Page 25 of Facet

“Maeve.” I rolled it over my tongue. Then my attention drifted to the dark, brooding man behind Damien. “And Séamus.”

At his name, he turned my way and gave a slight lift of his chin. He scared me, but I didn’t know why.

“Continue,” I encouraged Damien. So strange. That time, I lifted my bottle to my nose to sniff the contents. Nope, still water.

“I know this is gonna sound crazy, so I’m just gonna spit it out… I’m a demon,” he began, and I choked. Then I laughed, but no one else did.

“You’re kidding me, right?” Incredulous, I could only gawk at him.

“Not even close.” His father’s grim reply coming from the back seat left me speechless and my brow pinched. “We need to find out if he takes after his mother’s powers or mine.”

“Powers?” I whispered as my heart thudded painfully.

“Yes. Because depending on what he is, it affects you,” Séamus said.

“You are all out of your damn minds,” I snidely scoffed—because this sounded insane.

“Willow, you know that the members of the Ankeny RBMC have certain gifts. Yet this is so hard for you to comprehend?” Damien gave a humorless laugh.

My inhale was shaky. “Wait… you’re actually serious?”

“Dead serious.”

For several heartbeats, I blinked at him. In that time, I debated whether to laugh hysterically or jump out of the moving vehicle because the guy I was with had lost his ever-loving mind.

It took a lot to get my brain to slow down and think about the secrets I knew about the RBMC Ankeny chapter. This shouldn’t seem fantastical in the least, considering the things I knew but kept to myself.

“So assuming this is true—” I began.

“It is,” Séamus interrupted.

“Fine—it’s true. Now we have to find out whatkindof demon he is?” I stared at him, and he nodded. If I went with what any living, breathing human believed about demons, then he was evil. Reconciling the quiet, nerdy man I’d fallen for with the embodiment of evil was impossible.

“Pray tell, how will what kind of demon he is affect me?” I sarcastically asked the vehicle at large.

At first, no one answered.

“Then at least tell me this. How do a witch and a demon even have a child?” I addressed Maeve and Séamus.

Séamus snorted, but then at least he elaborated more than the other two. “Witch? Not hardly. Maeve is a succubus, and I am a descendant of Erebus—the personification of darkness. Because of the nature of my work, I had myself cloaked—she had no idea I was a demon. She thought I was a powerful warlock because that’s what I let her believe. I’m sure she thought she would get a real big boost with that kind of magic. I didn’t know what she was because the way a succubus works allows them to hide their true self.”

“There are differenttypesof demons?” I was sure my jaw was in my lap.

“Of course there are,” Damien’s father snidely replied.

“Hell, I didn’t know. No need to get shitty,” I grumbled.

He glared at me. Facet glared at him.

“So even with you being different types, you were able to get her pregnant?” I was blown away and simply trying to keep up. “But she never got pregnant with anyone else’s kid?”

“Evidently, a succubus is able to take a potion or some shit to keep from getting pregnant,” Damien bit out.

“But let me guess… it doesn’t work with other demons?”

“Ding, ding, ding!” Séamus sarcastically peeled.

After that, no one spoke for several minutes. An ache burned in my throat for Damien, but I knew if I mentioned it, he would brush it off. This had to be a shock.

---