He gave me an awkward glance, eyes drifting to my belly and back up as if he didn’t want to bother me, or felt bad about asking for my help. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah. Come on. Let’s get over to your PC and see what you’ve got going on. Your response time is low and let’s see if you’re just burdened with shitty clients. There’s a disconnect.” I marched over with him and flipped through his review. He passed with ameets expectations, review in six months. The review meant he’d likely make full attorney if he maintained, but he was driven like I was.
“Iwason my way to call it an early day. I got a light load, but I don’t have anything planned and my mate isn’t getting home until six.” I drew a chair and sat sideways in it so I could slouch better.
“My response times could be better, I guess.” He sighed and opened his email. I leafed through his inbox, citing specific cases where he’ddropped the ballso to speak.
I scanned things, and it appeared he wasn’t getting responses to a lot of emails. I checked his font and found out his last name, when searched, was similar to a scammy mail-order pharmacy. “Let’s change your signature, first. I think you might be caught in spam filters.”
I spent the afternoon putting a trouble ticket into IT to find a solution to it while swapping his email signature for a picture of his business card design. I also walked him through using the priority markers for emails, which might increase his chances of having a client open them.
“How often do you call these guys? These are people that can’t remember to not drink and drive. They need reminders. Text, call, and email.” We opened his starting documents and standard operating procedures for his work and until the clockclicked five, we made sure he had a better protocol to follow. I also followed it up with an email to the independent reviewer that I’d gone over his procedures with him.
My own reviews were glowing, despite being only a 4.2. My points were taken off because I held more video calls than I did in-person meetings and didn’t quite maximize billable hours efficiently enough.Too efficient.
Bleh.
Still, I had scored higher than most and had been told that my promotion would be to a junior associate where I’d get a main floor office with other junior associates.The shiny empty one my father lauded over me.
I’d take the promotion. Only because I felt like after all of it, I’d earned it. What other associate had died for his job? A memory of a masked figure, the burning chain, the loss of light in my eyes. The Church would pay for that for as long as it stood. I only needed to keep grabbing evidence. And eventually, someone would talk.
I rode home and almost missed my driveway, forgetting we’d only recently made our stay in the next-door house permanent. It came mostly furnished, which was both a surprise and not at the same time, as I was fully certain that Calamisis had been mostly forced into returning to hell. He’d overstayed hisvisaso to speak.
I’d barely made it into the foyer when Gre’s town car pulled up and the garage door hummed to life. He entered the side door and smiled at me with those bright-golden eyes, and I flocked to him like a white cat to someone in a black shirt. Probably had the same purr of happiness, too. So smug.
We made it to the kitchen to have our evening tea, a little snack, and chitchat before Gre saw to our evening meal. I needed to snack more and drink more, so it was nice to nibble on somesliced fruit and sip mint tea while he whipped something up. It was Tuesday, so takeout it was!
I’d gotten barely two sips into my tea before my father threw open the front door with a flourish and marched in, grinning like a fool with a few men trailing after him. And thankfully gone were the days where our clerics wore robes and the like. An emissary, marked with flaming eyes and sharp teeth as part of his visage. I had only to lean back on my stool to see that far into the foyer and sighed.
I stood and gestured for Gre to follow, and we met the men and walked them toward our conservative sitting room. In any other home it would have been an office for the sheer fact it lacked a closet, and for the time, it was a sitting room, but in the next few months, it would be babyproofed, gutted, and become a playroom for the manny. I hadn’t met them yet, but a hellcat shifter, a hybrid several generations in, of demon and cat shifter, had been reserved for us.
Gre offered his greetings to Lord Vafis and his counterpart, a Massimus Strix, names I’d likely never remember without reminding. Pregnancy brain did odd things. I echoed the greetings and sat as my father continued speaking of all the plans he’d made for our young. None of it seemed to impress the men.
“If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to get a tray of some snacks and tea. What do you take?” Gre smiled.
“Iced tea, if you would please. I do so enjoy the novelty of ice. I imbibe every time I can when I am on this plane.” Lord Vafis smiled as Massimus expressed interest in it as well.
“Would you bring my mint tea if you’d please, Gre?” I minimized my smile as he leaned in to kiss my cheek and excused himself.
“So, to business, you expressed concern for the mix of child you carry?” Lord Vafis, all foreboding sallow skin, hollow cheeks, and somber…everything, said. “It’s what, a giraffe mix?”
“My mate was born of Faunus, a god. He’s a demigod conceived with a giraffe shifter, yes.” I kept my tone plain and obscured my anger. Demons so did love insulting one another.
“Of course,” he said, enunciating the word as his brows lowered in a somewhat bored expression. “One knows that gods do not typically sire children and name them heirs. So, that would be a rarity. Faunus, himself, is a rather large question mark in the sea of muddied blood you have.”
Muddied blood.I let the comment slide. “Which is why I expressed concern. We cannot often help who our mate is destined to be for the greater plan.”
“Hmm, yes. Indeed, it is so.” He rubbed his hands together and stood, giving me a rather glib gesture to open my shirt and expose my belly. Even if Gre were there, the emissary would tell me nothing new.
Hellfire boiled round his fingers as he approached me, and I unbuttoned my shirt and lifted my undershirt as directed, my belly an ample roundness marred with stretch marks and bisected gloriously by a rather unfortunately dark line.
“You are quite gravid and healthy. I see that is a cause for congratulations.” Lord Vafis hummed, and I took the comment for what it was.My gods, you’re huge!
Biting my tongue, he reached forward and rested a hand on either side of my belly. He drew his hands back almost instantly and frowned. “Daeva?”
“My daeva was absorbed by my child, and they are one.” I resisted the urge to grin as Vafis’s eyebrows shot up his forehead.
“Daeva thaumaturgy, natural mortal plane magic, deic blessings. Omega.” He listed off all I knew. Still, he concentratedand moved his hands about, earning a rather fierce set of kicks as if the child within wanted the hand away from him. I couldn’t blame him, as the sensation from the demon cleric was uncomfortable in a writhing and indescribably sticky sort of way.
