idiot human with a ton of power and absolutely no sense.

Through the warm gush in my middle, I found my voice enough to say, “Wow. That’s pretty thought-out.”

Dominicous’ smile grew. “In my position, something of this magnitude cannot be entered into lightly. Plus, I’m fond of you. It was emotion that led me to take you from the wreckage in the first place. This is the right decision. I feel it.”