“You’re pregnant—the time on Skyhome…”
“So… what do you think?”
If he didn’t want the baby, I’d be devastated, but I’d accept his wishes and not make him be involved. I could raise a child on my own. I was a badass female and I’d been through worse.
A slow grin pulled at his lips as he stepped towards me. “I think you just became my baby mama and I couldn’t be happier.”
Relief washed through me. He picked me up and spun me in the air. Pulling back, he took my mouth into a deep kiss. Heat traveled down my chest to my groin as he slipped his tongue into my mouth.
“I’m not changing diapers,” Jeremy said from the doorway and we both stilled.
Damien set me down and stared at his brother. “Buddy, how long have you been standing there?”
Jeremy shrugged. “Long enough. Congrats. You’re an old man now.” Then he walked away.
We both burst out laughing. Jeremy was so random sometimes.
“So… we’re having a baby?” I asked sheepishly. To be perfectly honest, if this had happened a month ago, I’d probably be asking Ronnie about my options, but the world had changed. This baby was going to be ushered into a new world, without the ghouls.
He rubbed my flat belly as if he could already feel something. “Hell yeah. I’ll have my lawyer draw up a trust fund tomorrow. The baby will take my last name, right? That way he or she could take over Striker industries and—” I put a finger to his lips.
“We have time to figure all that out.” Trust fund? Hell no. My kid was going to drive a shitty truck for their first car, just like I did.
Striker? I guess that would be okay… but Steele-Striker sounded better.
Damien grinned. “We have time. Today is about Master Aki.”
My face fell. I’d completely forgotten about laying my mentor to rest today. He’d be over the moon about my pregnancy. He always loved children.
“You’re right. Let’s put him to rest.” Because then it would be a fresh start for all of us.
* * *
I stood atop the cliff,looking out over the ocean on Galadria Island. Damien had bought an island with a beautiful beach house that I could stay at when we wanted to visit Dawn. Dawn, Rodger, Clyde, Joan, and all of the Galadrias I’d known personally or had personally known Master Aki, stood atop the rocky cliff spread out behind my best friends. Holding on to the urn, I lifted the lid and looked out at my friends.
“Thank you all for being here.”
Maxine wore a super inappropriately short and tight black dress that was not funeral worthy butveryMaxine. She clung to Nox, who stroked her red hair. Ronnie was wearing a smart-looking pant suit, and seeing her and Brisk holding hands tightly brought a smile to my lips, but that smile fell when I noticed Luna, the psycho kitten, hidden in her coat. Josephine and Mr. Han stood respectfully with hands clasped next to Jeremy, who kept tugging at his suit. Damien was right by my side. He looked up at me with a complete and total adoration and it made my stomach spin, but that could also be the morning sickness.
“Master Aki was like a father to me. He’s the only one who understood my… gifts.” My mom wasn’t going to be able to make it, she had work. She and everyone else in the security industry had to find other jobs to make a living. Luckily, myself and my team were still hired by my billionaire boyfriend as “private security.” But Tatum stayed in the academy, since the United States had announced it was going to keep a program training soldiers in the event the ghoulies ever came back.
I raised the urn into the air. “He’d want us all to be happy, to live our lives with purpose, and most of all to love.”
“To Master Aki!” my friends chorused.
Turning away from them, I let a single tear slide down my cheek. He wouldn’t want me to mourn him too much, or to take away from the joy of being pregnant, even if it was an unplanned thing.
Looking at the crashing waves below, I tilted the urn upside down and watched his ashes blow away into wind and onto the sea.
“Is this legal?” Jeremy asked suddenly.
“Shh!” Damien quieted his brother, but it was too late. We’d all giggled, which turned into full-blown laughter.
I spun to see that everyone was smiling, just as Master Aki would have wanted it. Even Dawn held a grin.
‘Smart human is funny, when he’s not trying to map Dawn’s brain,’she said.
Jeremy had become obsessed with neuroscience since he’d started studying me, and now wanted to map a Galadria.
