Page 77 of Redeeming the Angel

Three months after that, I secluded myself in the palace and drank myself into a stupor every night so I could sleep again.After nine months of hopeless grieving, I suddenly awoke from a vivid dream.There was one place I hadn’t searched for Kerainne.One place that she loved almost as much as Medicia.

Earth.

I transported myself first to the place where the Aztecs she’d so loved had lived.The area had changed, and not for the better.All of Earth had changed in mostly bad ways.But I was willing to endure brief visits so Kerainne could see her beloved movies.

The second place I tried was the home of the Salish tribes.They too were gone from the region.A city called Coeur d’Alene had been built on the area.I was tempted to head for the lake just to recapture a sense of familiarity, but I sensed something else.

Kerainne.

It was like she was calling to me.I followed that call, walking for endless miles, changing my route when the signal faded, keeping straight when it grew stronger.

And then I heard her voice.Singing from the back yard of a blue house with a pretty covered porch supported by round columns.

Though my legs ached from my long walk, I broke into a run, leaping over the chain link fence and dashing across the side yard.

So engrossed in her song and the laundry she was pinning to a clothesline—a bizarre thing for a princess to be doing.

“Kerainne!”I shouted.

She turned around and her beautiful green eyes widened, and her beautiful lips curved in a smile.I started to run toward her to pull her into my arms, then stopped so suddenly that my feet slid in the damp grass.

Her belly was large and round with what could only be pregnancy.And with it being over two years since we’d last mated, it couldn’t be mine.

“W-what—” I stammered, then broke off, unable to put words to this horrible shock.

Her joyous smile fades and her whole face seemed to dim, like a cloud passing over the sun.I wanted to apologize for taking away that radiant happiness, but my mouth refused to work as horrible thoughts clamored in my head.

“Come inside.”She gestured for me to follow her into the house.

I followed dumbly behind as she opened the screen door and led me inside a home that was smaller than her apartments in her family’s palace.

She bade me to sit next to her on the couch.“I’m so glad you found me.I was so worried you never would and I’d be all alone to face all of this.”

“All of what?”I couldn’t stop staring at that belly.Who had she mated with?Why hadn’t she waited for me?

“Mephistopheles…” Her face contorted with pain when she said his name.“He attacked me.And somehow, he managed to…”

A red haze covered my vision.“He raped you?”

She nodded.Her hands bunched in her skirts and she looked down in shame.

“And you’re keeping his offspring?”

“I have to!”Her shout felt like a slap in the face.

“No, you don’t!”I roared, leaping off the couch like it burned.I couldn’t believe that after an entire year of thinking Kerainne was permanently dead or trapped in Qua’ al-fán, that not only had she not left me a message somewhere in Aisthanesthai, but also she was pregnant with another man’s child.The Evil One’s child.

“You don’t understand!”Tears poured down her face.“She’s going to grow up to defeat him.”

“It,” I corrected harshly, not really hearing her words, “is going to be a monster.”

“No!”Her sobs were full and hitching.“Lucian, I need you!This world won’t kill you like it will me eventually.”

I strode to the kitchen, yanking drawers open until I found where she kept the knives.I grabbed the biggest, sharpest one.“The only thing you need me to do is hand you this so you can slit your throat and come home with me and that thing can die.”

“I can’t,” She ground her fists over her eyes, and looked at me likeIwas the monster.“I have to raise my daughter and keep her safe.And when I can’t anymore, when Earth’s lack of magic kills me, I was hoping you could stay here and take care of her until—”

“You wantmeto raise Mephistopheles’s bastard?The physical incarnation of his defilement of my mate?”I laughed bitterly and threw the knife at the living room wall.“The Evil One must have infected you with more than this parasite.Goodbye, Kerainne.”

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