“Your human half. Of course.” Wide-eyed, she stared blankly at the motionless tablet screen. “You’re an empath. Oh, my gods and goddesses,you’re an empath.”
20
When Hugh’s entire body stiffened behind hers, Gwen knew she was right.
His arms loosened slightly around her as she flopped over to face him, then tightened again once she’d resettled.
“You’ve had your secrets revealed to me against your will. I suppose I can offer another of mine in recompense.” He exhaled slowly. “You’re correct. I’m a weak empath. So was my sister.”
Gwen didn’t understand his resigned tone, and she didn’t understand how he and his sister could share their empath talent. The odds of half-human fraternal twins both having Enhanced powers was infinitesimal enough. But thesameability?
Evidently sensing Gwen’s confusion over that point, he clarified, “We’re identical twins. Eloise transitioned in her early teens.”
“Got it.” Speaking his sister’s name seemed to dispirit him, and Gwen cupped his cheek in a mute attempt at comfort. “Sothat’s how you knew how much I hated lying at the verification test.”
“Yes.” His beard pleasantly abraded her hand as he nodded. “I could also sense your desperate need for help when you arrived at my apartment yesterday.”
That new knowledge went a long way toward explaining why he hadn’t immediately dismissed an improbable, wild-eyed story told by an infamous liar. “Thank you for telling me.”
“I’m glad you know. Just…” His exhalation ruffled her hair. “Please don’t tell anyone else about my ability. My parents have tried their best to keep it hidden.”
She took her best guess as to why. “They don’t want anyone reminded of your half-human background?”
He laughed, the sound bitter and sharp. “No, they definitely do not.”
When he fell silent, she stroked her thumb over his angular cheekbone and waited him out. Because she might not share his empathic ability, but she could still tell when someone she cared about needed to talk.
He began haltingly. “My father, Timothy Dealey, was born into a chaotic human family of money-strapped liars and grifters. After graduating from high school, he cut off all contact with them and worked his way through college and law school. That’s where he met my mother, Marlee.”
Which brought them to the question Gwen had been asking herself since he’d first shared his parents’ disparate backgrounds. “Did he know she was a demon? Did she tell him?”
Before the Battle for Containment, confessing the existence of Supernaturals to a common human would have been a death sentence for Marlee if anyone had ever found out. Butnotconfessing would have involved so much secrecy, Gwen couldn’t even imagine how it would’ve worked.
“She was glamoured as a human the entire time they courted, and so was her family whenever he met them.” Against the edge of her hand, his jaw hardened. “They heartily disapproved of him, and he assumed it was because of his lack of social and financial resources. That accounted for part of their displeasure, obviously—”
Obviously. Gwen suppressed an eye roll.
“—but not all of it. They were—and are—anti-human chauvinists who believed their daughter was dating, then marrying, beneath her station. What they didn’t understand was that he agreed with them.” Hugh gave an unamused huff at the irony. “He changed his name to hers upon their marriage for just that reason. And he’s spent the past five decades becoming the most successful, most upright member of the Blacke clan, both before and after he knew the rest of them were demons.”
“To prove himself worthy of the name.” When Hugh dipped his chin in affirmation, Gwen asked the obvious question. “When did he find out the truth about your mother and her family?”
“Not until the Battle for Containment, when Eloise and I were nineteen.”
She gaped at him, flabbergasted. “She kept the secret even after giving birth to children withhornson their heads?How?”
“She didn’t allow him in the delivery room,” Hugh explained. “My sister and I were glamoured from birth and able to pass as full humans. We remained in disguise until Mom finally confessed everything.”
Hugh and his sister had enduredalmost two decadesspentconcealing who they really were, even from their own father. Gwen tried to imagine that. Couldn’t.
“In front of her family, we didn’t need our glamours, of course.” A soundless sigh raised and lowered his chest. “Since they and most of their cronies despised our father’s background, though, she told us never to mention the Enhanced ability our half-human genetics had given us. Not to the Blacke clan. Not to anyone.”
In reality, then, he and his sister hadn’t ever been allowed to be fully themselves—except with each other. “That sounds…lonely.”
“Eloise hated every moment spent hiding crucial parts of her identity.” The corners of his mouth quirked downward. “Once she realized she was a girl, she said if she had to be glamoured at all, she should at least be able to present as her real gender. But my mother discouraged that too, so it took a few years for El to transition. And even then, she still loathed the human ruse. She told me she’d already spent far too much time pretending to be something she wasn’t, and she shouldn’t have to playact with her own father.”
Aching for his sister, Gwen shook her head. “That must have been so hard.”
“As soon as Mom confessed, Eloise never donned another glamour.” Hugh’s pride in his sister glowed in his eyes. “Not even to reassure her human clients.”
