I should have told my wife the truth from the start.

 

Instead, my past has lurked in our background like a viper hidden in the shadows waiting to strike, tainting what is otherwise pure and unmarred.

 

The weight of that secret, the awareness of the damage it would do, has been a cancer to my sanity. I can't help but know I'm unworthy of her love.

 

So many times, I've wanted to tell her. I've longed to bare my soul and wipe the slate clean so that nothing stood between us. But somehow, the timing never seemed right to reveal my darkness to the woman I love more than life itself.

 

My omission is a form of deceit, but deceiving her has never been my intent. I’ve never outright lied to Aria, and I never will. I would never betray her, never forsake her, and never waver in my loyalty to her. My love for her is absolute and without measure.

​

For her, I surrendered my destiny. For her, I sentenced myself to death. For her, I willingly traded away every trait that set me apart from the mortals and embraced their frailty as my own.

 

And I would do it all over again. Without question or qualm.

 

Our love, our marriage, and the family we've built has brought me more joy and fulfillment in the past five years than anything I experienced in the one hundred twenty years preceding our time together.

 

I'd like to believe my deception served to protect my wife and daughter and keep them safe. But I know my decision to withhold the truth was much more selfish than that. Physically, I may have the supernatural strength of the ancient bloodlines I was born to, but emotionally, I am a coward. For I've never been strong enough to risk losing her.

​

If Aria had known what I was--if I'd confessed my true origins--she would have taken Sage and fled.

 

And rightfully so. For I am a monster. An abomination. The shunned among the cursed.

 

I hoped they would never need to know. I've done all I could to put that life behind me. To fully embrace being a husband. A father. A mortal.

 

But something had gone horribly wrong.

 

I sat in the middle of my wife's brand-new cream rug. The rug Sage and I were forbidden to carry food or beverages across. The rug we couldn’t walk upon without first removing our shoes.

​

How was I going to explain all the blood?