Ash couldn't speak as the image of them haunted him. It was a side of Artemis that he'd forgotten existed. Since the day Artemis had brought him back from the dead, she'd punished him for the fact that she loved him.
She would pull him into her bed to use his body and then kick him away once they were finished. Even when he'd loved her, her love had been selfish.
She'd blamed him for everything.
But in the beginning, she'd been kind to him. She'd once held him and laughed with him over nothing at all. Now he couldn't remember the last time they'd laughed at anything. The last time she'd just touched him for no other reason than he was near her.
The loss of the friendship stall made him ache.
He took Kat's hand in his. "I'm glad her anger at me never spilled over onto you."
She gave him a teasing smile. "Me, too." She reached up and brushed a strand of hair away from his face. "I can't believe this is real. That you're here, seeing me."
Neither could he. It was surreal.
But for a quirk of fate, they wouldn't be here now.
Which brought another question to him. "Why were you with my mother in her garden?"
"I was trying to help Sin fight the gallu and Dimme. He has a brother-"
"Zakar."
She didn't know why, but she was surprised he knew about Zakar. "You know him?"
Ash nodded. "I've met him a few times. He's a decent enough guy."
That was nice to know. The last thing she wanted to do was unleash another enemy into the world. "Well, he's missing. One of the gallu says that they have him held prisoner. Sin needs to know if that's true."
"Did my mother help you find him?"
"We saw something, but I don't know if that was him or not. It was blurry."
"Yeah, the sfora has its moments." He reached under his hair and removed his necklace. It was a small red glass ball, and it wasn't until he put it around her neck that she realized it was a tiny sfora. "This is a bit stronger than the pond. It has a part of me in it."
Her heart hammering, she closed her hand around it, unable to believe he'd give her something so valuable. With his DNA in it, she could use it not only to see what she needed, but to destroy him.
Given how little he trusted anyone, she understood the total significance of his gift.
He stepped back. "Tell it what you need and it'll guide you to it."
"Thank you."
He inclined his head to her.
Smiling up at him, Kat lifted herself on her tiptoes and placed a kiss to his cheek.
Ash couldn't breathe as he felt her gentle kiss. His daughter's kiss. It was tender and sweet and it made a wave of love well up inside him that he'd only ever known whenever Simi was near him.
He wanted to crush Kat to him, but she was too old to be held like a little girl. His daughter was grown and he'd have to respect her as a woman.
"Be careful," he whispered in her ear.
"You, too."
Ash took another step back and did the hardest thing he'd ever done. He let go of his daughter's hand. "If you need me, call and I will come no matter the cost."
"I know... Thanks, Daddy."