“…a half daemon?” I wanted to laugh. “There’s no way.” I tried to picture it. “I know my grandfather.”
Though my grandmother had never been so much as a whisper in our family. No big surprise there, since my grandfather hadn’t claimed me publicly and never spoke of my father. His son. I wasn’t family to him. I was…a well of potential he was content to dip his hands into when his throat went dry, but that was all.
“I know my mother,” he countered, “and yet, I’m not fae.”
“That’s not…” I got tongue-tied realizing I had mentioned Grandfather. “He would have called my dad an abomination and aborted him for the crime of polluting the purity of the bloodline.” The words tumbled out before I considered my audience. “I didn’t mean… I don’t see you as…” I rubbed a hand over my face like it would help with the verbal diarrhea. “Bloodlines are everything to witches. Most of them are bred for greater power, not made with acts of love. They don’t tolerate difference. Grandfather in particular.”
One of the reasons he kept our relationship secret was my mixed heritage, and that was two pure witch bloodlines.
“A black witch father and a daemon mother would have given your father incredible power.”
The idea I might be even more of an outcast overrode my earlier panic and left me numb to the notion.
“Hold on.” I folded my arms across my stomach. “Why did we jump to that being the problem?”
“Only those with daemon blood suffer malaise after a potential mate removes their token.”
Meaning he hadn’t lied to me. I couldn’t hold it against him. He just hadn’t known…
No.
A daemon grandparent?
There was no way under the sun or the moon Grandfather would have ever…
No, no, no.
Just no.
It must be my mixed blood reacting to his mixed blood and mixing magical signals.
“Maybe I’m just a wimp,” I argued, grasping at straws, “and my feelings get hurt easily?”
“We can test my theory.” He stuck his hand in his pocket. “Are you up for an experiment?”
“Depends.” I cinched my arms tighter around my middle. “What do you have in mind?”
Withdrawing the bracelet, he held it out to me. “Do you accept my fascination with you?”
“Yes,” I breathed, fidgety with the nerves I lacked the first time now that I fully understood him.
Just as before, Asa secured the bracelet, and the knot vanished until there was no break in the design.
The weight on my chest, the heaviness in my bones, the sting of my nerves, eased within seconds.
“How do you feel?” He withdrew to give me a moment to settle into wearing it again. “Better?”
“Much.” I drew in a deep breath, let it fill my lungs, and exhaled my tension. “The anxiety is gone.”
Asa stepped into me, tucked me against his chest, and I breathed in his comforting scents.
Sweet-burning smoke from rich tobacco and the bite of ripe green apples.
“I wouldn’t have removed it had I known…” He slid a hand into my hair, his warm palm cupping my skull, and held me tighter than I would have allowed another. “But then, I wouldn’t have put it on you either.”
“I can’t be a quarter daemon.” I fisted my hands in the back of his shirt. “I would know, wouldn’t I?”
The possibility cast our connection in a new light, a glaring one, and illuminated my peculiar behavior.