I stroked his face, fingers running over his dark red brows, high cheekbones, chiseled jaw, and full, firm lips. He was so beautiful. If I stared at him too long, I’d be overcome and not say what I had to say. That’s why I dropped my hand. I’d intended to hold on to this last secret forever, but it was time, too, for this one to fall.

“You asked who betrayed me. Her name was Ereshki.”

I felt him tense, but his tone was light when he said, “Another former lover?”

How much easier this would be if that’s all she had been. “No. She was my friend . . . or so I believed for a long time.”

He rolled over until he was lying next to me instead of pressing me against the broken stairs. “Why did she betray you?”

I took in a deep breath. “To get free from her soul bargain . . . with Dagon.”

His irises had softened back to turquoise after his climax, but at that, they blazed bright green. “Tell me everything.”

To distract myself from the pain these memories would cause, I started toying with the plywood pieces bursting out from the broken part of the stairs.

“Fenkir and Rani are the demons who burned my village and first murdered me. They did it because Dagon had tasked them with convincing people to give up their gods in favor of worshipping him. If the village refused, Fenkir and Rani could get nasty. Back then, Dagon was trying to make a name for himself as a deity because he can draw energy from people if their devotion is radical enough. Did you know that?”

“He told me something of the sort once,” Ian said. “Didn’t believe him because he’s a lying, self-glorifying sod.”

“That he is,” I agreed. “But he wasn’t lying about that. From the little I know of demon rules, they’re allowed to influence humans, but they’re not supposed to use their powers on them to inspire worship. So, Dagon couldn’t freeze time, teleport, or use his other tricks to get human populaces to think he was a god. That’s why he was so delighted when Fenkir and Rani brought him an unkillable toddler. Now he had a great prop for his ‘I’m a god’ act that got around the rules.”

Ian scoffed. “How did your abilities help him get worship?”

“He claimed credit for them. Fenkir and Rani would take me from village to village to sacrifice me. Then, Dagon would say he’s the one who resurrected me after I rose from the ashes.”

Not a muscle moved, but the scent of Ian’s fury enveloped me. “Where was your terrifying biological father in all this?”

“At first, he didn’t know I existed. Children between his kind and humans are rare, he said, and his affair with my mother was very brief. But people only see the Warden of the Gatekeeper to the Netherworld when there’s bad news about their afterlives. So, when my father kept catching glimpses of me between my murders and my resurrections, he knew I had to be his. Our shared blood was the only reason a child would ever be drawn to his part of the underworld.”

Ian’s body felt as if it had turned to marble. “He knew what was happening to you, yet he didn’t save you and Tenoch did. Glad to hear the damned see your father after they die. Gives me a chance to tell him what an utter bastard he is.”

“He couldn’t find me on his own,” I began.

“Rot,” Ian said curtly. “He’s Aken the Ferryman to Mencheres, and Mencheres summoned him to find Kira when she was in danger for the express reason that he sees everyone.”

“Not me.” My voice was grim. “His kind is ‘blind to their blood,’ as he put it. He also couldn’t get help from his fellow whatevers because fathering a child with a human is apparently a no-no. He needed someone else to find me, but not a human, since humans aren’t strong enough to go against demons. Couldn’t be a demon, since then Dagon would probably hear about it. That left vampires and ghouls, but my father didn’t have any friends among their kind. It took him a while before he settled on Tenoch and learned enough about him to trust sending him after me.”

“How long?” Ian asked, his tone edged with steel.

I sighed. “Seasons aren’t as distinct in that part of the world. I also don’t know exactly how young I was when Dagon took me. You’ve seen what I look like without my glamour. I was probably in my early twenties by the time Tenoch rescued me.”

“Two. Decades.” The air around him actually began to crackle, reminding me of the buildup to what happened when Mencheres was in a fury. “You were slaughtered over and over for two decades, but you said before that you’re not trying to kill Dagon for your own vengeance. Why the bloody hell not?”

I closed my eyes. This part is what haunted me no matter how much time had passed. “I wasn’t the only one who was murdered. Dagon channeled the most energy when his worshippers made human sacrifices. In every new village, Fenkir and Rani would tell the people what a great god Dagon was and how they could prove it because Dagon could raise the dead. Then, they’d kill me in whatever way they thought would impress the villagers most. When I rose from the dead . . . the villagers usually believed in Dagon, and they celebrated their new god by doing what he commanded, which was to sacrifice some of their people to him.”

I opened my eyes, not wiping away the tears that now streamed through them. “The worst part was, for many years, I believed in Dagon, too. Oh, I hated him because my life was horrible. I also feared him since I knew he could make it worse. But I was too young to remember that Dagon hadn’t been there the first time I came back from the dead. Dagon told me he was the one who kept resurrecting me, and he could do things no one else could, so I really thought he was a god. That’s why,” my voice broke and for several moments, I couldn’t speak. “That’s why I backed his claims,” I finally whispered. “I told the people he was a god and that they . . . they should do what he said.”

Saying it out loud made all the memories come flooding back, crushing me beneath their weight. I covered my face in my hands and cried in a way I hadn’t let myself cry for centuries. So many innocent people, murdered. So many families, broken when their loved ones didn’t return from the dead the way I had. Then worse, Fenkir, Rani, and Dagon would tell the families it was their lack of faith that prevented the resurrections, and what would be required to push their faith to the necessary level? More sacrifices.

“Don’t you dare blame yourself.” Ian’s voice cut through the guilt that, as always, felt as if it would destroy me. “Dagon brutalized an innocent child into aiding his deception, but it was his deception. Not yours. What you went through is so horrifying, I’m amazed you’re not still broken from it. Don’t you dare shoulder any of his guilt. He deserves all of it.”

“He does deserve to pay,” I said, swiping at my eyes. I didn’t agree that I was guilt free, but I knew that much, at least. “That’s why I don’t care how many more lifetimes I could live if I leave Dagon alone. I won’t do it. Those people deserve their justice. They’ve waited too long as it is.”

He reached over, taking my hand and lacing his fingers through mine. Such a simple gesture, especially considering the far more graphic things we’d done. But in that moment, it felt more intimate than everything that had come before it.

“You won’t fail.” His voice vibrated from his intensity. “People like you have the rarest form of bravery. Friends and lovers might be willing to die for each other, but that’s partly selfish. Risking everything for people you don’t know is real bravery. You made all those people Dagon killed yours to avenge when you didn’t have to. Then you became a Law Guardian so you could funnel more persecuted people to safety while also punishing those who abuse others. All this puts you right under the council’s nose, but you did it anyway. You are awash in that rarest of braveries, Veritas. Dagon doesn’t know it, but he doesn’t stand a chance against you.”