My heart fluttered a little bit. I had the most thoughtful mate, who desperately wanted to be my husband, and he’d stopped at nothing to make sure we were cared for. He pushed some papers out so I could see. “So, I took out a life insurance policy with my new job for enough to make sure the house and everything is set. I have a trust started for them. I put a few hundred thousand into it instead of down on the house. My credit was good enough to take a loan on the rest—more important things and all that where interest is concerned.”
“And Iknewyou wouldn’t take a raise, so I upped the base pay for all the interns. I also hired a third-party consulting company to come through and do employee reviews to make sure when you get your promotion, it’s fair.” Father shot me a smug look that made my heart clench and my eyes burn.
I blinked a few times, stared up at the ceiling, and took a few calming breaths before I lost my composure and lost the battle to tears. “Gre… Dadd—”
Father’s face brightened. “Ohhhh, I almost got you to say it!”
“I didn’t! Father. Dad. I wasn’t going to say daddy.” I cleared my throat.
“Maybe that name’s reserved for Gre, now?” Father gave Gre an eyebrow that he dismissed with a huff.
“Absolutely not. Paternal terms hold no sexual connotations to me.” Gre gave me a patient eye roll that told me he was putting up with Father quite nicely. I loved him even more for that. Pet names never had come up between us. Noloveorbabe. He’d called me dear to him, by my name and made a few puns regarding being mesmerized by me. He’d lovingly called me Esme, French for beloved. But my name was Turkish in origin, a language my father had loved. And it fit me. A dark moon. My dark hair and the moonless night I was born on, boded well for me.
“Well, I was making certain this wasn’t an accounting error and ensuring you weren’t fattening my wallet unnecessarily. Thank you very much, Father. You have an entire team full of ecstatic interns.” I bowed my head as I left, waving my hand as my shadow didn’t follow the gesture. “You both have made me very happy today.”
As I left the room I glanced down and around, searching for Ausmius. I’d had a terrible time hunting him down as of late. He’d weakened considerably, mimicking something about my pregnancy keeping his magic at bay. I preferred it that way, honestly.
“Aus?” I whispered to him and earned a peek of shadow by my feet, two horns perked up as like ears listening. “Keep an eye on them. Make sure Gre doesn’t do anything legally stupid.”
Ausmius gave me a thumbs-up and parted from my shadow with a little bird fluttering across the floor before bleeding into desk and door and out of sight. A slight whisper touched my ear as he faded away, his voice from what was left of his shadow with me.I will do what I can for you, as you will do for me.
I halted in place and blinked a few times. He spoke so rarely that it shook me. It almost felt like a goodbye. “Is everything alright?”
Instead of an answer, I received only a ripple in the remains of my shadow that mimicked that of a sigh. And at that, I felt the first kick of my little one, a tiny and internalized little flicker that made me certain of his presence, far more than any of the other flutters I’d felt before.
I rested my hand there and treasured the little tap I received in response and wondered, not for the first or even thousandth time, who or what they’d be.
Chapter Sixteen
Greginald
Part of working with the police force in their magic division allowed me certain perks. One of which was advanced DNA and aura testing. I’d sent it off almost two months ago after putting Esmeray on all of my accounts. It rarely took that long, so when the courier brought the mail to my office that morning, he clutched a thicker envelope than I’d expected.
“Mage Hawthorne?” A rather sullen mage who sat in my office stared me down as I pushed the paperwork to the side. Cornelius Chase Atwood sat across from me, a hybrid of my variety. His halves? Llama omega shifter and a rather horny human alpha that had several hybrid children all over town. The man loved shifters in heat and loved paying child support even less than he did wrapping his own dick. Though, I wasn’t one to speak. My only reason for not having a dozen children running about was that I didn’t sleep with anything that could procreate, as a rule. Save for Esmeray.
“Apologies, I was waiting for this letter.” I turned my gaze toward him. “So, I saw that Malarthe dropped your case, and I’m still fighting my own. How did you get yours dropped?” His llama had focused dark eyes on me, white fur pristine. His shaven teeth were perfectly aligned, and he held his jaw taut.
“Honestly, it was a complete fluke. He sported wood on the stand after sniffing my attorney, an omega. My mate. My mate now, that is.” I nervously cleared my throat. “It was a bit sudden.”
Jealousy wrenched its way through those soft doe eyes of Cornelius’s, and I cleared my throat to change the subject. “No, it’s alright. You had no way of knowing someone like that would claim you. Lucky bastard.”
I nodded and kept my face somber as he smiled at me. “Esmeray is one of those dreams you never forget. I keep waiting to wake up and him be gone.”
“I’ll find mine one day, or not. So, here’s my problem. They’re asking me if I have the capability to curse hismanhood. Honestly, half the witches on the east side want to curse his manhood. The thing is, I cannot. My magic needs to be very hands on.”
“Who is your deity?” I leafed through his paperwork.
“I don’t have one. I’m an atheist.” He stared me down with challenge, and I awaited an explanation that didn’t come.
“How does that work out, in reference to your gifts and position?”
“I came into my gifts young, and it was weak. I wanted to be a doctor, so I pursued that until—” He gestured at his head and I immediately understood.
“Discrimination.”
“Apparently, I’munsanitary. So, I pursued my magic in tandem with my degree and found a rather niche residency within a few churches and from what I saw, no deity ever comes to the aid of another without something to gain. I sought to do the work that the gods themselves will not do.” He met my gaze, and I nodded politely.
“It holds you back, does it not?”
