She’d forgotten so much of that in the intervening months, but, watching his reaction, it came back in full flood. It surged up in her even more strongly when he finally spoke, his husky tone taking her breath.

“What’s her name?”

“I wanted to call her Rose. Because she was perfect, just like a rose.”

He swallowed, his voice thickening. “Ruby and Rose. My girls.”

She was crying now, too, silent tears coursing down her cheeks as one meager but powerful teardrop made its way down his. Lifting her fingers, she took it away, a treasure so full of power that it was as much magic as what she’d spun in here. When he looked down at her, something shifted inside her. Something painful, like a boulder rolling off a vital organ, letting it function for the first time in a long while, difficult and rusty though she might be at using the squashed thing. She couldn’t deny the Dark part of her was still on maximum-security lockdown, but for this she couldn’t keep the regret and pain out of her voice.

“You weren’t here when I needed you. I couldn’t forgive you that, Derek. That’s what I told myself. I wanted to punish you. I blamed you. But the truth is none of it’s your fault. I just wanted it to be. I wanted it to be someone’s fault, because otherwise I had to face the truth. That it was mine.”

“What?” His brow furrowed. “Ruby, there’s no—”

“Yeah, there is. First thing you ever taught me was that any level of power, even if it’s just the power over self, over the choices you make, is a responsibility you can’t abdicate to anyone else. Or blame anyone for. If I hadn’t been afraid of the power, if I’d embraced learning how to use it from day one, she’d be alive. I should have reached out to Raina and Ramona for help, even if I couldn’t reach you.”

Chapter 18

THOUGH IT HAD BEEN DIFFICULT TO TURN HIS GAZE from that orb, her pain was palpable, and that pain echoed in his own chest. Derek faced her fully, laid his hands on her fragile shoulders, shoulders that had borne so much. His thumbs stroked over her collarbone, drawing her gaze up to his face.

“Ruby, I’ve fought the Dark for centuries. And every time I wasn’t clever enough, strong enough, intuitive enough, I blamed myself. It’s an irrational truth that has a very vital purpose. It makes us strive to be stronger, more clever, to defeat our obstacles as often as we can. But the rational truth is this: No matter how strong or clever I am, I will continue to lose people, because sometimes, some days, evil and Darkness win. It’s a balance of its own. Yes, you should have reached out. That was a mistake.”

He touched her chin as her eyes darkened with pain. “It’s a difficult one to face, but it doesn’t surprise me at all to hear you found the courage to see that truth.” Now his voice hardened, and from her expression, he was sure there was a dangerous flash in his eyes. “However, Asmodeus bears all the blame for taking the life of your child, an innocent who should not have been part of this fight at all. It is his sin, Ruby, not yours.”

Her lips gave a tremulous quirk. “You’re using your teacher voice.”

“Does it help?”

“Some.” Her gaze was wary, but something else was there, too. A tender, vulnerable wisp of trust. Shifting his grip, he ran his knuckles down the side of her face. It was an effort, with everything that was in this room— the past, the present, the hovering specter of the future he knew she didn’t want to face— but he tried to ease things up for both of them, give them a little breathing space.

“With you, I wear a variety of hats. Your skills are some of the best I’ve seen, Ruby, and you have a great deal of raw power. If you need and want a teacher to help you use it, the type of teacher your mother should have been for you, I can be that. But it doesn’t mean I’ll stop being the guy who occasionally wants to strangle you, or who gets hard as a rock when I see you pull a colander out of the bottom cabinet.”

“I remember that night.” Her eyes gleamed with cautious amusement. “You changed your mind. Said you didn’t need the colander. I had to put it back.”

It didn’t surprise him at all she remembered, given what had happened later that night. He’d never eaten Mexican in quite that way. Now he stayed silent, his brow lifted as he waited for that clever mind to put it together. Her mouth bowed into a delectable pursed shape.

“You didn’t need the colander at all.”

“Smart girl. The jeans you were wearing that night needed a workout. I was just helping put the stretch in the denim.”

She stroked her fingertips through the strands of hair over his brow, shifted her weight. “I’ve only ever seen you wear one hat. How old is that thing?”

“It doesn’t like revealing its age. And it’s a figurative statement.”

