I shook my head. “Sorry, go on with the rest of your story.”
He shrugged, not seeming to mind the interruption, and he’d freely offered answers when I’d asked for them—a first. The hunter was obviously pleased at what I’d agreed to, and as much as I wondered if I would regret it, I did feel a bit better that it didn’t seem he’d hold back about his origins.
His hands splayed wider on the mat. “The problem was that my father didn’t anticipate the challenges that would come with raising someone such as myself.”
“What do you mean by that?”
He smiled devilishly. “Where do I begin . . .”
Chapter 18
“Start at the beginning. You promised everything, remember?” I reminded the hunter.
“Oh, don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten.” That wicked smile grew. “Because of my mother’s status in the underworld, caring for me on earth proved problematic for my father.”
“What’s her status?”
“She’s Lucifer’s daughter.”
My mouth dropped open, and I gaped like I was trying to catch flies. But then I remembered his black flames and his cold words to Star Tattoo Guy before he’d killed him. Don’t you know who my mother is?
“That’s why you can create those black flames, and that’s why you can control them and use them to kill other demons.”
He nodded.
“But . . . how did your father meet Lucifer’s daughter? And how—” I shook my head, in complete disbelief that any of this was possible.
“Her name’s Asuran.”
I skimmed through my memories, trying to find what I could about demons. I came up blank. “I’ve never heard of her.”
“Most haven’t. Only some half-demons know of her. She’s rather reclusive, never leaves the underworld, and given her power, she has high status down there. Not many have dared cross her.”
“Then how did she end up pregnant with you?”
“Bad luck I suppose. For her, not me,” he added quickly when my face fell. “She hadn’t ever left the underworld as far as I know, and why she got inclined to leave the night she met Paxton, I still don’t know, but she did. She entered the fae lands, and as demons typically do, she cloaked her appearance and went to one of the bars. That’s where she met my father.”
A lightbulb clicked on. “So it’s the typical man sees attractive woman in a bar, they drink, then hook up, then oops . . . a baby was made scenario?”
“Not quite. My father was already drunk when she entered the bar, but he was drunk because he was trying to run from his pain. From what he can surmise, it was his pain that attracted Asuran to him. She entered his thoughts, and tugged at his memories until she learned what sorrows he was trying to drown with his fae drink.”
I cocked my head.
The hunter’s expression turned unreadable. “He was grieving his dead mate, the female werewolf that birthed Cameron, Gavin, and Ocean. She’d been killed in a rogue wolf attack only six months prior, and he wasn’t coping well.”
“Oh.” That would explain why his siblings all looked like werewolves only—because they were.
“So Asuran changed her appearance to look like my father’s dead mate. My father only told me this story once, but when he did, I could tell that he’d been so destroyed by his mate’s death that even though he knew the woman approaching him in the bar couldn’t possibly be her, he pushed that aside and let himself drown in the fantasy of seeing her again.” The Fire Wolf scratched his chin. “He said the entire night he was with her, he could feel his energy and magic being tugged and pulled at. Asuran was feeding not only off his pain and anguish, but also his ecstasy and hope that his mate was with him again. But, of course, in typical demon fashion, she didn’t stick around. The next morning, she left, and it was only many months later that my father happened to hear about me. It was pure luck he’d even been made aware of my birth, because if he hadn’t, I’m certain I would have died.”
“How did he get you back?”
“He commissioned several half-demons to venture to the underworld to retrieve me, but taking me from Asuran was not as difficult as they assumed it would be.” He gave a joyless smile. “She readily handed me over for a small price. Female demons are similar to their male counterparts in that aspect. She had no love for me. I was near starved when they found me.”
I didn’t know much about how demons mated or produced offspring, but the way they behaved toward their young wasn’t like humans or supernaturals. The little I did know told me they were more like reptiles. Their offspring were born and then they were left to fend for themselves. Only the strongest survived.
“How did you survive at all? She must have fed you at times.”
He nodded. “She did. We can only deduce that my werewolf blood triggered that in her, since demons don’t normally feed their children. But my birth must have stimulated it because the half-demons who rescued me said she had full breasts that dripped milk, so Asuran must have fed me some, or I wouldn’t have made it past a few days, but she didn’t take care of me. I was barely breathing when they found me.”
“So then what happened?”
“They took me back to my father, and that was when the problems started. My body wouldn’t accept milk from the pack’s wet nurse. It only made me sicker.”
“But infants born of demon fathers can feed from their supernatural mothers or wet nurses.”
“True, which means that something about coming from a female demon made me different. After days of me deteriorating further, my father sought help from the local council. One of them had heard of a sorcerer who possessed magic and knowledge that could help demon offspring. My father found him, hired him, and he was the one who ultimately saved me.”
“How?”
“He created a synthetic milk, woven through magic and spells, that was able to sustain me. I began growing again, thriving in fact, but it wasn’t until I reached toddlerhood that they discovered the side effect of creating that nutrition for me.” He smirked when he caught my curious expression. “The sorcerer’s power somehow also transferred to the synthetic milk he created. By accident or on purpose, I don’t know, but his magically infused milk also gave me his power, and when he died, all of his magic transferred to me.”
My lips parted. “Seriously? I’ve literally never heard of anything like this.”
Amusement glinted in his eyes. “Seriously.”
“He must have been very powerful.”
“He was. One of the most powerful sorcerers in the world.”
“Do you remember him?”
He cocked his head. “I have a couple memories of him, but he was old when my father found him and died when I was five. My father thinks he saw me as the son he’d never had and believes he purposefully gave all of his magic to me. That I was his only chance at leaving a lasting impression on the world.”
“His legacy.”
“Exactly.”
And what a legacy he turned out to be. “So that’s where your magic comes from? This sorcerer who your father commissioned to save you?”
“It does.”
I shook my head. “I didn’t even know sorcerers could transfer their power.”
“I don’t think many can. Actually, it’s possible no others can. He might have been unique in that aspect.”
I studied him for a moment, trying to imagine what growing up with his genetics had felt like. “You must have felt very alone here in this pack since you weren’t a pure-blooded werewolf like everyone else.”