Devil May Cry (Dark-Hunter 11)

She pouted. "Just a little nip? Maybe her heel or a finger. She'd never miss it... unless she went to pick something up and then, well, who cares. Well maybe you, but no one else would."

"No, Sim. Your little nips are the size of a shark bite. I need you to find Katra for me and guard her."

"Oh, the Simi knows right where she is. I just left her."

His jaw went slack. Though to be honest, at this point he didn't know why anything shocked him. "You what?"

"She with that ex-god who hates the heifer-goddess like I do. They asked for me and Xirena to help them fight those gallu demons you used to let me eat. Apparently, there's a bunch of them out now." She reached into her purse and pulled out a bottle of barbecue sauce. "I'm all prepared."

Ash shook his head, trying to understand. "The gallu are loose now?"

She nodded. "Sin said they're coming out by the dozen-just enough to make a good appetizer for us."

Yeah, and enough to do serious damage to the human race. "Go, Simi. Watch over Katra for me."

"Okay, akri. But don't be sad." She blew him a kiss before she vanished.

He let out a tired breath as he surveyed the empty room. Everything on earth was falling apart and he was trapped here because of Artemis's insatiable libido. Where was the justice in that? "What the hell's going on?" He had to know.

Closing his eyes, he tried to locate Sin and the gallu, but all he saw was a haze with no real form or substance. That didn't surprise him, though. He usually had a hard time seeing anything below while he was in Artemis's temple. She didn't want him to know since it would make him even more restless to leave than he already was.

But there was one person who could tell him what he needed to know...

He returned to the balcony outside Artemis's main room and leaned against the railing. Closing his eyes again, he let his ensyneiditos travel out of his body, through the cosmos until he was in his mother's garden. It was the only break he was allowed while here. Because the ensyneiditos was simply the conscious part of himself and not his body, he could use it to visit others while trapped on Olympus.

It was also the only way he could ever visit with his mother. If he ever appeared to her in the flesh, it would release her from her prison and allow her to destroy the world-which was her one goal in life.

His goal was to prevent that.

Floating into Kalosis, he found her sitting near the pool in the back. The obsidian rocks were as iridescent as her pale skin as she scythed by using the black water to make a sfora. His mother had lifted a portion of the water up to form a dark swirling ball in the air.

But what stunned him was the woman who stood beside her. It was a face he'd seen before, but only in his dreams. Her features were similar to his, only there was enough of her mother in that face to mark her for what she was.

His daughter.

"Katra?"

The ball splintered and fell in droplets back to the water as the two of them turned to face him. And when those green eyes looked into his, he wanted to cry. But pain was nothing new to him. He was so used to hiding it that it didn't even require any real effort on his part.

"Apostolos," his mother said breathlessly before she rose to her feet. She looked back and forth between them. "Are you angry?"

Kat couldn't move as she waited for an answer. By the way he'd said her name, she knew someone had told him about her. And she couldn't believe her father was here... with them. But she knew he wasn't really here. He was only an apparition. He couldn't have any real contact with his mother without it freeing her.

Still he was looking at Kat with a stern expression.

She'd dreamt of this moment where he knew her for what she was millions of times in her life. Only in her dreams she was filled with happiness, not trepidation. She'd tried to imagine every possible scenario for their meeting, but none of them had come close to this.

Now she wanted to run to him and hug him. If only she could. His cold demeanor was such that she was afraid to even move.

"Dad?" she asked hesitantly.

He looked away as a single tear fled down his cheek and he faded away from them. It made Kat's own eyes swim as her emotions gathered in her throat to bitterly choke her.

Her grandmother placed a tender hand on her shoulder. "Go to him, Katra. He needs you."

She nodded before she flashed herself from Kalosis to Olympus. She was on the balcony where she'd frolicked and played as a child.

And her father was only a few feet from her.

Kat wasn't sure what to say or do. She wanted to run to him. Or, better yet, say something. But nothing came to mind while she felt his pain and sorrow.

He stood as still as a statue, gazing out on the garden below.

Suddenly he gasped as his consciousness returned to his body. Her heart stopped the instant he turned toward her and met her gaze.

Her tears flowed down her cheeks as her emotions overwhelmed her. She wiped angrily at them. "I don't normally do this. I'm really not that emotional."

Still he didn't speak. He merely walked toward her as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing. He stopped just before her and stared at her as if she were a wraith.

Up close, he seemed so much larger. Much more powerful. She supposed it was normal for a daughter to be intimidated to a degree by her father. But she was honestly scared.

"Have you had a good life?" he asked in a gentle tone.

That single question only made her cry harder as she nodded. "I only wanted for one thing"

"And that was?"

"You."

Ash couldn't breathe as his own tears fell from his eyes. It infuriated him. He didn't cry. Ever.

Yet the thought of having missed so much of her life, the knowledge that he was a complete stranger to his own daughter, tore him apart.

How many children had he coddled and protected over the centuries? How many had he held, wishing he had his own, but convinced that he was incapable of it? Now to learn that he'd had a daughter all this time...