“Yes, Professor.” She’d pulled on a pair of jeans under his shirt, so now she found the back pockets beneath the long tail and tucked her fingers into them. She considered him another long moment. He held her gaze, watched the thoughts gather, sift. The sphere floated behind her, then toward the opening, bounced gently off the barrier, came back, passed between them. It wasn’t matter that could be grasped, but he could feel a warm touch of that Paradise, hear childish laughter, as it passed by.

Ruby was a young woman who’d lost her baby, who’d dealt with it alone. He was asking the impossible; he knew it. The field of her heart was so scarred. All she’d ever wanted was to be loved, and nothing loved so purely and completely as a baby in the womb loved its mother.

Lord and Lady, help her. Help us both.

“The lullaby?” he asked.

“It was part of the magic. I use it now sometimes to connect to her. It reinforces the sphere at the same time.”

Music was part of the trinity for powerful spellwork. Math and poetry were the other two, but music was probably the most potent, when done right. It required a synchronization of lyrics, harmony, an aesthetic and intuitive balance. Its binding was almost irresistible, such that the end intent would gravitate toward it. She’d held the baby in the sphere with a lullaby. If it wouldn’t have made his heart hurt too much, he would have smiled.

At length, she withdrew her hands, crossed her arms, gathering his shirt into folds against her body. She fastened her gaze to his chest, so many emotions in her eyes it was hard not to reach out and touch her. “I know what you want me to do. I just…. I need to think about it. Can you give me time to think?”

It was so much more than he’d expected after seeing all this, after realizing what he was asking her to give up. Letting out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding, he looked toward the sphere with her; then he found her hand. Tugging it free from that locked position across her body, he squeezed her fingers.

“Yeah. If you quit pretending otherwise and tell me you love me.”

HER LIPS PRESSED TOGETHER. “I THOUGHT ONLY GIRLS needed to hear it said out loud.”

He didn’t say anything further, just tipped up her chin with a finger to meet his gaze before his mouth took hers again. Slow, long, devastatingly sweet. A touch of his tongue, tracing the seam of her lips and then inside, a languid dance with her tongue that brought her in closer to him, made her lean full into his body. When he lifted his head, she kept her eyes closed, until his fingers flexed on her hips and he spoke, low. “Ruby.”

She opened her eyes, saw the sphere had moved. It was now right next to them, shining its light on them like a moon. Though the occupant wasn’t supposed to have any conscious awareness of this room or who was in it, Ruby had noted the sphere gravitated toward her when she spent time with it. Not so much like Theo following on her heels, but a definite drift to be near her. And now, here it was, right with the two of them. Derek reached up, laid his hand against the energy, his large palm curving around the side as if it were corporeal, following that arc. She lifted her own and did the same, holding it between them. It stayed still, fixed between their two points. Her heart overflowed, as if the soul inside had validated Derek’s presence here, the two of them together.

It gave her own battered soul something it hadn’t had in a while. A tendril of hope, the potential for happiness again.

“She was perfect, Derek. So perfect.”

“Like her mother.” She was amazed to again see that faint glistening in his eyes, so moved by her words he couldn’t rein back the emotion. “Perfect in her imperfections. The only woman I’ve truly loved with every part of my soul. I would have loved our daughter the same way. I do love her the same way.” His gaze darkened. “We have to let her go, Ruby.”

A quiet statement of fact, not a threat. The pain in his gaze told her he understood, didn’t want to say it. That he’d do anything not to have to say it, because of what it could do to her. “Give her the chance to grow up, meet boys, read books, think her own thoughts against all the good and bad of this world. Embrace every ounce of her potential. One day, we’ll see her again.”

Knowing he understood helped. Sort of. It at least helped her to respond honestly, no shields up.

“I don’t know if I can bear it, letting her go.”

“I’ll be right beside you. Behind you. Wherever you need me to be. You can use my strength, Ruby, every bit of it. It’s all yours.” Putting his hand on the side of her neck, he curved his strong fingers on her nape. “Though you won’t need as much of it as you think, because you’re the strongest woman I’ve ever met. There’s been something inside you all your life, waiting for you to embrace your own potential, take it and own it. You can do what so few people are ever able to do. Leave the past behind, make it your foundation and build your own worth on top of it, rather than letting it drive you into the ground. You’re so close to it. I know you’ll get there. And I’m going to love seeing it happen.”

His fingers tightened then, his expression becoming irritable. “But, damn it, girl, you still haven’t said you love me.”