That night, I lay in Des’s arms, the stars back in the sky where they belong, my hair spilling around us. A few fairy lights hover in the air above us, giving the room a soft glow.

Des strokes my back, his movements stirring the feathers of his wings. My cheek presses against his warm chest. If ever I had a home, it would be right here.

“Tell me about your father,” I say, my own fingers idly tracing the muscles that run down his torso.

Des lets out a laugh devoid of mirth. “Did I scare you that much earlier?”

I lift my head and give him a quizzical look. “What are you talking about?”

His hand on my back pauses. When it resumes, it’s to draw idle pictures with his finger. I wonder, if he were handed a pencil and paper, what, exactly, those idle drawings would be of.

“They say I get my temper from my father,” he admits.

“Who says this?” I ask quietly.

“It’s known that the Night Kingdom’s royal bloodline is quick to anger,” he says, sidestepping the question. “It’s why my mother made me work so hard to control my anger, and it’s what made me particularly ruthless when I was with the Angels of Small Death.”

I find I want to ask about his brotherhood, but I bite back my questions, afraid it will derail what I really want to know tonight.

“Even now,” he continues, “when I’ve had so much time to work on it, it can still take over.”

Like earlier tonight.

I want to tell him that he’s not giving himself the benefit of the doubt. When I think about Des and control, I think about all those months I spent back in high school trying to whittle my mate down to no avail. Or how, when he found me in Karnon’s throne room, bloody and broken, he still kept a leash on his anger up until the very last moment.

But I don’t mention any of this.

Instead, I ask, “Would your father lose control?”

Des’s hand moves to my hair. He runs his fingers through it, letting it slide through them.

“Sometimes—from what I’ve heard,” he says. Des’s eyes grow distant. “Usually when something unpleasant surprised him.”

I lay my head back down on his chest. “You still haven’t exactly answered my question.”

There’s so much I don’t know about Des—centuries worth of memories he hasn’t bothered to share. And I want to know each and every detail about his life, but this particular detail, his father, is one that seems especially important.

“Then perhaps,” his finger taps my nose, “you should be more precise with your questions.”

“Des.”

I hear the sigh of air that leaves his lungs. “Out of all the fun, wicked little truths you could ask me, you had to choose this one …”

He’s squirming, I realize. It’s so very human, and so very unlike my mate.

“I don’t like talking about him,” he admits.

I get that. God, do I get that.

“He was killing off his children,” Des says out of nowhere.

I tense in his arms.

“When I was conceived,” he continues, “he was killing off all his children. The adults, the kids, even the babies”

I don’t breathe for several seconds.

The first ludicrous thought I have is that Des once had siblings.

The second is that they’re now all ghosts. Every one of them. All because of his father.

I can’t wrap my mind around that. It’s too cruel, too evil, too unconscionable.

“Why?” I finally ask. My question seems to echo in the quiet of the room.

I don’t expect an answer, not just because Des isn’t forthcoming with them, but also because I’ve found as a PI, the most twisted cases hardly ever have an explanation. Sometimes people do atrocious things just because they can.

The Bargainer’s hand slides from my hair, down my arm.

“Some prophecy he received forewarned him that his legacy would lead to his downfall.”

It sounds like a Greek drama.

“I don’t know if he ever cared about his children, but if he did, he cared about his power more.”

Now I understand why, as frightening as the casket children are and as soulless as they might be, Des won’t harm them.

No child deserves to be slaughtered because of their bloodline.

“My mother was a favorite concubine of his. When she found out she was pregnant, she fled the palace. Eventually she ended up in Arestys. I didn’t know it until later, but throughout my entire childhood we were living in hiding.”

I’d wondered how Des could’ve come from the royal harem and still have the life he had.

Now I know.

My thuggish king. He wouldn’t have existed if his mother hadn’t done what she did.

Trying to imagine a world without Desmond Flynn is even harder to fathom than a world in which a father kills off all his heirs.

What would life be like if there was no Bargainer to save me from my past, no Des to comfort me in the night, no mate to stake his claim after seven long years of waiting?

Just the thought hurts.

I stroke my fingers down his skin. It didn’t happen. The man beneath me is more than dreams and wishes. He’s flesh and blood, skin and bone, muscle and magic.

And he’s mine.

“Did it come true?” I ask. “The prophecy?”

For several seconds, all I hear is Des’s breathing. Eventually, he lifts his hand, and the fairy lights above us wink out.

“That’s enough sharing for one evening,” he says.

In the darkness, I’m left to my own thoughts. And I can’t help but wonder—

What is Des still keeping from me?