“Yes, love, this is all my fault, and I will spend the rest of our lives making it up to you,” I agreed, because what else could I say right now? My beautiful, brave, powerful mate was bringing our child into this world. He could have whatever he wanted, now and forever.
A knobby head popped up from between his splayed knees, the jaundiced lower-level demon offering what I imagined was supposed to be an encouraging smile but actually looked more like a Halloween mask designed to scare children. “One more push,” Zeek said.
I still didn’t quite understand Uly’s decision to have Zeek as our midwife, but apparently, besides running his own very successful baby food brand, he had a fair amount of experience with midwifery. He would be delivering Cameron and Deimos’s baby next, I was sure. Cam was due next month. And in the end, Uly trusted him, and that was all that mattered to me.
“Did you hear that, love? Just one more push,” I repeated.
Uly’s head turned nearly 180 degrees as he glared at me, eyes burning, like a scene out ofThe Exorcist. “Of course I heard him, I’m not fucking deaf!” His anger immediately dissolved into tears. “I’m sorry, I don’t know why I said that. I didn’t mean it. I love you.” Of course, five seconds later, as another contraction hit, he was screaming how much he blamed me again. It was fine, I could take a little verbal abuse in the name of love.
And true to what Zeek had said, one push was all it took. With a mighty roar and a rush of fluid, our daughter was born. “It is a girl,” Zeek declared, offering us a macabre grin of sharp yellow teeth. He offered me scissors to cut the cord and then cleaned off our daughter and laid her on Uly’s chest.
“Aurora,” Uly whispered, tracing the tip of his finger over her delicate features, before looking up to meet my gaze in question.
I nodded, tears swimming in my eyes. “It’s perfect, just like you,” I told him, pushing back his sweat-damp hair to press a kiss to his forehead. “I am so proud of you. See? You are capable of more than mere party tricks.”
He chuckled sleepily. “So I am.”
Danu’s presence was warm inside my chest as I gazed down at my little family, and I knew she was proud. Just as my service to the gods had balanced my rebirth as a god, I felt like I had earned her blessing for peace at last.
Epilogue
Lagamal
“Consideritdone,”I’dtold Ruadan, and I hadn’t wasted a second following the directions he’d texted me to this little pocket dimension nestled between the layers of reality. We only had one shot at this, at ridding ourselves of this plague. The last thing we needed was for Apate’s soul to find her way back to her body, resurrecting herself, only to be set on revenge against us for our little betrayal.
Nope. There would be no coming back from this once I was finished with her.
Down the rock steps, deep into the cavern, I stood over Apate’s slumped body where she’d left it, nothing more than an empty shell without her soul. She was barely more than a pile of black lace and tulle.
There was a lesson to be learned here, if I chose to listen. Nobody was infallible, not even the gods.
“Let’s see you cause chaos without a body, bitch.” Immortal or not, her body burned easily enough, using a little good old-fashionedGreek fire.I should’ve brought marshmallows, I thought, sitting back on her throne while I waited. And once the corpse had burned down to nothing more than a pile of ash, I sucked it all up with a little handheld vacuum, chuckling at how neat and tidy the whole thing had been.
I tucked her remains into a Ziploc bag then brushed my hands clean of the whole thing, both literally and metaphorically. As soon as I shut the alleyway door behind me, I felt the magic anchoring the pocket dimension release with a sigh. Sure enough, when I opened the door again, I went straight through to the back of the restaurant, the fragrant aroma making my stomach growl.
I nodded to the man at the grill wearing kitchen whites unbuttoned at the top in an attempt to stay cool in the steamy space. “Pickup for Mal?” I said. I’d placed the order as soon as I saw where I was heading. This place had the best Thai food in the city.
The fact that I had essentially committed murder and hadn’t lost my appetite should have been a red flag, but this wasn’t even close to the worst thing I’d done. I was a guardian of the underworld. I was responsible for condemning souls to eternal damnation; that felt infinitely more cruel than disposing of a little trash.
Wherever Apate’s soul now existed, it was a kinder fate than she deserved.
7 months later
“Open my present next!” Cameron said, shoving an oversized package across the floor toward Ulysses where he sat holding baby Aurora, the guest of honor. The present wasn’t even properly wrapped, just draped with a fuzzy blue baby blanket covered with a pattern of bubbles and rubber ducks.
The group of us had taken over the multipurpose room at the Valleywood Community Altar, the former-supernatural support group taking a break from their usual meeting to welcome the new baby. I wasn’t entirely sure why they’d felt the need to invite me, but once my coworker, Ishmekarab, had caught sight of the invitation, there was no getting out of it.
“I’ll come with you!” he’d said, then went on to gush about how much he loved babies. Personally, I didn’t get the appeal, yet somehow, I found myself here anyway, skulking in the corner of the room.At least the food’s good, I thought, popping a spinach puff into my mouth.
“Wow, that’s a lot of diapers,” Ulysses said, eyes wide as he took in the giant stack of boxes. “Surely that’ll be enough to last until she’s potty trained.”
Cameron laughed long and hard, wiping away a few tears of mirth. “Try until next Tuesday, if she’s anything like my son.”
The former Chosen One was an interesting character. I couldn’t quite get a handle on him—or more specifically, how he’d ended up mated to Deimos. They were an unlikely pair, one upbeat and optimistic, the other a god of fear. While Cameron was dressed smartly in tan slacks and a light blue polo, Deimos was dressed much like I was, in an expensive black custom-made suit, amused glower in place. The overall look was ruined by the baby carrier strapped to his chest, though, their new daughter, Olive, asleep against her alpha father.
Opposites attract, I supposed, my eyes sliding across to where Ishmekarab stood, his grin blinding white against his flawless tan skin. “Ishmekarab is such a mouthful,” he liked to tell people. “Call me Rabbie.” I hated calling him Rabbie.
He caught me looking his way, and before I could pretend to be busy, he turned and headed over. Gods, the way this man moved, his long, lean limbs prowling like every room was a catwalk, his silky black hair hanging loose down his back. It was enough to give me a headache. He came to stop beside me, close enough that I could feel the heat off his body, the soft scent of sandalwood wafting over me. “Having fun?” he asked, his voice a velvety purr that set my teeth on edge. It always sounded like he was whispering something vulgar.
